The Peter Lynch of Consumer Internet is.....

Fred Wilson. Why this just hit me today I do not know, but after thinking about it I know it to be true.

I was having a conversation with a very good guy from MTV Digital today, Michael Bloom, and we got to talking about the NYC investment scene. Invariably the conversation winds around to Fred and his partners at Union Square Ventures, and as I always do I mention how I could never invest the way Fred does. This generally centers around the way Fred is able to invest in platforms that often generate massive audience and upside but which is not at all visible from the outset (del.icio.us, Twitter, etc.). Lacking such vision, I generally focus on businesses that have clear paths to revenue, require far less capital than platforms, are generally more B2B and less B2C (with some notable exceptions) and which generate valuable data and/or metadata that can be repurposed and reused to generate additional revenue streams. This has always been my rap.

Michael, astutely, says "Well, it seems that Fred invests in stuff he likes to use himself." Now, it isn't that I haven't thought of this before but I've generally thought about it in more clinical terms, e.g., Fred sees something cool, tries it out, posts it on his blog, gets a ton of feedback, does additional homework and makes a decision. But after thinking about the lion's share of his investments, I think Michael is right. I think he really does eat his own cooking and invests very close to home, e.g., in companies that do stuff and make things that he himself likes. This is a much more elegant way to contextualize the differences in mine and Fred's investing styles. He is a consumer geek and a gadget freak and his investments display this passion. I am a data geek with a quant background and most of my investments display this passion.

In short, Fred is the Peter Lynch of consumer internet investing. Invest close to home. Invest in things you understand. Invest in things you have passion for. And invest in things you use in your everyday life. It certainly worked for Peter. And now it is working for Fred.