The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future

by Jeff Booth

Being early on a platform can yield terrific results for supply. A hack I used on Twitter gives a good example. Realizing the pattern—that supply was needed for the platform owners and being early mattered—I decided to write a blog post in early 2008 titled “Why Every CEO Needs to Be on Twitter.” In this case, I was a supplier (a CEO) that validated the platform for other CEOs. Two days later, something extraordinary happened: after using the service for months before that with limited interactions, my Twitter account exploded—gaining over 1,000 followers a day. It took some time to figure out what had happened. Then a friend sent me a screenshot of his Twitter onboarding process: there was a list of ten CEOs that every new Twitter member should follow. There I was—the only one of the ten that didn’t belong on the list. Right between Richard Branson and Bill Gates. As I gained more followers, the rate increased as my number of followers itself convinced others I was worth following. That one blog post and the subsequent actions by Twitter drove my followers to more than 185,000 almost overnight.