Comment by pedalpete
2 years ago
Derek Sivers had a good comment on this recently on a podcast (I can't remember which, perhaps Tim Ferris).
Derek was describing Trent Resnor of Nine Inch Nails who, as a musician, played in multiple bands of different styles. Rock, Jazz, Industrial, Dance, etc.
After some time, Nine Inch Nails (Industrial genre according to Sivers), was the one that got the most attention, and so Resnor focused on that one.
This is somewhat similar to starting a start-up. Don't get married to your idea, or potentially even market. Make a few small bets if you can, and see what people are attracted to, and then put more effort into that.
Resnor "quit" the bands that weren't successful, and put the effort into the one that had the best opportunity.
I see variations of this advice a lot, and I think it depends on what you want to do. If your goal is, e.g. to get VC funding then there is a pathway to increasing your odds that has a component of focusing on what sticks.
If your goals are different (and I'd argue more principled) then you may not want to just capitulate and try and optimzie for a known audience or market. This probably has a lower change of success, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. To use the startup founder example, if all you're doing is optimizing for VC funding and putting your own vision and ambitions on the back seat, you could also just consider getting a job.
Also, average strategy generates average rewards. The path people choose really depends on their risk tolerance. I don't think it's right to say one is better than another.
Trent Resnor is an interesting example. If his strategy was as you described, I'd be very curious to know what his motivation was - I'd guess it's more complex than just wanting to be in a successful band. I kind of wish I could visit an alternate universe where his dance music career was the one that took off
I like your point, however, I also think that when we're discussing these options, we're likely focusing on spreading yourself in a domain where you have interest.
Let's take the example of a friend of mine who is a stone mason. He started out doing all kinds of different stone works. From driveways, stone walls, fireplaces, etc etc.
Any job that needed doing, he could do.
But then he did a bathroom which ended up in a bunch of architecture magazines, and that led to another bathroom, which led to a spa.
He now only does high-end bathrooms and spas. That's what the market told him they valued.
He still works in stone, just like Trent works in music. Still loves the craft. If the market had said "we love the walls you make", he probably would have focused on that.
This is so cool! I had no idea, thanks for sharing.
On the journey to find the primary source (https://sive.rs/2008-08-tim-ferriss), I came across this fact that Reznor started NIN in 1998 and was the only permanent member of NIN until 2016.
Projects like the Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl), Bon Iver (Justin Vernon), and Tame Impala (Kevin Parker), all started as one person bands, too! (I write more about one-person restaurants, one-person plays, etc., here: https://herbertlui.net/the-simple-truth-behind-successful-cr...)
It reminds me of Diagram is doing (https://diagram.com/) with Magician, Genius, Prototyper, etc.