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A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

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Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#51

Post by da02 »

Shpigford wrote: post #40
WilliamEdward wrote: post #33

One thing that separates entrepreneurs from normal people is they aren't afraid of having stupid ideas. A good 90% of the ideas on this list, particularly the early ones, are laughable and are ideas you wouldn't catch a serious individual dead trying to come up with. Some people try from the start to be perfect and always fail because they don't understand you need dumb little ideas to be an entrepreneur.

So true! I’ll be the first to tell you the _vast_ majority of those ideas were objectively terrible but every single one of them taught me _something_.

It's also tough to accept the fact the market will buy things that one thinks is "stupid". Back in the 80s, NBC executives hated "The A-Team" despite the immense success it had on the NBC network. They felt the show was low-brow and cartoonish, "a hamburger show on a caviar network."

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#52

Post by da02 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #26
rasengan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Working hard will not guarantee that you will be successful, but I guarantee you, that all successful people worked hard.” - Coach Kamogawa thru George Morikawa

Honestly, I'm not really sure if that's really true any more. I wasn't working hard when I bought Bitcoin at three bucks a coin. I was just intellectually curious. If anything when I was working hard was two years before that on a soon to be failed startup. We crawled the web for ads just before the ad business went hyper targeted. I made -$20k from working hard. I made a lot more from Bitcoin. I would have made way…

How did you sell Bitcoin? For cash? Was it dangerous?

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#53

Post by sonnyblarney »

sampl wrote: post #37
safgasCVS wrote: post #7

I don't understand this spray and pray approach to business - I'm not businessman so I may be talking out my ass - but I would have thought business is like a long term relationship. May as well have a spreadsheet of 50 failed marriages. If you aren't in it for the long haul what are you doing?

Think of it more like dating--it's normal to have 50 "failed" dates before you tie the knot. You don't commit until you find a great match. In business, this means the market actually cares about what you're making. Predicting which software businesses will find this fit is extremely hard. VCs know this, and diversify their investments among many founders (knowing one big payday can make up for 10-100 failures). Look…

"Predicting which software businesses will find this fit is extremely hard."

Often a business is about the team, not the concept. Given any talented team, they an take any concept and evolve it to fit the market.

Also, there's no way he was able to take any of those concepts far enough given the numbers and time frame.

It can often take a small team several months to a couple of years to find out if it's going to really work or not.

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#54

Post by Shpigford »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #53
sampl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it more like dating--it's normal to have 50 "failed" dates before you tie the knot. You don't commit until you find a great match. In business, this means the market actually cares about what you're making. Predicting which software businesses will find this fit is extremely hard. VCs know this, and diversify their investments among many founders (knowing one big payday can make up for 10-100 failures). Look…

"Predicting which software businesses will find this fit is extremely hard." Often a business is about the team, not the concept. Given any talented team, they an take any concept and evolve it to fit the market. Also, there's no way he was able to take any of those concepts far enough given the numbers and time frame. It can often take a small team several months to a couple of years to find out if it's going to rea…

I also wasn’t trying to do that. The large majority of these were me just trying things out to see what would happen. It’s how I learn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#56

Post by ThomPete »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #33

One thing that separates entrepreneurs from normal people is they aren't afraid of having stupid ideas. A good 90% of the ideas on this list, particularly the early ones, are laughable and are ideas you wouldn't catch a serious individual dead trying to come up with. Some people try from the start to be perfect and always fail because they don't understand you need dumb little ideas to be an entrepreneur.

While that is true its certainly not the only way to do it.

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#58

Post by sonnyblarney »

Shpigford wrote: post #54
sonnyblarney wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Predicting which software businesses will find this fit is extremely hard." Often a business is about the team, not the concept. Given any talented team, they an take any concept and evolve it to fit the market. Also, there's no way he was able to take any of those concepts far enough given the numbers and time frame. It can often take a small team several months to a couple of years to find out if it's going to rea…

I also wasn’t trying to do that. The large majority of these were me just trying things out to see what would happen. It’s how I learn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well your persistence is commendable.

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#59

Post by jondubois »

wgerard wrote: post #29
rasengan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Working hard will not guarantee that you will be successful, but I guarantee you, that all successful people worked hard.” - Coach Kamogawa thru George Morikawa

It's not totally clear to me that hard work involves quantity (the OP, seemingly) over quality (others who have started fewer, more successful businesses). In general, there are lots of activities which give the appearance of hard work but are actually fairly superficial and detrimental to your long-term goals. Not at all saying that's the case here, more just musing on the idea of grinding for the sake of grinding.

The keys to success are your social connections to capital and your acting skills; that's it, nothing else matters. Find a rich person, get them to like you (the difficult part), then get them to invest in your startup. Then you'll succeed. The richer your friends are, the more likely you are to succeed. However, it should be noted that the richer your friends are, the better your acting skills need to be (competition is tough).

Re: A spreadsheet of the businesses I've started over the past 15 years

#60

Post by palerm »

Shpigford wrote: post #49
j-f-t wrote: post #9

They are more akin to projects than businesses. The majority of the businesses could be categorized as small web apps and Amazon affiliates. Most appear like he didn't find a problem to solve, but tried to create a solution. There also doesn't appear to be much thought given to market size for each product.

The title of the spreadsheet is “Josh Pigford's Absurd List of Products, Apps, Websites & Businesses”...they definitely weren’t all full on “businesses” and the large majority of them were terrible ideas. I definitely don’t recommend most people go the route I did. :)

Which route would you recommend instead?
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