Pocket Aces

So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness. 
-Sidney Poitier

Whether this venture makes it or not, we know that it will in large part be to random chance as we are both big fans of Taleb.  That does not mean that luck won’t favor the prepared, but we go into these ventures knowing that each is likely to fail.  This is the beauty of a free market with low barriers to entry.  Lots of ideas coming to the market for it to decide which idea is best and to reward the winners.  We are smart enough (from being fans of James Surowiecki) to know that we are dumb enough to take on great risk of wasted sweat equity to attempt each of these ventures.

I give each of our ideas a (random swag) 15% chance of becoming something of value that allows us to quit our day jobs and work on this full time.  I do think that in general our ideas are well thought out and that we come to them after some deliberate thought about what could work to solve the current problems in the market place.  

The point of this post is really to let you know that we are not afraid to fail.  We know that it is likely that we will fail many, many times.  However, we will do it on our terms.  We will fail with dignity, forthrightness and without attempt to hide our failures.  Most importantly though we will fail while having a great time.  We are dedicated to making work not seem like work, so that even when we are trying our hardest we remember to laugh and have a good time.  Should we succeed, all the better.  I do think we are very creative, intelligent, capable, rational, and dedicated.  These are great attributes for those starting as entrepreneurs.  Hopefully random chance will favor us.  

I think our position can best be described in poker terms.  Pocket Aces are only 28% to win a hand against a table of nine pre-flop.  That’s where we’re at right now, we just want enough luck to get through the river without folding or losing all of our chips.