Ignore them.

A tech blogger, discussing "Why I'm Doing It All Wrong", questions both the conventional wisdom of never turning down opportunities and faddish tech startup bromides like, "Swing for the fences!" He finds much of such advice short-sighted, or at least ill-suited to his personal situation, and explains his own approach to success.

Pursuing my interests regardless of what anyone says has worked well for me. I'm naturally interested in business. I'm naturally interested in coding and design. I'm naturally interested in writing.

And so my goal is this: to be able to do those things sustainably, for the rest of my life.

That, in a nutshell, is why I do this every day.

Now let's get back to homeruns. Homeruns by definition aren't sustainable. They're not predictable. Sometimes you hit one, but most of the time you don't. That part of things is mostly out of your control.

Because it's out of my control and not sustainable, I'm not focused on it. For that matter I'm not interested in anything that's not sustainable.

For example, I don't think that the current funding environment is sustainable. Right now you can go out and get money for an idea in a way that you won't be able to in 3 years. Funding can't be counted on and so I'm not concentrated on it.

So what can be counted on?

Fundamentals.

Fundamentals don't go out of style. They are by definition sustainable. Every successful business follows from solid fundamentals. Customers, money, funding. And that's what I'm concentrated on.

What Dan Shipper is not doing is saying he'll never "go for broke", only that the time isn't right for him to do so, and that there's much more to long-term success than "home runs".

"I have a feeling", as he says, that he will do very well, and I think that others will find his thoughts on how to achieve success both encouraging, as I did, and helpful.

-- CAV