I was going to say it might be worth looking for projects that have been validated by sales and then looking to grow them both with the team and capital.
Having something like a space with a couple ideas/ startups in it that have already been validated would lower your risk and expose you to more opportunities while growing the business. I assume.
If they don't have enough interest (meaning knowledge) in any market to have lots of ideas already, how will they know how to vet potential investments?
What a garbage idea -- you don't want to move into venture capital; the risks vs (potential) rewards are out of touch with reality. The chances of ending up achieving good returns as a VC are slim (read: it's really really hard. Given the odds and effort required, I don't understand why anyone even tries).
That said, PE has plenty of opportunities within tech though. Which is essentially what you described.
Maybe these people are well off because the developed the habit of saving over a lifetime and they are simply continuing the habit. If they were spenders, they wouldn't have the reserves to speak of.
It might not be fear but simply a practical habit that there is no real reason for them to break.
Keep in mind many people will have purchased items or experiences they desire throughout their life, rather than simply waiting for retirement.
I enjoyed this talk and took away something slightly different to others on the talk...
For me, what was clear is that they listened to feedback and took action relatively quickly. I remember when they first launched the Blackberry version and emailing the team about bugs - I think I got a response the following day and they clearly implemented something by the following release.
It wasn't about being devoted to a vision of a particular product they were passionate about. They saw a market/ problem and solved it using their technical ability.
Yes, they had a lot of luck on their side - being in the market early enough to gain the visibility. Also, people naturally promoted the app so they didn't need to spend much on marketing. Other apps that came after it, weren't so lucky. Being well connected and having cash to provide initial runway probably made this easier for him than it would be for most but I think it's fair to say he built up his rep at Yahoo - which probably helped when he needed to raise cash.
I don't have a SAAS app at the moment but I have had success with... Bots, influencers and ads.
Lots of people seem to think ads don't work here but, I believe it is a matter of targeting and your funnel.
I think the main issues people have when it comes to ads is they poorly execute on...
Targeting - have no idea who will actually want the product and target too broadly with a useless message or, in many cases no message at all.
When people here talk about "doing stuff that doesn't scale", what they are often doing is selling the idea before someone see's the site or product for example. Like a tweet to someone looking for a new notes app - you will normally @ them with a feature or solution right, equally with a forum post - once you know they have the problem. Do the same with your ad & targeting.
Poor sales effort - In an effort to make the page look good, people often try to have as little text as possible. In my experience, the more you say the better because you eventually touch on points the lead cares about. You simply need to make it engaging. This can be done well with a screen capture you record on your computer if you really want to have a page with minimal copy. (But test lots of copy either way)
Price/ product - most people are making stuff people don't care about and won't be interesting enough to part with money for. Might not be nice to read but in many cases, it's true.
I really like Notion...
https://www.notion.so/