😬 Why I Quit My Saas Business Idea

Last updated Jun 12, 2022 Edit Source

• Career

A couple of weeks back, I announced that I was putting my data science job transition on hold and would be investigating an idea I had for a startup. After having already gone down the rabbit hole of finding resources to learn Django and securing a domain name, I’ve decided that pursuing my original plan of getting a job in data science is a better choice.

The primary reasons behind this are:

• The math doesn’t check out, and it likely would not be profitable.
• The business is tricky to bootstrap unless you have a significant advantage in the space (which I do not).
• I’m thinking too short-term, which causes me to rush between different objectives and ultimately succeed at none.

So this begs the question: why did I think this business idea was a good idea to pursue in the first place? My reasoning starts with the notion of antifragility, the keystone concept in the fantastic book by author Nassim Taleb, Antifragile. I won’t waste too much time going into it here, but what interested me most about the topic is how it would apply to my career.

In short, antifragile systems get stronger when stressed. An example is your immune system. I wanted to design my career to be antifragile, such that I could benefit from adverse or changing market conditions.

In the book Antifragile Taleb touts artists, creatives, gig workers, and entrepreneurs as antifragile careers/trades because they are permissionless, meaning they don’t rely on some higher authority to grant you access to practice them. The downside is that they have higher variability in returns.

For example, you may start four unsuccessful startups, but a success on the 5th can more than makeup for the lost time on the first four.

I wanted to learn to be an entrepreneur so my career would be antifragile, aware that job “safety” is mostly an illusion, and people who feel like they have the safest jobs often take on the most risk.

What changed my mind was this article from Fast Company on having an antifragile career. They pointed out that the key to an antifragile career is optionality and frequently referenced Bob Pozen’s book Extreme Productivity.

One of the main concepts in the book is that career planning is practically useless because there are too many variables at play, so you are better off maximizing your optionality in career prospects down the road.

For example, if you’re a budding statistician, opt to learn R instead of SAS because R is open source and has a much larger user base, whereas SAS is a paid product only used within a few organizations.

Another realization came today while reading Derek Siver’s great article on those of us who try to take too many paths at once. We are like Buridan’s donkey: we stand halfway between a haystack and a pale of water. We can’t pace back and forth between the two, unable to decide which one to get first and die hungry and thirsty.

Many wise people have said that life is long, and there is plenty of time to do all the things you want to do, but if you try to do them all at once you will fail. Naval Ravikant says if you desire everything you will be unhappy, but if you can narrow down your desire to just one thing then you may get it.

I’ve decided that in the context of my life, it makes the most sense to go for my original plan of moving my career toward data science. I still have much to learn in the corporate/startup world that I can get paid to learn as an employee that will transfer over to my career down the road, so it makes developmental and financial sense. Also, the data science skill-set is vast and likely to be valuable for the foreseeable future, so it has optionality.

At some point in my data science journey, I hope it makes sense to strike it out on my own, whether as an independent consultant or an entrepreneur creating a product. However, at this point, I need to have the humility not to try and jump to the end of the story and instead savor the process.

This blog is how I share my progress and explain the value behind my projects. I read another article by Derek Sivers today on striving to be happy, smart, and useful. I’ve noticed that for much of my journey in personal development I have been happy and smart, but not useful.

I’ve read so many great books and listened to great podcasts, and I think it has helped me shift my mindset and have a brighter outlook on life. However, I have not done as good of a job of sharing that journey with others, so that my story could be of value to someone else. I even often fail to implement much of what I’ve learned, so the information just floats away or sits dormant in my notes, waiting to be rediscovered when I go back over the topic.

Just by writing I’m creating clarity of thought and forcing myself to be able to communicate my ideas. Even better would be if someone else could find value from the story and work that I’m putting online.

I’m still working on getting the newsletter working, but if you want to get weekly updates from this blog in your email please feel free to add yourself below. Until next time.

I'm a freelance software developer located in Denver, Colorado. If you're interested in working together or would just like to say hi you can reach me at me@ this domain.