Tim Ferriss

rules for me were, can I be a power user of this product myself?

Does it solve a problem or help me achieve a goal personally?

Even if I weren't involved, would I use this?

And by extension then, that means through the books, I built the blog back when blogs were huge.

Some blogs are still huge, but like my blog was one of the most popular in the world.

I was like, okay, can I help them through the blog?

Now that would be podcast social media, but can I actually help them directly to increase the value of the company and therefore the value of my equity?

Okay.

And ideally, ideally, this doesn't always work, but is it a premium product so that there is more room for error, more margin of safety?

I do not want to be in a race to the bottom situation where the company is suddenly commoditized and they're competing on price and just get pressed down.

And that's about it.

And then the price has to be right also.

And just to address this also,

2008, when I really started, that was a great time.

That was a great time to be investing.

That was a great time to be investing.

And it was not a crowded playing field because it was in the middle of what people might consider a dot-com depression.

So the fair weather entrepreneurs, the fair weather...

venture capitalists and angels they had all run for the hills they were like screw this I'm going back to investment banking or consulting or whatever right this is this is this is too risky right IPO markets dead like that but

It's harder now.