Do you know of any resources to learn about tech lifestyle businesses?
The only difference between a "lifestyle" business and the "Silicon Valley" model is whether you are in control over your own destiny and focused on building a business, or whether you're selling out to people who want to increase your risk and their possible profits, with the expectation that you'll get a nice bonus in your acquihire.
In a way, YC and VCs have ruined startups, by making people think this SV model -- which is great for Facebook, google and yelp, but terrible for the billion other startups is the One True Way.
So businesses that could have been great bootstrap businesses will grow too fast with too high a burn rate and flame out at a series A or B crunch.
Meanwhile, if the business could have taken it slower they could have built something really valuable for themselves.
Smart, patient entrepreneurs can take advantage of this.
Let angel and VC-backed companies validate markets, and pursue the markets they vacate after the broader crunch occurs.
(This is more like advice to myself actually as I'm currently in a dilemma between that "wait" that you've just described and the intense worry of not getting first-mover advantage through that waiting)
Decentralizing economic power would shift our economy away from capital-intensive moonshots and toward consumer products though.
This was originally solved by selling stock in a venture to the public.
The narratives are much less about massively disruptive, world changing startups and much more about making a good living through mostly internet businesses.