Lifestyle business beats a startup, until it doesn't. I'm the example. Ran a category leading website for years until I was demolished by a fully focused bad ass team and thrown out of my leadership position. Ultimately, I was forced to sell out at a much lower valuation than I'd have if I were totally focused.
It could vary on niche and industry. But one can't generalize it one way or the other.
If you have a great position in a big sector and you don't go for the kill, someone else will and your lifestyle business would be likely chewed up by competition. If it's a business with an intrinsic moat(think a retail store in small tourist town), it's likely to sustain.
Take frequent breaks while running a bad ass startup, but don't for a while think that you can let the ball drop.
I think lifestyle businesses (like Mobile Jazz) should be more service focused (although they seem to have a few products). That way you get work, do it and get paid. No hassle of reaching the top and maintaining the lead.
+1 this is exactly how we did it. Not that any of that was planned, but it worked out quite well for us. Although now we're struggling with that every business is struggling that makes the switch from services to products: the need to put more resources on the product to facilitate growth while the service clients also have their needs. But we're getting there, step by step. The good thing about being a profitable lifestyle business is that we're in no rush.
Your new products seem to be SaaS applications. How do you guys plan to support the operations on a day to day basis? Will there be rotating rosters for who needs to provide devops support for a given week/month? Because I presume that would require reliable internet wherever you're working from at that time.
I'm one of the rosters that does devops for the SaaS products. What's important is to plan ahead any time you will be off so any co-worker can be there when you are not there. It's very strange that all devops guys are out at the same time. In case of a retreat we always look for reliable internet connection and we always bring our computers with us.
I was thinking the same thing -- if you don't go for the kill, but someone else does, they'll likely end up deciding your fate for you. That doesn't exactly "optimize for happiness".
OTOH, what would you do with that valuation delta that working yourself to the bone would hopefully bring? Would it adequately compensate you for missing the children's birthdays or Paris with your SO?
