Great post. There's a "swing for the fences" mentality in the SV / startup community that I think has driven a lot of potential talent away from entrepreneurship in general.

The idea that entrepreneurship requires immense sacrifice to do well, or to be "worth doing at all" presupposes a set of romantic values that just don't map well to the relative size and frequency of market opportunities.

My Mac app nets me between $100-200 per month, every month, for noise-floor incremental time commitment. For anyone obsessed with becoming a Successful Entrepreneur, that's a 'how dare you even mention it' achievement. But you would be AMAZED at how an extra $100-200/month can improve a man's happiness at the end of the day. It's like an anti-aliasing algorithm for all those little bullshit expenses that, in aggregate, can lead to non-trivial stress.

If that $100/month (and the feeling of delivering value to direct customers) makes me 5% calmer and happier while I'm hanging out with my wife and son at night, it's an enormous win.