Conventional wisdom suggests that quality trumps quantity. I imagine it is an MO that ‘makes sense’: identify a few high value targets, focus the scare resource of time and energy on them and (hopefully) maximize the potential reward.

Louisa May Alcott probably spoke for everyone when she had Amy say in ‘Little Women’: 

You don’t need scores of suitors. You need only one… if he’s the right one

The only snag in that little argument is that this is based on the implicit assumption that one knows in quite precise terms what/who the One is; and that this definition is pretty much static. In real life, I suspect that the who/ what is continuously evolving, such that truly knowing what that entails is an iterative process. One then, must of necessity, date in quantity to gain a better understanding of the ‘market’.

Update: If the ‘Science’ is to be believed, twelve is the number… Clearly I have a lot of catching up to do.