A few years ago I sold all my stuff to explore the world, creating 12 startups in 12 months and building $1M+/y in companies as an indie maker such as Nomad List and Remote OK. I'm also a big pusher of remote work and try to analyze the effects it will have on society. Follow me on Twitter or see my list of posts. My first book MAKE is out now.
Feb 20, 2013

Why overnight success is a myth

Hacker News, Quotes

Great bit by tsunamifury on Hacker News:

Most people fail, most projects go unfinished, most beyond that never make enough money to sustain a company.

A successful product is the evolutionary result of 10,000 products before it that failed, went unfinished, or were unprofitable. Even the best of the Valley didn’t sit down, bang out some brilliant code, slap a business strategy on top, then cash a billion dollar check. They worked long and hard through repeated failures, with sometimes B and C squad talent, slowly carving away at the block of ideas until a product appeared. Then after that, they spend months or years compiling a business strategy and altering the product to become palatable to enough customers to gain a profit.

It takes a team of imperfect people and a lot of time to make even a passable product. Even finishing a unprofitable product is an massive achievement in itself.

P.S. I wrote a book on building indie startups called MAKE. And I'm on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my stories. I don't use email so tweet me your questions. Or you can see my list of posts. To get an alert when I write a new blog post, you can subscribe below:

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