> I deeply believe that if three recent college grads (and one dropout) could turn an online reality tv show into a billion dollar company then literally anyone can be successful online.
Not anyone, but far more people than currently are. The only problem is that very few people get the opportunity required.
How many teams get help from YC followed by millions of funding from other investors? How many can spend 5 years working on a project that isn't profitable? As a percentage of people, it's far below 0.1%.
When there's a scalable YC alternative (like equity crowdfunding, maybe) we'll see just how many good technology businesses are possible. It seems nearly unlimited, if you're aiming for Star Trek.
I think there are tens of thousands of 2-10 person teams that are waiting for an opportunity to show us what they have.
The most surefire way to be able to spend 5 years working on a project that isn't profitable is to spend 5 years saving 50% of your salary. How do you save 50% of your income for 5 years? Get a job paying double the median income (~80th percentile [1]) and live like the median person. Or get a job paying at about the 60th percentile ($65K) and live like someone making half that (~30th percentile). Both of them are eminently achievable for many Americans - by the numbers, 20% for the former and 40% for the latter.
Most people don't do this because they feel like they must be better than the people who make half of what they do, and so blow the excess income on a lifestyle that doesn't really make them happier but certainly makes them look better. If you don't give a shit about others thinking that you're a pauper, you can amass a good amount of freedom, power, and yes, money without anyone knowing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
I will never go back to a cubicle in Silicon Valley. Never.
But it's also true that creating something like Twitch is nearly impossible without funding. They could not have bootstrapped it for 5 years because it was/is not profitable, even though it might be a great long-term business.
Now, not everyone could have done what I did, but it's far more than 0.1% of people.
Basically, Justin is saying "the ones that survived are the ones that survived". It's stating the painfully obvious, however it's a simple contrast to the normal "strategic" advice.
Paul Graham writes about this a lot:
http://paulgraham.com/aord.html
There are so many things wrong with drawing that conclusion.
Having said all that, I think Justin has put the simple success receipe quite succinctly in this article: Produce, get feedback and iterate. Doing this enough number of times in growth market can produce very likely success. That's beautiful, powerful, compact advice.
Are you trying to; learn to play the piano, climb a mountain, loose weight, be a racer car driver and so on? It pretty much applies to anything that you are trying to achieve where the obstacle is just you. If you just survive, just do it for one more day. Just one more....everyday, you will succeed.
I heard Justin talk about this at a conference a couple of years ago and it's one of the few pieces of advice I have taken to heart.
I am not catching the reference. Can you explain or link to something I can read. Are you talking about Kaizen?
