Is It Wise To Start Multiple Startups At Once?

Answer 1

A natural entrepreneur is wired to always look for opportunities. The typical business leader recognizes a market gap, builds a resolution, and works toward creating one business after another. That said, chronic entrepreneurs are always on the lookout to launch the next big thing in their own little way. Business people could be taking care of two, three, maybe even five small businesses at once. Now, is this advisable? A quick answer would be no.

When you run a startup in its early stages, a workweek could involve several things but very little of anything in particular. At this incredibly uncertain stage of building a brand, you work within your means and mean to make it work. In other words, the road to startup success is never guaranteed.

Your role as a startup CEO is to keep finding valuable market insights that draw you closer to the crucial responsibility of proving you have a business in the first place. Now imagine doing this for each of your existing startups simultaneously.

Building a business is already a venture that’s filled with a lot of risks and uncertainty. A startup is even scarier in that you’re introducing an entirely new brand altogether. While it isn’t impossible to handle multiple business ventures at once, doing so can result in a mediocre startup performance for each of your ventures. Clearly, this isn’t something you should aspire for. When you’re determined to launch a startup, you must expect nothing but the best. The difference between mediocre and extraordinary can be astronomical.

Despite that, successful chronic entrepreneurs are real. In fact, you can even credit many of them for some of today’s most popular companies. Here are a few crucial tips you can consider when starting multiple startups altogether.

Establish Your Brand Before Anything Else

In 1998, Elon Musk launched PayPal. In 2002, he launched SpaceX. In 2004, he worked on Tesla, and in 2015, co-founded OpenAL. Furthermore, Jack Dorsey spearheads Square and Twitter today. He launched Square in 2009, and Twitter 3 years prior.

The stellar business journeys of Musk and Dorsey prove the cruciality of focus in the beginning phases of a startup. If you want to found multiple businesses, prove one brand at a time. Soon enough, you’ll be managing several ones simultaneously. After all, registering businesses today isn’t all that challenging anymore, and printing out business cards with the letters C.E.O written on them is just as easy. Establish a brand before anything else.

Build Startups That Complement One Another

Being able to establish a successful brand of a startup is a huge deal. Reaping financial rewards on top of positive customer reviews can be fulfilling. If you get there and are interested in launching another venture, consider thinking of a startup that complements your first one. That way, you’re not just building a new brand, you’re fortifying your existing business as well. In the same way, you’re also maximizing your current business’ resources by leveraging your partnerships and present market.

The experience you will have gained from building your first business will also be able to help you find the perfect opportunities and will teach you to execute ideas the right way. We all learn from our mistakes. What better way to put into practice the knowledge we acquire than by supporting our existing business with another business venture?

For example, if you run a well-performing pastry shop, it’d make sense for you to consider opening an e-commerce business that sells cake ingredients and baking goods. Existing data tells us that serial business leaders who launch ventures that complement and overlap each other have higher chances of performing well compared to CEOs whose businesses have nothing to do with each other.

Delegate Key Tasks Only The Best People

Really, this idea isn’t new. If you want to run multiple businesses all at once, let alone build a startup from scratch, you will need all the help, validation, and support from people you can trust the most. Employing creative business leaders is vital in sustaining several ventures simultaneously. Your ability to delegate tasks to the right people can never be undermined.

Your startup may effectively present its solution upon launching your idea, but it can take several years before you can establish a credible spot in your industry. So much so, that we’ve seen too many startups reach IPO status, but still fall short.

Simply put, employing the right people and delegating them the right tasks isn’t enough. You’re going to need to make sure that your ship is sailing the right direction. If you don’t have the experience nor the time to do so, you can never go wrong with seeking help with established business consultants. And although this may sound like an expensive ordeal if you’re cash-strapped, remember that hiring the wrong people can cost you more when you’re already taking off.