Small Bets for Parents
Edition 12: Make small bets a reality with small kids in the house
Taking the entrepreneurial path seemed demanding with a full-time job before starting a family. It’s more so now with a baby in the house.
Fortunately, I came across Daniel Vassallo’s course, A Portfolio of Small Bets, which is helping me in that endeavor. It’s filled with ideas that have helped me to think about the entrepreneurial path differently.
The challenge is how to incorporate these ideas as a parent. I’m a stay-at-home mom to my ten-month-old son, Hayden. I only have slices of time during the day to get something done.
Although taking the entrepreneurial path as a parent isn’t easy. The tradeoff is worth it. I want to work on my terms, so I have the freedom to spend tons of time with my family—my main motivation.
In this newsletter, I’ll share four ideas that stand out to me from Vassallo’s course and how to apply them as parents.
1. A Portfolio of Small Bets
You can put all of your eggs into one basket. Or you can create a portfolio of small bets, which Vassallo suggests. The idea is to have a number of bets. Some are predictable and stable, like a freelancing gig. Others are risky and unpredictable, such as an informational product, but have the potential for big gains.
Consider Vassallo’s example:
Freelancing provides predictable income. An information product is volatile, though it has the potential for a high return on investment. And a SaaS product may take time to generate money. It’s a portfolio of small bets.
This framework was a lightbulb moment for me.
Not only do I want multiple streams of income. But these streams of income should also be a mix of predictable activities (which provides peace of mind) and unpredictable ones (which have the potential to generate big returns).
This idea means more to me now as a parent than ever.
It’s not just about me anymore; I’ve got a family to think about. So I can’t just rely on one thing, which I’ve done in the past. Because what if this one thing fails? That’s also happened to me, and I’ve lost a lot of time and money in the process.
This doesn't mean stop taking chances. Rather, it’s about combining a potentially risky idea with potentially stable ones into your portfolio of side projects.
For me, this means taking a step back to consider the big picture before pursuing a small bet. I want to identify the type of small bet I’m considering and determine whether it’s worthwhile to add to my portfolio.
I do this by getting feedback from my husband on a small bet idea. Taking a few minutes of quiet time to think—while Hayden is sleeping or napping—is also beneficial. And there’s the Discord community, which is included in Vassallo’s course, that’s useful to vet ideas.
2. Asset Stack
“Start with what you know,” is advice that we’ve heard before. But I like Vassallo’s twist on it: take stock of your assets, which include your skills, interests, knowledge, credentials, connections, and reputation, and stack them together to create a unique combination.
Be sure to add “parenting” to your asset stack. (After all, parenting is a skill!) Then, try to combine parenting with something else.
That’s what I did with my Entrepreneurial Parent newsletter. I’m running down the entrepreneurial path, and have launched several small bets; I’m also a parent.
Combining entrepreneurship and parenting seemed like an interesting intersection to explore, and one I thought others would benefit from as well. After all, my entrepreneurial strategy is very different now that I’m a parent with a ten-month-old in the house. So I use this newsletter to share my thoughts and practical ideas for making it as a parent-entrepreneur.
As you think about your asset stack, you should also use your children as inspiration. There may be an interesting combination to consider.
This, too, happened to me.
I was a novice in the kitchen pre-baby. Not anymore. My husband and I have been making Hayden’s purées since he started solids. Although I’m far from an expert, I know a lot more about cooking—in particular making purées for babies. So a small bet around parenting, food, and babies may be in the works soon.
3. Bias for Survival
What if you spend a year working on a project and no one buys it?
It’s a good question to think about before starting a small bet. Unfortunately, it’s a question my husband, Paul, and I failed to ask when we decided to create a skill-building planner. We had about a handful of sales after working on it for over a year and spending $6,000.
We would have been better off taking inspiration from preppers, or survivalists, which Vassallo talks about in his course.
Preppers proactively prepare for emergencies. These people think of the downside first, such as a natural disaster, and prepare for it. Then, they continue on with their lives. If such an event were to happen, then they’re ready.
I find it useful to apply the prepper mindset to a small bet to determine if it’s a viable option. A prepper mindset would’ve caused us to think about the worst-case scenario of our planner: no sales and a drain of time and money. A situation like this can be avoided by being prepared: thinking of the downside first.
As a parent, this means taking time to think and plan, which is hard. I have such little time to “do.” So it’s tempting to skip or rush the planning process. I often have to reign myself back in and think about the end game.
But it’s worth it.
Doing so prepares me for what’s to come and gives me peace of mind. It also helps me decide whether to take on a project. And with little free time on my hands, I can only afford to put time and effort into projects that matter and have a chance of making it.
4. Lifestyle Design
Being a parent will teach you many things, including what your priorities are. Once Hayden was born, my priorities became clear real quick. I quit my job as a technical writer at a software company, and scaled back tremendously on writing and programming projects so I could put my family first.
Instead of designing my life around work and a career, I’m designing my life around my family. Lifestyle design is another topic discussed in Vassallo’s course. And it’s the reason why the entrepreneurial path is so appealing to me. I want to cultivate the life I want on my terms, though it’s not been easy—especially as a full-time parent.
That’s what inspired me to start this newsletter. It’s a small bet. We’ll see where it goes. In the meantime, many of us are trying to make it work as parents and entrepreneurs. My newsletter aims to help make this a reality by providing practical ideas to try, from one parent to another.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
-Winston Churchill
Thank you for reading! Feel free to reply to this email and let me know what you think.
-Amy
I love your perspective about this Amy. Great idea to consider being a parent as an asset. We usually see it as a hurdle in a professional setting, but as you mention there are also many benefits. Thank you for sharing this! :)