the ideas i intended to go somewhere have. but i see business in general as ideas and give myself a lot of time/flexibility to experiment with things. sometimes i have public facing things i am tinkering with that i'll shelve, reinvent, etc. i don't feel bad about it.
if you didn't lose anybody else's money, it's not a loss. experimenting is always a win.
I have the opposite being a woman. The men I date always think I am not into them because I never have time for them.
What I tell my friends who have this issue with their husbands is that a good life requires that much work, that if you want a guy who can make sure he can give your kids a nice school and take the family to Hawaii every year, this is what it takes. There is not one person I know who is successful that's not working a lot.
Also try to live in slivers -- sneak away little bits of time to hang out when you can, even if it's an hour. Make it special.
What has worked for me has been to date men who are also founders.
I think it's really hard to do this personally because you will have to hustle business as if you own a second business. if you can get a part time gig or a job somewhere making what you need to make. It'll be easier, trust me.
word of mouth referral, always. If i can outsource, i absolutely will. it can save a lot of $. if i work U.S. based read proposals carefully. lots of developers charge in three hour blocks and will ding you for three hours to put a line of code from google analytics on a site -- which takes 3 minutes.
They just tapped into an area -- crafting, artisan designers, etc. -- that was underserved by the market. eBay's client won't recognize these types of vendors as much as they seek out stuff like major commercial brands so the selling capacity was likely limited.
I don't care for etsy as a customer but it's a great company from a business standpoint.
Mine:
1. Loose lips sink ships
2. There is no deal until a contract is sign, and then once a contract is signed, no deal until the check cashes.
3. Have a good attorney
I'm really shocked that more people didn't get into the multi-platform toy. American Girl is a multiplatform toy concept and it's enormous. That prototype was hideous, and they need to work out some of the cross platform elements to it but if I were a kid and I saw that? Yeah. Plus, anything that has multiplatform revenue capabilities like that is a smart play right now. 90% of the companies at TC50 were talking about subscription models I didn't think users would be willing to pay and anybody who thinks they're going to make dough off ad revenue alone is nuts. The market is oversaturated and there isn't going to be a roll up.
if you didn't lose anybody else's money, it's not a loss. experimenting is always a win.