[ryancarson]

I'm lucky that I could refine my skills through those first three businesses. If Treehouse was my first big idea, I'd have no choice. I'd just have to do the best I could.

> What changed when you did treehouse vs those other smaller businesses? Was it the fact that you didn't need to worry about money in the short-term anymore (because of those small exits), or something else?

I didn't make quite enough from those exits to be financially independent, so I still need to make Treehouse work from a money perspective personally.

The simple thing that changed was the scope of the idea. It was world-changing scale - millions of potential lives affected.

[porter]

What advice do you have for founders working on non world-changing ideas, but rather ideas more like your first 3 small ideas?

[ryancarson]

Just keep doing the best you can. If you don't have what appears to be a world-changing idea right now, you still are providing value by creating jobs and offering value to your customers. I didn't know I was going to create Treehouse until it happened. Hindsight is always 20-20.

[porter]

I'm curious, have you ever thought about why building a startup with more revenues and more "impact" seems to matter more than building smaller companies? I know this is a bit philosophical, but I'd be interested in hearing how you think about this.

[ryancarson]

It seems like I have some sort of in-built desire to do something that 'matters'. The only way I have to measure this is 'number of lives changed'.