Couldn't agree more. I've thought about this a lot, how the current mindset is creating a bunch of people who see the end state as "a unicorn" and nothing else is good enough. Anything else is "failure".
Me, I'd be happy if I could find a little niche to fill, and if it could pay me a very comfortable wage that allowed me to retire in 5 or so years. I'm 38 now - half a million a year for a couple of years, then sell whatever it is for another couple of million, that'll do me very nicely thank you very much.
Does that sound like a lifestyle business? Damn right. That's exactly what I want. (I'm in Australia, BTW - the whole Silicon Valley, work 23 hours a day, all that crap - no thanks. I value my life and my friends at way more than a billion dollars.)
Half a million a year in profits / wages is definitely a bit beyond lifestyle business. In wages it's possible top of field in something that really matters to a large enterprise. In profit, it's a whole lot of work in a very specific and high value area.
Yep, I saw it take about 15 years trying and succeeding to build a web hosting business before the owner / founder was getting near that for themself. Software can be faster, but that's still extremely lucky and/or lots of hard work.
Me, I'd be happy if I could find a little niche to fill, and if it could pay me a very comfortable wage that allowed me to retire in 5 or so years. I'm 38 now - half a million a year for a couple of years, then sell whatever it is for another couple of million, that'll do me very nicely thank you very much.
Does that sound like a lifestyle business? Damn right. That's exactly what I want. (I'm in Australia, BTW - the whole Silicon Valley, work 23 hours a day, all that crap - no thanks. I value my life and my friends at way more than a billion dollars.)