Great post!

Another benefit, I find, of micro opportunities is that they provide momentum or "small wins", which can help to alleviate the frustration that often sets in when building critical path features, which almost always take longer than you think and can sap excitement.

Fantastic post, and this is something I constantly struggle with. I spend way too much time in my head, planning out the "perfect" strategy, and missing lots of little opportunities along the way. I worry too much that things aren't scalable, and in doing so miss the unscalable things along the way that would get hundreds or thousands of new eyeballs on the project. I'm doing better, but it's refreshing to hear that someone who was like this was able to change.

I loved this post. Absolutely loved it.

Gabriel, I'm interested to know how responding to micro opportunities affect your working schedule? That is: how do you deal with and respond to these kinds of events, and still get work done?

The fact that it's just you doing all this amazes me. And I can't help but think - to another person, these 'micro opportunities' may seem like 'distractions'.

I had a similar micro opportunity experience that has been invaluable. Lyle Fong the CEO of Lithium came to the University of AZ my senior year. I reached out to him and got his card. Most students did not even talk to him personally. Over the next few years while launching my startup I emailed Lyle about my progress. This small little opportunity has evolved into Lyle becoming a great friend and mentor. You never know how a small opportunity will grow into something much bigger!

I miss a lot of opportunities for micro-promotion. Actually, that's the story of my life. Small things can really add up (thankfully, part of my life story does reflect this).

A good example that reinforces this entire article is how I just found out about duck.co - I'll be participating just because of how much I like the domain name!

This is consistent with Saras Sarasvathy's "effectual reasoning model" for expert entrepreneurs. See her paper "What Makes Entreprenurs Entrepreneurial" at http://www.effectuation.org/ftp/effectua.pdf for a good introduction.

Lovely post! I love the coined word "micro opportunities"! It is also well aligned with the philosophy of trying and being close to as many opportunities as you can so you increase your chances of being "lucky". Something that I need to constantly working on :)

"Over the years I've moved completely in the other direction, which is also reflected in my shift from INTP to INTJ"

Seriously? You don't just change types. It's more likely that he really is an INTJ and initially tested as an INTP for whatever reason. Or he is really an INTP and decided that INTJs are "better" and made an effort to test as one.