I feel like I am a bit misdirected. I’m after high leverage, I’m after products that hey I wanna make software, content, or physical products so that I can just make it once and make a lot of money and stuff like that. You know what I mean? But all the money I have made in my life has come from service, be it my job or freelance writing gig.

Actually I am chasing the product dream because it sounds better. Is product really feasible for me? I don’t know. Let’s see. And even the product dream I’m chasing is because, hey, I can have terminal value that way, and I can exit. It sounds low commitment from me right from the get-go.

But if I actually look at the data and the anecdotes around me, products take months to develop. They take months of cash burn to even get into the hands of the right people. They take months to break even. Nothing about it is low effort, low intensity, or quick. Product today does not mean profit today. That is simply true for the majority of products. Product means a lot of revenue and potential exit in the long future. That means when you choose a product, you sign up for a voluntary period of no profit and emotional turbulence.

On the other hand, services are instantly profitable. You might lower your margin at the start of the game, but still you are profitable. The moment the service is rendered, you get paid enough. Unlike products, where product development, distribution, and break-even take time, each service rendered is cash flow positive instantly.

I think this is the residual in my head that is still from my trading days, that hey, just take a lot of trades, one of them will workout big. The lottery ticket thinking. That residual is corrupting how I think about commerce and why I am so gravitated towards products. Products sound cool, products sound aspirational, but I must go towards what actually works for my context. Like in trading, at least there was some sense that hey, via high volume, I can win some low probability, high payoff trades. But products inherently are something that are low volume and low payoff in near term. Products actually balloon in scope, time required, and cost to develop them. At least in trading, there was a stop loss, but while developing a product, one more thing keeps piling up.

What claude is telling me : Accept that services are your actual business. Not your “for now” business. Not your fallback. Your actual business. Get better at them. Charge more. Get pickier about clients. Build that into something that actually pays well and doesn’t drain you. Every hour you spend on services generates revenue. Every hour you spend building a product is a bet that someday it might generate revenue. once you stop fighting what actually works, you can optimize it. Better clients. Higher rates. More specialized positioning. Maybe productized services where you do the same thing repeatedly but still get paid upfront. But all of that requires you to actually commit to services instead of constantly one foot out the door chasing the product mirage. The trading residual in your brain keeps whispering “but what if this product is the big winner?” And the answer is: even if it is, you’ll probably go broke before you find out.

Back to me

Well, I guess just the way in trading, the market can stay irrational for more than you can stay solvent. In commerce, the product can stay unprofitable for more than I can stay solvent. I gotta optimize for profit and staying solvent, so I should just pivot to services.