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Comment by bufferoverflow | Hacker News Reader

Feels like he doesn't give the businesses enough time to gain popularity. Some of them were clearly not bad ideas, like the ad management one.

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That was my first thought. But maybe he prefers the ideation phase and getting it started (I know I do).

Regardless, this gives me hope because he has made money from several of them!

Completely agree! Me posting that spreadsheet was certainly not a recommendation for anyone to emulate me.

There are definitely businesses in there that I regret moving on from too soon but you live and learn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I noticed the same thing. The one that jumped out to me was something like, sold before it launched for $10000. Why would you build something and take 10 grand instead of launching it? Desperation?

I suppose it depends how much you need 10k, and how much you believe in the business.

I would gladly take $10k and move on to my next project over building, marketing, sales, etc., with no promise of a return. He obviously enjoys the inception/building phase and that time he got to build and then cash out with very little investment. If I was very confident that my idea would take off, I'd reject early offers and go for it. However, for many of us, everything after the building phase is like pulling teeth. For others, its great. But I definitely relate to that decision.

Part naivety on how markets/competition worked at the time and part “I have a $10k tax bill that I need to pay” (which is a whole other story in itself).

I was going to say the same thing. Success takes perseverence.

It seems to me he is persevering, at starting new businesses.

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