Reaching the $5 Million Club Takes an Open Mind

Create opportunities for yourself by being bold:

One might think that good fortune would play a role, but even luck is largely a matter of one’s own making. Psychologist Richard Wiseman has found that people who describe themselves as lucky share common habits that account for their success: They’re friendly and fond of new experiences, traits that put them on a collision course with new opportunities. In addition, “lucky” folks simply have higher expectations of success — they’re too pigheadedly optimistic to heed the long odds and call it quits.

Start a business, make something people want, and puts lots of work into it:

The vast majority — 80% — either started their own business or worked for a small company that saw explosive growth. And almost all of them made their fortune in a big lump sum after many years of effort.

…rich folks often make their fortunes after they make up their minds to solve a problem or do something better than it’s been done before.

Couldn’t have said it better:

Being rich means freedom: to spend your time as you please, to pursue your real interests and to take a chance without courting utter ruin. Paradoxically, the road to riches often means acting as if you already have that freedom.

Let’s see what else

mibbit – cool, online IRC application – very impressed

10 Tips for Budding Web Programmers – and you’ll note that this link now has a title associaeted with it

How to Get Startup Ideas – I thought this was pretty interesting. He says that if you want to have a great startup idea you should move to the bay area because you’ll have a lot of conversations with a lot of smart people and you’ll stumble upon great ideas by accident. Without geeky conversations, its not impossible, but its more difficult.

Relating to ideas… I found out earlier this week that an idea I had for a startup has already been done. In fact it has been done multiple times and a large portion of the design and functionality that I had planned for it have already been implemented. The one site, which has been up for a few months, has been doing well judging based on the few thousand users they have (which could be a misleading stat). I have mixed feelings: part of me says, “Damn, wish I had started working on it first” and the other says “Hey, it actually is a good idea because someone else is making it work.” The other, more ambitious side of me says “These sites are missing a lot of important functionality. Go get ’em.” I might do that. Or I might not — part of me wants to find a large, untouched market. I want a BIG idea. Unfortunately, wanting is easy; doing is hard.