Right on "time"

Mark Zuckerberg has tanked the value of Facebook, by a considerable amount. Currently, it’s the same price as it was in 2016.

Now, I’m not a believer of looking at stock price as it’s a terrible snapshot of value and future growth, however, it will show a very important aspect of investing.

Timing is everything

Mark believes in a future of the meta verse, he’s attempting to turn Ready Player One into reality and he’s betting the company’s future on it.

Now, regardless if you believe in a meta verse future, or not, those who are the investors of Meta, along with the market for a meta verse has said pretty clearly…

“Not yet”.

Now, here’s the issue.

Mark is burning through an intense amount of money, spending more on R&D in comparison to profit of any of FAANG because he believes in the future.

However, the timing is off and his bet of aggressively going in this direction requires the perfect timing.

See, in all business, you have to time a few critical pieces and if timed incorrectly, things can go from great to a burning dumpster fire.

As an investor and as someone who builds companies, my right timing approach comes down to the following…

1. You must be ready and you must have the right infrastructure

2. You must have a customer base that is ready for what you’re developing or launching.

3. You must have a potential customer base that is ready for what you’re developing.

4. You must have enough capital to bridge the gap between now and the future.

5. You must have buy in from those in your world for the right timing.

See, the truth is, you can make the right choice, but if at the wrong time, it doesn’t matter— it will simply appear as a bad choice that will not bring you the way you want.

As an example, of this, I’m currently building and acquiring media sites, newsletters and blogs, because I believe the future of paid media is niche-specific. 

Instead of companies buying from large platforms like Facebook or YouTube, I believe that as the recession continues, ad spend will be directed more niche-specific, on top of the fact that I believe people will continue to self-curate their algorithm instead of an A.I that is proven to make you depressed.

I’ve seen this happen, over the past number of years and knew that this transition would occur, however, the timing for me to be an investor and build a network of media sites, required a few things for perfect timing.

The first: The market had to start going from a bull market, to a bear market.

Check.

The second: Advertisers had to start changing from going “wide” to going with more “depth”.

Check

The third: Advertisers had to start realizing that sponsoring a single post on a celebrity Instagram wasn’t actually going to drive results.

Check

The fourth: Those who run media sites and newsletters, had to see a drop in revenue from traditional revenue zones, due to their lack of understanding of how to monetize so they would be open to selling.

Check — and this one will continue.

The fifth: I had to have enough time, energy and capital to go “all in” on this segment, simply because, running a network of these sites/properties are the only way to make it work financially.

Check

Simply put… I had to wait with this model in my mind for over 4 years before saying “yes”.

If I started too early, I wouldn’t have enough traction and momentum.

Equally important is not being too late.

In my view, Mark had pressure from being late on Snapchat and TikTok and was borrowing that fear and putting it into the meta verse.

In doing so, he over leveraged his R&D budget and through a level of mismanagement of Facebook and Instagram has created a scenario that now is difficult.

Further, now, people don’t believe in him and if the belief of you as a founder dwindles, the ability to craft your vision, is nearly impossible.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an investor or an Entrepreneur…

If you don’t nail the timing, which requires patience, the ability to actually build will be difficult.

Too late.

Too early.

Both are terrible.

Those who are right on time, listen to the market, while seeing their vision and slowly edging towards it.

Wins.

The right time is more important than making the right choice. 

- Scott Oldford