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Ask HN: Are you a serial entrepreneur? What is your experience? Any advice?
Hi, my first HN submit here :)
According to businessdictionary.com, a serial entrepreneur is:
"An entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses. As opposed to a typical entrepreneur, who will often come up with an idea, start the company, and then see it through and play an important role in the day to day functioning of the new company, a serial entrepreneur will often come up with the idea and get things started, but then give responsibility to someone else and move on to a new idea and a new venture. This can be a good thing if the individual has lots of unique ideas and is the best one suited to get each one started, but can be a bad thing if the individual stops putting time into a company that needs his or her help, in order to try to move forward with a new idea that may or may not succeed."
I totally identify with this definition, although I have not managed to get any of my ideas to take off (this is another story). I know I could not dedicate myself for life to work on the same idea / product because my head does not stop having new product ideas and what I enjoy the most is the definition of the product and the development of the first versions.
My ideal job would be this: to develop new ideas from scratch, turn them into viable startups and hire people or sell them so that they continue to develop on their own.
What is your experience as a serial entrepreneur?
- herbst 9y agoI always assumed one day I will just turn lazy enough to stay at one thing, not sure how true this will turn out to be. However I too never stop thinking about new stuff, and after years of fails I just optimized a workflow that works for me to not waste a lot of time on unprofitable ideas. Usually when something works I get offers pretty soon, I never thought about keeping projects once I feel 'done' with them. It seems logical that there are people who prefer to run a working business and that others rather start new ones.
- juljimm 9y agoI think it isn't a matter of lazyness, it's just the way our "serial entrepreneur brain" works :) You pointed out one of the most important things about a serial entrepreneur: "not waste a lot of time on unprofitable ideas". Does that workflow you mentioned worked for you is something like lean startup metodology or you follow a different approach?
- herbst 9y agoYou might be right :) It's not a planned out workflow. Essentially what I do is thinking ideas dead and scoping them down. If I have a idea I think is great I first try to find reasons it sucks for weeks or months and if it survives that phase I scope it down to something which business logic I can build within a week.