Are you building an empire, sparking a powder keg, or starting a movement?

How does an empire conquer that first city? Do they too start as movements until they've dominated one area?

Most certainly a movement this time around. And it is such a relief. I've tried building empire before and I've had quite a few powder kegs. I mistakenly assumed that one could build an empire by triggering a series of powder kegs. The failure to ignite overnight was a major demotivator. It wasn't that the product was wrong, it's that my expectations were wrong.

My current project has already been enough of a struggle that I don't expect any amount of overnight success. Also it's in such a niche market that I don't expect it to go viral. This leaves the good old method of selling one widget to one customer at a time. If I don't sell anything today, it's a bad day. But if I sell two tomorrow, I can make up for today. Lack of exponential growth is no longer a concern and that is a significant amount of relief to me.

Or are you building a simple, well-designed product that has some excited customers ready to pay you money for said product? Do people always forget how viable this avenue is?

Previous submition: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1145218

I prefer jwz's approach: "Are you going to help people get laid or get paid?" If neither, don't do it.

I love vivid metaphors as much as the next girl, but I can't stand false dichotomies.

Nowhere in this (vivid and useful) empire/keg/movement theory is there room for scrappy businesses that start small, profit, and grow large.

You know - the type of business that "business" used to mean.

Almost without exception, businesses that are "empires" today had humble beginnings. They started with one product, or a handful, or a single location, and profited, and invested, and branched out, and grew. From IBM to McDonald's, from Trader Joe's to Apple Computer, Inc.

Amazon is a rare bird.

And as I teach my students: if you want to be rich, don't try to learn from lottery winners, or people who were born into wealth, or people who happened to be "discovered" or make the exact right connection at the exact right time. Study people who were in similar circumstances as you are now, and figure out how THEY made it happen.

Amazon is not a posterchild for a model. They are a posterchild for overcoming a model.

A point about vitamins vs painkillers. It's kind of ironic that we use this analogy because vitamins actually help prevent disease (well, some), while painkillers are just treating the symptom and not the root cause.