#17 — How do you decide what's next?

“What’s next?”

We all probably spend time on that question. Whether it’s thinking about the next role, the next company, the next idea, or the next project.

I have personal bias on this because I’ve started to think about if/when/how I want to start another company. Might be 1 year. Might be 10. But the thoughts are rolling around. Reply if you are in a similar place — I’d love to trade notes.

The most recent interviews I posted with Joe Heitzeberg (CEO at Crowd Cow) and Juliana Stancampiano (CEO at Oxygen) were two very different models but had some common threads.

In both cases they swung at a “fat pitch” as Charlie Munger preaches:

“We have this investment discipline of waiting for a pat pitch. […] Our game is to recognize a big idea when it comes along, when one doesn’t come along very often. Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.” (Poor Charlie’s Almanac, pg. 101)

This showed up in both stories…

Joe had a robust spreadsheet of ideas. He spent a couple years testing different ideas. Then Crowd Cow came through serendipity and broke his spreadsheet. When he saw the demand he went hard.

Juliana wasn’t trying to start a company. She was happy running a business unit within her company. But then the company got in trouble. She saw an opportunity where others didn’t. And she found a way to buy the business out of bankruptcy

Both are working well today.

Who else has good stories or frameworks for deciding what’s next?