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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

#81

Post by AgentME »

da02 wrote: post #52
3pt14159 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you're in the US, then Coinbase and Gemini are mature exchanges that you can directly transfer dollars to or from your bank account. I assume he probably used them or an exchange like them.

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

#82

Post by andyidsinga »

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_.

hey - thanks for participating in the discussion here.

I've got a giant list of ideas (99.9% horrible) i've kept over the years. they always seem exciting when I'm writing them down ..but a week later they seem laughable. I always find myself thinking, despite realizing the idea is horrible - that I should have created a 2 or 3 page website as a business-like pre-mvp on the concept while I was still excited about it.

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

#83

Post by andyidsinga »

ccostes wrote: post #80

Really interesting, thanks for sharing this. Why is it called Cedar & Sail when (as far as I can tell) it has nothing to do with either of those things? :p In any case, congrats on hitting it big with Baremetrics!

I was wondering the same thing

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

#84

Post by Shpigford »

andyidsinga wrote: post #82
Shpigford wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_.

hey - thanks for participating in the discussion here. I've got a giant list of ideas (99.9% horrible) i've kept over the years. they always seem exciting when I'm writing them down ..but a week later they seem laughable. I always find myself thinking, despite realizing the idea is horrible - that I should have created a 2 or 3 page website as a business-like pre-mvp on the concept while I was still excited about it.

Yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to motivation. Most of these items were simply me having an idea or interest and wanting to learn more about it. Building something is sort of creative exploration for me. If it becomes something, cool. If it doesn't, also cool. I still learned stuff.

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

#85

Post by Shpigford »

ccostes wrote: post #80

Really interesting, thanks for sharing this. Why is it called Cedar & Sail when (as far as I can tell) it has nothing to do with either of those things? :p In any case, congrats on hitting it big with Baremetrics!

I need to come up with an elaborate story on the name...alas I just picked two words that I thought sounded interesting together and BOOM, done. :P

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

#86

Post by j-f-t »

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. :)

I should have paid better attention to the spreadsheet name :) What did you learn from this particular route?

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

#87

Post by andyidsinga »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #28
zerr wrote: post #8

> Amazon affiliate sites I think this is a completely different mindset compared to engineers/"nerds", that's why most of us work for others instead of starting our own businesses.

There is nothing wrong with working for others if it fulfills you. I envy people who can have comfortable lives with happy families and a simple desk job that pays for what they need. Something in my brain is telling me I need more or I won't be happy, so I have many startups I'm working on and have exclusively begun working for myself. The grass is always greener on the other side, that much I can say. Enjoy your co…

This! - I'm in a similar space myself. At once envious of those happy with a decent day job - corp or whatever (one of my good buddies is a "garbage man" and he seems pretty damn happy).

A year into struggling as an entrepreneur and no longer working at BigCo - I couldn't be happier despite having to live with a crazy amount of anxiety :)

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

#88

Post by gumby »

This is inspiring: the dominant culture today is "oh yeah, it's going great".

One quote that has stuck in my mind is from Chuck Jones, quoting his own prof at RISD: "You have 10,000 bad paintings in you. The sooner you get them out the sooner you'll get to the good ones."

I eventually learned to just let that dumb idea (weld, program, drawing) get out. Some good ideas fail, and most bad ideas fail, but sometimes you can only tell which it was (good or bad) after the fact.

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

#89

Post by learnstats2 »

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?

Business has a bit of luck and a bit of skill - as you learn more (for example, you learn that your Amazon affiliate made you $0.50 at its peak), you may choose to throw the dice again with a bit more force. Formalise it as a new business, or pivot, or don't tell people about your experiments.

This is what the long haul looks like.

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