For some people, in considering this possibility, the question naturally arises: “That sounds nice, but how is a tiny software company supposed to compete with huge and well-funded companies?” The answer is that you don’t really have to. You just have to get an understanding of the proper pace and scale of whatever your endeavor is. Get there, and you can outlast anyone. The strength is in being yourself, being human, being accessible, being able to talk on a one-to-one basis to the people who patronize your business and making something that you want to see in the world but don’t currently. Your strength is in choosing to work on something because it’s genuinely fun and interesting and you know you could be interested in it forever. This requires that you take it all personally.
Growing isn’t a bad thing.
But you can - and we should - grow at a pace where you can still have conversations with the people using your thing. Where you can take two years to figure something out instead of shipping whatever keeps the growth metrics up.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone.
Stay weird and specific.
That's harder than it sounds, and way harder than taking someone else's money and building whatever they tell you to build.
