> There's also opportunity cost. What could this team have done if they were working on something more... disruptive? The execution here is incredible, applying that to a new problem would have probably also done very well.
My latest working hypothesis after 28 years of starting companies is that there is "no startup free lunch" and the size and likelihood of return are inversely correlated.
We see so much startup p0rn. I remember in my early 20's seeing a founder in a business magazine and thinking "I'm smarter and harder working, so I'm gonna be a multi-millionaire by 25". I have a number of friends who have built unicorns. I have a number of equally talented friends working equally hard with (to me) equally plausible ideas who have struck out - often multiple times.
Right now I've got a small business - $500k run rate, built it part time, no staff. My goal is to get it to a $2-$5M run rate and take some cash out each year to fund early retirement in a decade. It's not sexy, but I believe the likelihood of me being able to achieve that is higher than the likelihood of being able to successfully create, exit and profit from a unicorn. And at 49 I have only so many hits at bat left given that most of them seem to take 5-10 years.
My latest working hypothesis after 28 years of starting companies is that there is "no startup free lunch" and the size and likelihood of return are inversely correlated.
We see so much startup p0rn. I remember in my early 20's seeing a founder in a business magazine and thinking "I'm smarter and harder working, so I'm gonna be a multi-millionaire by 25". I have a number of friends who have built unicorns. I have a number of equally talented friends working equally hard with (to me) equally plausible ideas who have struck out - often multiple times.
Right now I've got a small business - $500k run rate, built it part time, no staff. My goal is to get it to a $2-$5M run rate and take some cash out each year to fund early retirement in a decade. It's not sexy, but I believe the likelihood of me being able to achieve that is higher than the likelihood of being able to successfully create, exit and profit from a unicorn. And at 49 I have only so many hits at bat left given that most of them seem to take 5-10 years.