Idea selection dominates lifestyle design // Business models & freedom // A sad HN story

December 21, 2021 · living

A dude on HN just shared a pretty gritty report about his 12 years’ worth of startup attempts.

I found it hard to read.

Not because it sounds like he’s been through some hard times (I adore the hustle), but *because he appears to be repeatedly picking ideas that are completely disconnected from what he actually wants to achieve.*

In his own words, here’s why he’s doing all this:

Back when I was 24, I pretty much hated my 9-5 job because of lack of control over my destiny […] and the idea of going to the office every single day .

So, it sounds like he’s in this game for personal freedom and financial independence. He wants to reclaim control over his time, place, and attention. I get it, I admire it, I love it. 

However, he then describes the ideas that he has chosen to work on (heavily excerpted):

I started a technology blog […] 2 years passed […] I shut it down.

I started a website that pulled information from Amazon and displayed dresses in a fancy and intuitive website. […] I decided to give up.

The very next year, I decided to build a note-taking web app […] and lost interest due to a lack of customers.

I then started a news aggregator website […] and I shut it down.

So, I built a [minimalist news reader app] […] Nobody cared.

That’s where it hit me, why not pivot to a link management platform? 

Okay, so listen: that’s six pretty serious projects in twelve years, which is fine.

And again, I absolutely love the hustle. As far as I’m concerned, this dude is demonstrating a frankly heroic commitment to the dream, and I desperately want him to succeed.

That being said, this is some of the most incompetent idea selection I’ve ever seen in my life.

Not because any of these ideas are inherently bad (each has had a billion-dollar success), but because each of these ideas is completely misaligned with his stated goal of freedom.

All six of these ideas are (1) consumer apps (2) operating under strong network effects with (3) low differentiation and (4) winner-take-all dynamics, while also suffering from (5) delayed monetization and (6) difficult/costly marketing challenges.

When you mash all this together, this is not *an optimal (or even viable) path toward freedom.*

This dude is signing himself up to a series of projects that are guaranteed to fail (even if they might succeed) because he’s chosen slogs while expecting quick wins. That’s a bad game to play.

(Although it does sound like our dude is starting to see a bit of positive momentum with his latest project, which is obviously lovely to hear, and I wish him the absolute best with it.)

Here’s the thing: you can’t evaluate ideas within the vacuum of a spreadsheet. You need to evaluate them within the context of your life. The spreadsheet model is part of that (because you need to ensure that the upside meets your goals and the downside fits your constraints), but it’s only one part. 

Idea selection is less about the idea and more about where you’re at and where you’re trying to get to. It’s a human thing and a personal thing. Don’t pick the right idea for someone else. Pick the right idea for you.

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