from Hacker News

Entrepreneur ADD

by robspychala on 10/28/09, 2:03 PM with 2 comments

Do you ever find that you have a few decent ideas that you could pursue but need to pick one obviously since there only is so much time in the world.

what do you do? how do you vet the best one?

Do you just think really hard and just pick which one to work 100% on? Or do 2 or 3 beta versions and then pick?

  • by trapper on 10/28/09, 2:56 PM

    Biggest mistake I ever made was not focusing on one to exit. I thought once I bootstrapped the first business to a mid-six figure subscription level, that this was easy and I should fund all my other ideas with the proceeds...

    Meanwhile I used close to a million dollars over the next few years developing a whole lot of stuff that is unlikely to ever see the light of day. Plus, the lack of attention to the primary money earner caused it to suffer.

    My advice: Choose one that you are most interested in. No side projects that have any possibility of making money. My new side projects are all hardware related or blue skies science to reduce the temptation.

  • by npost on 10/28/09, 3:23 PM

    A great way to find which one to focus on is: 1) Ask yourself which would be more fun for you to do? 2) Chat with the people that could use whatever you are building to get their thoughts (but be sure to talk to people who you don't know, as "only positive feedback" will give you the wrong conclusion. 3) Rate each project on an easy to hard scale and then weight them against 1 & 2 above.