Jesse Pujji launched self-serve ads on Facebook's first desktop rail, targeting California substitute teachers with an offer that hit 75% gross margin. New platforms like the App Store and OpenAI create repeatable arbitrage windows for whoever moves first.
If you're first to market, you can really crush it. Right around the time Facebook launched the first version of their self-serve ad platform, it was like desktop, right rail. You could micro-target. And I made the first ads. It was like substitute teachers in California. And it was like, sick of being a sub? California teachers can make $20,000 more a year if they get their master's. Like, come check out our programs here. And dude, it was like a 75% gross margin. And so we started printing cash basically from that point forward.
That's a lesson that I have seen happen time and time again over the past, like, couple decades. The Apple App Store, the Facebook Marketplace, like OpenAI, like whatever it is, anytime a new platform launches, there's arbitrage available.
