# Why Founder-Led Companies Deserve Your Patience (And Why I'm Betting Big On This One)

Remember when I sold a stock right before it became a 14-bagger? Yeah, that Amazon Fire Phone moment still stings.

Back in 2014, the stock had already tripled, and I felt like a genius. So when Bezos announced the Fire Phone—which I thought was a terrible idea—I panic-sold. Turns out I was right about the product being trash, but dead wrong about betting against the founder's vision. While the Fire Phone flopped, Amazon kept innovating: AWS, Prime, Whole Foods, their ad empire. One bad idea didn't kill the thesis.

The lesson: give founder-led companies room to experiment. Short-term losses often mask long-term optionality.

I learned this the hard way again with **TransMedics (TMDX)**, which I bought early 2023. The stock was ripping until August 2023 when they announced acquiring an aviation company—a capital-intensive move that seemed to torpedo margin expansion. The market cut the stock in half.

But instead of repeating my Amazon mistake, I held and added. CEO Waleed Hassanein outlined a vision: a nationwide logistics network to improve organ utilization. Two years later, the founder delivered—stock up 3x from lows, sales doubled, and 78% of transplants now use their in-house aviation.

The kicker? Gross margins barely dipped, but free cash flow margins exploded. Latest quarter: 32% transplant revenue growth, 35% logistics growth, 17% net margin.

They're targeting 10k annual transplants (vs current levels), expanding into kidneys and international markets—potentially 10x+ bigger than today.

Yeah, concerns exist about execution. But I've learned: trust the founder, avoid short-term noise, let innovation play out.

Sometimes the messiest pivots create the biggest winners.