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Great post. There's a "swing for the fences" mentality in the SV / startup community that I think has driven a lot of potential talent away from entrepreneursh
by feralchimp 15y ago
Great post. There's a "swing for the fences" mentality in the SV / startup community that I think has driven a lot of potential talent away from entrepreneurship in general.
The idea that entrepreneurship requires immense sacrifice to do well, or to be "worth doing at all" presupposes a set of romantic values that just don't map well to the relative size and frequency of market opportunities.
My Mac app nets me between $100-200 per month, every month, for noise-floor incremental time commitment. For anyone obsessed with becoming a Successful Entrepreneur, that's a 'how dare you even mention it' achievement. But you would be AMAZED at how an extra $100-200/month can improve a man's happiness at the end of the day. It's like an anti-aliasing algorithm for all those little bullshit expenses that, in aggregate, can lead to non-trivial stress.
If that $100/month (and the feeling of delivering value to direct customers) makes me 5% calmer and happier while I'm hanging out with my wife and son at night, it's an enormous win.
- kylemathews 15y agoI've made the same realization. There's something incredibly satisfying about having built something that others find helpful. That's where most of the joy of entrepreneurship comes from. Optimize for reaching that goal first and then move onto secondary goals like becoming a billionaire or changing the world.
- moocow01 15y agoI couldn't agree more. To add to it, I think there is something to be said about the natural slow evolution of yourself and your business. There are many who are looking for quick paths that involve raising a boatload of cash, hiring a bunch of people and trying to storm the market. In actuality this is rarely how most real businesses are formed - even in tech. Most businesses are formed through a slow and very unsexy evolution over a number of years by doing relatively difficult things that others don't want to do.