Success Ballpark

I recently launched a new service and in all excitement of getting more users, I bet with my cofounder that if we can't get 30 orders on a single day next week, I ll take him for a dinner. 

Thought I did say that last night, today in the morning I realized that if I can't hit that number, I ll be sad and would put doubts on the whole idea of our new service. This led to the thinking of the idea of what I consider success in life/business. 

We humans want to conquer the world as soon as possible and if we don't do that "in time" we feel that we are loosing the race where everyone else is just killing it. This thinking is also fueled by the likes of Hacker News/Twitter with hockey sticks stories and billion dollar valuations of a year old companies.  

The case in point is why do I have to get 30 orders in a day? Why not 20 or 10? Every quarter when the earnings statements come out, companies fret about getting only $1 billion in profit when the projected was $2 billion. What is extra $1 billion dollar will do? Make the employees of the company more happy because they might get good bonus? I don't know.  

Anyhow, I am fine with 5 orders per day and growing my business to a point where I am able to work on something I am passionate about every day. Even if we don't hit the billion dollar market cap, we are still able to provide a quality service to our users and that to my mind is the most important factor of a successful business.

I want to be happy with my creation and sustain a good lifestyle for me and the people around me.