I don't think I'm meant to hit home runs. I don't mean just that the luck hasn't struck. It's more that I don't feel particularly connected to the mainstream and where they are headed, am sort of unreasonable about how I think the world should work in a way that makes me the opposite of a heat seeking missile, don't love scalable acts like creating a business that can scale on top of cookie-cutter jobs or on top of advertising or virality.
And sure, maybe I'll get lucky, and I'll get to that. But I decided to stop going up to the plate trying to hit a home run.
When I had venture capital, I thought I was Barry Bonds. But now that I don't, I realized I'm Tony Gwynn.
I go up to the plate trying to hit a single. If I have a runner on base, I try to move them over.
For my intention, a single is a business that will generate $10k in profit, has the potential to continue for several years, and can be completely run by other people, leaving me with time to go up to the plate again.
What I found last year is that I have enough time/energy to attempt about six singles and that I connected on three of them. And it feels similar this year.
You can score a lot of runners just by hitting singles and I think there's a better chance that will happen for me than when I was trying to hit home runs.
The driving force for me though was wanting different optimizations. It's depressing to strike out year after year. And so hitting singles has a lot more positive reinforcement. And then two, I wanted to make more money, which has happened because these singles pay off immediately.
Last, there is always the possibility of an inside the park homerun. Maybe I'll hit a line drive to the outfield, the fielder will kick the ball, lose track of it, chase it down, overthrow third, and I'll come running home.