

The Big Plan - chriseidhof
http://chriseidhof.tumblr.com/post/8336661854/the-big-plan

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sprovoost
It took me much too long to realize this, but there's a fundamental difference
between a Startup and a Muse. A Startup is about creating something new, which
takes years to develop, can scale hugely, but may never turn profitable.

A Muse is a form of passive income, and although it's still hard work, it can
be built much quicker. The reason for that is that a Muse does not create
something fundamentally new, it's usually a very conventional product in a
well known market.

I read the Four Hour Work Week years ago and love the idea of creating passive
income to work on other things. But my natural tendency is to build startups,
not muses.

Besides, if your hourly rate is high enough and your spending low enough you
can travel the world for less than a day of contractor work a week.

So if you're still interested in building startups, my next piece of advice is
to really read up on Customer Development. Read Ash Maurya's Running Lean
<http://www.runningleanhq.com/>, Eric Ries' upcoming book (he also has some
lectures on Udemy) and Steve Blank's blog, in particular about the class he
gave at Stanford.

Key takeaway for me: figure out what people are willing to pay for, before you
actually build it. Of course there's a tradeoff where it makes sense to just
quickly build it first, but I've been trying hard to move that threshold from
3 man-months to a few days.

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rudiger
Good luck! Berlin's a great city, and I'm looking forward to reading your
future updates and I hope you're successful with your plans.

Just watch out with the "No More Sugar" experiment; oxidation of glucose is
thought to provide almost all of the energy needed by neurons to support brain
activity. Glucose consumption is tightly linked to neuronal activity in the
brain, and you need all the brain capacity you can spare!

~~~
chriseidhof
Thank you! Good to know. However, there seems to be a balance: too much sugar
is definitely not good (at least on the long term). For now, I'll stick with
sugar in food, vegetables and fruits.

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bahman2000
good luck!

perhaps you should consider hiring someone to do the polishing and non-
programming stuff.

~~~
chriseidhof
Thanks! I've considered that, and this will probably my first investment back
into the company ;). But I have the feeling it will get easier if I keep
practicing it.

