I have this dream to build a unicorn, to create a business from an idea sketched on a wrinkled napkin and grow it to a billion dollar valuation. As I look at business ideas, even things like restaurants, I always ask myself: “can it scale?”

Recently I’ve spoken with three highly talented people who are independently building businesses right now. One of them has a $100M revenue goal. The other two are building small businesses.  As far as I can tell, they have no desire to create unicorns.  Instead, they are looking to grow revenue streams that diversify their income and provide a stable path to retirement. This sounds comfortable, but it is antithetical to building a unicorn.  That doesn’t mean it is wrong, it’s just a different goal than I would chose.

In his book “Lost And Founder – A Painfully Honest Field Guide To The Start-Up World,” Rand Fishkin devotes all of his second chapter to the choice between offering services vs. products.  Everything about the two business models is different: financials, staffing, marketing…  On balance, a products company can scale better and will likely have a higher valuation, if it survives. A services company, by contrast, has a 5X better chance of surviving!

Going back to those two entrepreneurs with small business aspirations, they are both building services businesses.  They have found defendable niches where they can differentiate, have the needed networks, and are willing to do the work.  They very well could be successful, however, it’s unlikely they will grow unicorns.

Stability vs. growth, survivability vs. scale – everyone needs to make personal choices. What do you value? I’m still going for the unicorn!