Why small bets pay off big

When I quit my job to go all in on indie hacking, I had to make a decision.

I had so many ideas.

Should I pursue several of these ideas at the same time? That way, I’d increase the odds that one of them would take off.

Or should I focus on a single idea? That way, I could put all my time and energy into making it a success.

Many small bets or one big bet?

Many small bets = more shots on goal

I had no idea which of my ideas would work. So why not try them all?

Some of the most influential indie hackers out there have made many small bets:

• Pieter Levels made 70+ small bets. Only 4 of them worked. Nomad List and the 3 others that worked are bringing in $3m/year.
• Arvid Kahl sold FeedbackPanda and now has two books, a blog + podcast + YouTube channel, a Twitter course, another SaaS and a consulting business.
• Josh Pigford has a list of 62 projects he’s worked on. He sold 1 of them, Baremetrics, for $4m.

For me, the biggest argument in favour of many small bets was that it might reduce my stress.

If I made one big bet, there’d be a lot of pressure to make it work. If I made many small bets, it wouldn’t be such a problem when one of them wasn’t going so well.

But there would be downsides.

There’s a cost to switching focus from one project to another. Doing so all day every day might be a fast track to burnout.

And I couldn’t help but feel that some indie hackers use many small bets as a way to avoid doing the work of validation.

Instead of working on 12 startups in 12 months, why not validate 12 startup ideas in 1 month, by talking to potential customers? That way, you could save 11 months of wasted work by dropping the 11 that didn’t land.

One big bet = more focus

My biggest idea was the Open Web Mind.

This was a project I’d been thinking about for decades, but had never had the time to work on with the focus it deserved.

It was the kind of idea I mulled over in the shower and honed on hikes through the mountains. It was the kind of idea I couldn’t let go.

So why not focus on this one big idea?

The most successful companies benefit from focus:

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on Google plus 70 other startups… wait, no, that’s wrong… they worked on Google and not much else.
• Steve Jobs worked on countless different products in his life, but ultimately the story of his life is the story of Apple.

For me, the biggest argument in favour of one big bet was that I only have so many years in my life. I want to devote them to what matters most.

The middle path

In the end, I chose a middle path.

I did want to make one big bet on the Open Web Mind.

But I didn’t want to focus on it to the exclusion of all my other interests. There are too many other newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels and products I want to get out into the world. You can find them in my profile here on Indie Hackers or at markjeffery.com.

Still, I’ve been careful not to pursue too many small bets.

Last year, as I started indie hacking full-time, I found myself working on a product I wasn’t passionate about. If I’d pursued it, I might have found some customers and made some money. More likely, it would have eventually made me so unhappy that I’d have given up. So I dropped it.

Since then, I’ve limited myself to projects that:

• build on my one big bet on the Open Web Mind or
• are so compelling to me that I can’t help myself.

The indie hacker mindset

Many small bets or one big bet?

It comes down to who you are and what you want from your life.

Most indie hackers don’t want to build Apple or Google.

We tend to choose bootstrapping over taking venture capital, going solo over hiring employees, exploring possibilities over focusing on one.

My guess is that most of us are inclined to make many small bets rather than one big bet.

How about you?