This is an interesting post, and I'm eager to hear what other people who have spent more time in the startup scene think of it. Here's my thoughts:
1. I think I've seen the "two groups" that the post talks about, but I have begun to have serious doubts that they're as fatalistic as they're made out to be. For example:
The in-crowd live in the U.S, they attended MIT or Berkeley, they write well, have interesting blogs and are followed by 400 or more people on twitter.
You can't change where you went to school, but you can improve your writing skills, start a blog, and get 400 followers on Twitter. In fact, this is trivial over a period of months. Writing good content is not only for the elite; it's how you become one of the elite ;)
2. If you do a little research up front on the market for whatever you're going to create, you might be able to just create one product rather than 400. It might be more difficult in the beginning, but you just might learn an incredible amount and turn out to be one of the most well-rounded sources of startup insight on HN. See patio11 / Bingo Card Creator for an example :)
3. My main concern would be sustainability; those 150 projects that make you $12k / month aren't going to do so forever. You'll run yourself ragged trying to keep them all together, and at some point, you'd probably be better off with a job. I guess what I'm saying is to try and pick a model that will scale more than $1/day projects will.
In spite of these criticisms, I did enjoy this article for its thought-provoking angle that's very different from a lot of the stuff I read on HN.
1. It's very very difficult to learn to write well or be interesting. I have many friends and I know that no matter how hard they actually tried, they would not be able to write stuff people want to read. They are good at what they do, but they can't write even if they tried.
2. Creating one product is the route everyone takes by default. Yes, it works, but this is introducing an alternative route
3. Part of the optimisation is focusing on projects that are easy to spin off into new projects. If one project is selling clothes and the next is hospital management software, that's just stupid. If one is an auction management dashboard, the next is a sales management software, then it's easy to adapt. You learn quickly what ideas have generic code bases that are easy to adapt, and what ideas are very specific in their technology and are difficult to adapt.
1. You might be right :) I still think more people could do it than think they can. And also, you don't have to write all that well to be popular online. Witness the majority of popular blogs.
2. I guess I'm arguing for fewer (several) as opposed to hundreds. I just wonder if creating 400 projects is sustainable, as well as whether it's the right mindset to have. But on the other hand, I'm guessing that, as you said, most people will hit their income target long before that, and I'd also guess that most people would naturally optimize this kind of strategy and focus on the most successful projects.
3. I'd have liked to see more about this in the article.
I will write about specific time optimisation techniques sometime later - I could write a lot about that, but I don't want to distract from the core message.
those 150 projects that make you $12k / month aren't going to do so forever.
I guess what it really comes down to is how much each project makes over its lifetime, relative to how much time you put into it. Pulling more numbers out of thin air, if it takes one day to push out a project making $1/day (a reasonable assumption, I think, once you've already made 100 of them or so), and if the project's useful lifetime is about 1 year, and if you work 200 days a year (so, 200 projects), that gives me $71000/year. You're not getting rich off this, but you can live comfortably almost anywhere in the world.
Of course, the catch is that the projects should require zero maintenance, otherwise it adds up very quickly.
Wikis are forever sustainable, even if it is horribly outdated.
However, depending on the niche you occupied, you barely get enough money above your domain cost renewal. Beyond a certain point, it is not worth your time to invest in it.
For me, it helps that I can wait a few year before bootstrapping my next website, along with freelance work. That wiki is still earning me money.
1. I think I've seen the "two groups" that the post talks about, but I have begun to have serious doubts that they're as fatalistic as they're made out to be. For example:
The in-crowd live in the U.S, they attended MIT or Berkeley, they write well, have interesting blogs and are followed by 400 or more people on twitter.
You can't change where you went to school, but you can improve your writing skills, start a blog, and get 400 followers on Twitter. In fact, this is trivial over a period of months. Writing good content is not only for the elite; it's how you become one of the elite ;)
2. If you do a little research up front on the market for whatever you're going to create, you might be able to just create one product rather than 400. It might be more difficult in the beginning, but you just might learn an incredible amount and turn out to be one of the most well-rounded sources of startup insight on HN. See patio11 / Bingo Card Creator for an example :)
3. My main concern would be sustainability; those 150 projects that make you $12k / month aren't going to do so forever. You'll run yourself ragged trying to keep them all together, and at some point, you'd probably be better off with a job. I guess what I'm saying is to try and pick a model that will scale more than $1/day projects will.
In spite of these criticisms, I did enjoy this article for its thought-provoking angle that's very different from a lot of the stuff I read on HN.