Play to win, not to play

If you feel something is a "cheap move" in entrepreneurship, think again...

I love this post by an ex-professional Street Fighter player David Sirlin, titled Introducing… The Scrub. He talks about the “purist/elitist” trap that some players fall into:

A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win… In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap… the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules.

…The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. That is true by definition of playing to win. The game knows no rules of “honor” or of “cheapness.” The game only knows winning and losing… A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.”

The scrub has still more crutches. He talks a great deal about “skill” and how he has skill whereas other players—very much including the ones who beat him flat out—do not have skill. The confusion here is what “skill” actually is. In Street Fighter, scrubs often cling to combos as a measure of skill.

Now, doesn’t that sound familiar when it comes to the indie hacking scene? There’s always some indies who behave like scrubs. You can tell by the self-imposed rules they use to judge others by:

“It’s just an AI wrapper.”
“My framework is better than yours.”
“That’s bad code.”
“He’s successful because of a huge following.”
“You’re just lucky.”
“This won’t scale.”
“If your product is good, you won’t need marketing.”
“Skill issue.”

Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam.

It’s usually just jealousy or bitterness, I feel. Usually folks who had never shipped a product, ran a business, or tried but failed. Or folks who’s so self-identified with certain skills or vocations. On social media, people resort to moralistic stances to artificially prop up their ego and self-worth. They can’t win by the normal rules, so they make up their own to make themselves feel better.

But sometimes it’s just poor thinking, or holding preconceived assumptions about how something should be done.

Like how I used to think AI wrappers are silly. It’s not sustainable as a business. It’s just jumping on the bandwagon. It’s just a simple UI on top of a third party API. It’s a waste of time before OpenAI will sherlock your app by introducing a native feature in ChatGPT. Nobody would buy it. It’ll never be a sound business.

I had a million reasons why it wouldn’t work, even though I never built one.

But worked it did, for many. Some made tens of thousands, some made hundreds. Maybe it’s not a long term business if it’s just a simple UI wrapper. But who’s to say a short term business is any less worth doing than a long term one? Make a quick buck on an hyped opportunity, and then move on to do other things. Money is money is money even if just $10 from a weekend lemonade stand.

Of course, caveat is: Don’t do unethical things. Do no harm. Don’t be evil.

But whatever you consider a cheap move, try to reflect a bit where that comes from, if there’s any sound basis. Oftentimes, it doesn’t.

Don’t be a scrub. Play to win.

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