Seems like a mediocre success story
Hey, glad you’re here. Maybe you found me from Medium, which is great! This newsletter is mostly about online writing, creativity, culture, productivity, and the space between. Let’s go:
I couldn’t help but grimace slightly when I saw this article come my way:
Mediocre Success is Worse Than Outright Failure.
Wow.
I am happily married. I graduated from college. I have two children. I pay my bills (usually) on time. I make an okay amount of money, maybe better than okay depending on who you’re asking.
I am by definition a privileged, “mediocre success.”
All that’s a failure? Wow.
It turns out that the article is not at all about life’s goals, but that of a startup founder who is specifically talking about how his product needs to be all in or all out on certain marketing channels.
Like how getting a few results from one thing but not amazing results could add too much noise to your results and true outcomes.
Phew. I guess?
Those with money and those without
Because of a weird career arc, I've been in rooms and Zoom calls with startup founders like the author of that piece. Individuals who've secured millions of dollars for their software ventures.
Some of these projects have been highly successful, while others have fared moderately or failed completely, but large sums of money changed hands.
On the other hand, I've interacted with people who may never see a million dollars in their lives, yet they pour their creativity into music, writing, and art projects while working in grocery stores or as servers in restaurants.
They hope for people to buy their $15 book or attend their show, even if it's just once, without any recurring subscriptions. This group deals with much smaller financial transactions, but they strive for their dreams.
Who’s a success? The ones who raised millions but lost it all or the ones who scrapped from the bottom and sold a few thousand?
Then there are lifestyle businesses
Now get this: In the startup world, there’s a set of businesses that are called “lifestyle businesses.”
What does that mean?
That local restauranteur down the block that can only afford one location? Lifestyle business.
Your city concrete factory? Lifestyle business.
That farm? Lifestyle business.
Your side hustle turned full-time thing? Lifestyle business.
You know, the mediocre successes. People just making it.
Even many software companies and digital apps are “lifestyle businesses” — it means essentially that won’t give you a 10x return on your investment.
In some cases, “lifestyle businesses” are exactly what people are striving for. To own their own company, to be their own boss, to make strategic decisions. That’s (usually) the American dream. And yet—mediocre success?
What the 10x’ers don’t tell you
Many of those lifestyle businesses are profitable.
For the English majors in the back, (hey, that’s me!) it means that the business takes in more money than it spends.
Being profitable is a crazy thought for a lot of venture-backed companies. They are based on venture capital investments, where the investors who happened to make a lot of money at one place then try to make a lot of money on something else.
Like good gamblers, the wins cover the losses.
Of course, people have made a lot of money doing these type of investments and some companies really do 10x the returns. It’s just a lot harder than building a lifestyle business.
You know, mediocre success is much easier because it’s, uh, mediocre. Not as hard, at least on paper.
But tell that to the people making their business work each day. It’s hard. Maybe not the hardest ever. It’s a living.
Mediocre success makes a living.
Side note: One book (perhaps the only?) that I’ve read that threaded the needle of the absurdity of some of these venture and startup expectations is Anna Weiner’s Uncanny Valley. It’s a memoir of the Bay Area and she works for a few startups that do make it, including Stripe — a large payments processor. Her act in the book is to decouple and anonymize all of the players, making it more of a cautionary tale than anything that would be taught in business school. The writing uses a careful eye at what the startups are trying to do, just from an existential POV, rather than blindly celebrating them as something that should be emulated. Highly recommended. Read a review from The Atlantic.
Appreciating Mediocrity as Your Ambition
I’ve been following the trial of that crypto guy Sam Bankman-Fried and the problems/scams with his crypto exchange, FTX. I’m also reading this book called “Number Go Up” by Zeke Faux, which is also about FTX and other cryptocurrencies that had the bottom fall out.
Beyond the basic “what happened here?” I’m more interested in just how many problems that large sums of money bring. Yes, there are studies that say more money brings happiness, but at a certain point it may not matter anymore.
Being in New York City now has amplified all of the income gaps for me and I can’t help but return to a certain Bible verse from 1 Thessalonians:
“…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
Ambition for a quiet life? Really?
You mean not having a bunch of investors expect 10x returns?
You mean not being accused of scamming a bunch of people?
You mean being nicely respected by a few, not the masses?
You mean scoring a few wins here and there as you mind your own business, but not outright succeeding or failing?
Seems like a mediocre success story.
More Things:
Started reading “Chronic City” by Jonathan Lethem. I don’t think I’ve fully ever read one of his books, they always seemed slightly off from what I wanted. This one is about an old rock critic and a struggling actor and so far I’ve liked it. Very New York, too, of course.
The aforementioned “Number Go Up.” To be honest, I was more interested in the Michael Lewis book on FTX but it’s been getting hammered in the reviews, and I heard a good interview with Zeke so I went with his.
Can’t remember if I mentioned this last week, but I re-read 300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso. I’ll collect a few of her quotes and post them. So good. I love novels/books/essays like that.
Picked up “Wanting” by Luke Burgis and I’ve read a few chapters. It’s about the idea of mimetic desire, or essentially wanting things because other people want them. Yes, you have to fight that to be content as a mediocre success. More on this one to come as I get further in.
This story about the Nashoba County Fair in Mississippi is well done, but not exceptional. What was exceptional is that I had never heard of this annual fair pilgrimage until now despite living in 2 states that bordered Mississippi. Rickety fair sheds? It’s like the Delta Burning Man.
I like (trying) to generate 10 article/headlines/story ideas per day. At Medium.
Last Thing
"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." — Winston S. Churchill
Keep going,
-Josh Spilker
I love that Churchill quote. I recently read the last volume of the William Manchester/Paul reid biography of Churchill--it took a month because it's long but also because it's so richly detailed you want to savor every page.