Founder Life · Focus · #ChipChats

Options in One Pile. Commitments in the Other.

August 19, 2026 · 2 min read

3am, and I was sitting with the fact that I own 60+ domains, ~30 LLCs, and a dozen websites.

Combined revenue: zero.

That number was wrong.

My daughter came to the office with me last week, and I handed her a legal pad to keep her busy. Ten minutes later it was full of ideas — one page, no entities.

I'm honestly not sure which of us is doing it right.

Here's what I've been sitting with:

Buying a domain and forming an LLC feels like starting a company. Sixty dollars, a few minutes, and you get a similar hit you get from actually building something. That's real, and it's worth watching for.

But when I looked closer, I realized I'd counted wrong. The businesses that actually run — distribution, residential & commercial services, sanitation, advisory — weren't in that number.

So I re-sorted the whole list with one question:

Is there a named human who has committed to this besides me?

Not interested. Not excited. Committed.

The list got short fast. And what was left wasn't a graveyard, it was a plan. A pharmacy practice with a PharmD to run it. A pension solution built with a lawyer who has spent a career in it. A real estate thesis a developer with 45 million square feet agreed to sit down and test.

More I am not ready to name yet.

Some went in a folder marked later. Later is a real place.

I spent over a decade on a few ideas before they worked, so I know what staying looks like. I also know the version of me that only holds one idea at a time doesn't exist.

So the goal isn't fewer ideas. It's honest labels. And proper attention.

Options in one pile. Commitments in the other. Then be relentless about the second pile — and stop apologizing for the first.

She doesn't sort yet. She just fills the page.

If you have a folder of ideas you swear you're getting to, which pile is it actually in?

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