Giles Bowkett: No New Languages In 2010; New Businesses Instead(gilesbowkett.blogspot.com)
gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
Giles Bowkett: No New Languages In 2010; New Businesses Instead
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/12/no-new-languages-in-2010-new-businesses.html
3 comments
I've kinda done what Giles is planning by accident over the last few years. I now have a gaggle of different projects all making a little money in different ways - mostly passive. I think it can work. You're not going to found a Reddit or a TechCrunch every month, but there are some more passive, smaller things that could work.
For example, one of my sites - RubyFlow.com - makes several hundred dollars a month and I spend an hour or two each month editing the odd submission, etc. If you have the leverage to start new projects without it being a crazy level of work, it can pay off.
For example, one of my sites - RubyFlow.com - makes several hundred dollars a month and I spend an hour or two each month editing the odd submission, etc. If you have the leverage to start new projects without it being a crazy level of work, it can pay off.
Yeah, it's the Four-Hour Work Week thing. All you need is a business model which requires neither time nor energy and you're fucking DONE. So many lazy thinkers on a site like this. I never said I was starting businesses that require time or energy. I said I was starting businesses. Period, the end.
Apart from anything else, say for the sake of argument that it just offends your sense of logic to put together a business which requires time and energy, when you know business models exist which don't require much time or energy. Just assume, for the sake of argument, that it horrifies you to your core, this insane idea of wasting your precious moments on this earth making money the hard way when you could have made it with much less effort.
If you say "I'm launching a new business every month this year," you've just painted yourself into a corner which requires that you put together businesses that don't require time or energy. That's a good corner to be in. With our hypothetical, how do you feel about that corner? You feel pretty good.
But if you say "I'm going to set up one business this year, just one, only one, and after I make that choice, I'm committing to it for years", you're painting yourself into a different corner, where whichever business you choose to start, you're fucking stuck with it. It's your whole life now, for years to come. So you're going to hem and haw a long god damn time before you choose which kind of business to start, and when you finally make the choice, you might choose a shitty business model because it revolves around a technology which would be fun to build.
That's a bad corner. It's bad for your integrity and it's bad for your quality of life. (And this whole site is basically devoted to exalting that particular bad decision.)
Also, RubyFlow could become a Reddit or a TechCrunch. The fact that it isn't one now doesn't mean anything. The fiercest tiger starts life as a kitten. If you start 12 companies in a year, you can always come back to them a year later and decide to put a little more effort into a few of them and build them into larger things. I aimed for 12 miniapps last year. I didn't hit that mark, but I ended the year having built a bunch of miniapps, and one of them (Hacker Newspaper) I'm definitely going to keep around, and can, if I wish, add new features to. That's so much better than just building one thing and betting the farm on that one thing.
I mean there's a reason venture capitalists never bet the farm on one company.
Apart from anything else, say for the sake of argument that it just offends your sense of logic to put together a business which requires time and energy, when you know business models exist which don't require much time or energy. Just assume, for the sake of argument, that it horrifies you to your core, this insane idea of wasting your precious moments on this earth making money the hard way when you could have made it with much less effort.
If you say "I'm launching a new business every month this year," you've just painted yourself into a corner which requires that you put together businesses that don't require time or energy. That's a good corner to be in. With our hypothetical, how do you feel about that corner? You feel pretty good.
But if you say "I'm going to set up one business this year, just one, only one, and after I make that choice, I'm committing to it for years", you're painting yourself into a different corner, where whichever business you choose to start, you're fucking stuck with it. It's your whole life now, for years to come. So you're going to hem and haw a long god damn time before you choose which kind of business to start, and when you finally make the choice, you might choose a shitty business model because it revolves around a technology which would be fun to build.
That's a bad corner. It's bad for your integrity and it's bad for your quality of life. (And this whole site is basically devoted to exalting that particular bad decision.)
Also, RubyFlow could become a Reddit or a TechCrunch. The fact that it isn't one now doesn't mean anything. The fiercest tiger starts life as a kitten. If you start 12 companies in a year, you can always come back to them a year later and decide to put a little more effort into a few of them and build them into larger things. I aimed for 12 miniapps last year. I didn't hit that mark, but I ended the year having built a bunch of miniapps, and one of them (Hacker Newspaper) I'm definitely going to keep around, and can, if I wish, add new features to. That's so much better than just building one thing and betting the farm on that one thing.
I mean there's a reason venture capitalists never bet the farm on one company.
The first thing that came to my mind when reading your original post was NaNoWriMo. For those unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is a challenge to write a complete, 50000 word novel in November alone. The idea is basically, yes, the novel will suck, but if you don't do it, you'll never get it done. Lots of people say they want to write a novel. Few actually do it. NaNoWriMo forces you to actually do it.
I see the same basic idea here. If you start 12 businesses in the year, yes, some of them (maybe most of them, maybe all of them) will suck. But, you'll have started 12 businesses. How many people have that kind of business-starting experience? Lots of people say they want to start a business, but you're actually going to do it.
I see the same basic idea here. If you start 12 businesses in the year, yes, some of them (maybe most of them, maybe all of them) will suck. But, you'll have started 12 businesses. How many people have that kind of business-starting experience? Lots of people say they want to start a business, but you're actually going to do it.
All you need is a business model which requires neither time nor energy and you're fucking DONE.
The obvious objection is that such a business model is unsustainable because a competitor can deliver the same thing for a lower price (with fewer ads, say). And you have no defense against it because that would require effort.
The obvious objection is that such a business model is unsustainable because a competitor can deliver the same thing for a lower price (with fewer ads, say). And you have no defense against it because that would require effort.
You people on Hacker News need to figure something out about me. I don't address the obvious objections, because they're obvious. I just solve them and move on. This objection is so easy to solve it's not worth talking about.
Here is a business suggestion, if you're looking for any:
Create the Rails* framework of businesses (Corporations on Concords?) , so you and others could build a business in 15 minutes, and do so on a monthly basis.
*Rails 3, to allow for Merb-like slices...
*Rails 3, to allow for Merb-like slices...
Yes! I shall call it "Viaweb."
(Just kidding.)
(Just kidding.)
Some people, like me, love to have projects around. Finishing them really isn't the point. Developing them is where the fun is at!
The idea presented is not truly the creation of a new business every month. Instead, it is the creation of a business that releases a new product that may be totally unrelated to the previous one at the rate of one new product per month. The business is the creator, and there is only one. So, by doing this, the business is handling many products at one time which may be overwhelming without additional employees unless those products are sub-par. If the products are insufficient, it may create a bad impression of the brand, and by extension, the brand is the creator.
[deleted]
Starting a new business is hard. It takes time and energy.
Question your assumptions. They're wrong.
Question your assumptions. They're wrong.
Dear Giles,
I hope your businesses become very successful and you become too rich and busy to blog.
Sincerely, A fellow hacker/entrepreneur leading a life of quiet desperation
I hope your businesses become very successful and you become too rich and busy to blog.
Sincerely, A fellow hacker/entrepreneur leading a life of quiet desperation
I think this would be a really fun thing to try to do. How would one go out figuring out some good small ideas that are doable in a month?
Maybe I should write a mini-app for idea generation. I feel like everything I come up with is a rehash of something already out there. I tend to focus on small business stuff since these are people with money that might actually cough up some dough... maybe that's the problem?
Once they are established and doing well, adding another might not be a problem. Starting a bunch of new businesses all at once seems like a poor strategy.