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I'm lucky that I could refine my skills through those first three businesses. If Treehouse was my first big idea, I'd have no choice. I'd just have to do the be
by ryancarson 12y ago
I'm lucky that I could refine my skills through those first three businesses. If Treehouse was my first big idea, I'd have no choice. I'd just have to do the best I could.
> What changed when you did treehouse vs those other smaller businesses? Was it the fact that you didn't need to worry about money in the short-term anymore (because of those small exits), or something else?
I didn't make quite enough from those exits to be financially independent, so I still need to make Treehouse work from a money perspective personally.
The simple thing that changed was the scope of the idea. It was world-changing scale - millions of potential lives affected.
- porter 12y agoWhat advice do you have for founders working on non world-changing ideas, but rather ideas more like your first 3 small ideas?
- ryancarson 12y agoJust keep doing the best you can. If you don't have what appears to be a world-changing idea right now, you still are providing value by creating jobs and offering value to your customers. I didn't know I was going to create Treehouse until it happened. Hindsight is always 20-20.
- porter 12y agoI'm curious, have you ever thought about why building a startup with more revenues and more "impact" seems to matter more than building smaller companies? I know this is a bit philosophical, but I'd be interested in hearing how you think about this.
- ryancarson 12y agoIt seems like I have some sort of in-built desire to do something that 'matters'. The only way I have to measure this is 'number of lives changed'.