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Ask HN: How many startups should an Entrepreneur run at the same time?

• swombat 16y ago
  The answer varies from "1" to "as many as you want". The answer also depends on what you define as "startup". From the business's point of view the best thing is to have your whole time, attention, and commitment. Most businesses do not benefit from their founders' attention being divided (on the contrary, they suffer critically from this). But from a personal point of view, having your fingers in many pies is clearly beneficial, especially before you know which of your businesses will "stick". I think the answer to this is changing as the tools available become better at allowing us to be very effective with short bursts of work, but what's certainly correct is that you should not say no to opportunities - but be conscious of how much you can contribute to each and what it's costing you in terms of work not done on others.
• instakill 16y ago
  One main one.
• kleinsch 16y ago
  It's good to try out different ideas, but be careful not to give up on one and switch to something else too easily. Every project is going to have a period where it sucks, nobody's using it, and you don't want to work on it anymore. If you give up and switch to another project every time that happens, you're probably never going to succeed. When I've been working on too many things, I find it way too easy to switch over to another unstarted project rather than develop something that's out but not succeeding. See Seth Godin's book The Dip for more about it. Where this gets difficult is being able to tell the difference between a failure that isn't worth more effort and a failure that needs more work to become a success. ;)
• erikb 16y ago
  Hi Stu, looking at your website gives me more convidence in your person then looking at your HN question. You seem to be veeery unsure about the way you want to walk the next months. From my experience the best way to find out is to follow people who do great what you want to do. That means reading blogs, HN but also working together with people you admire. Maybe you can find some great people on the net or around you in the UK to work with. Btw. I really like the design of your websites! Did you do it yourself?
  • stulogy 16y ago
    Hiya, Sorry if I sounded vague! Yes I'm going through a transition period in my life. I have one main startup that's doing well, but not yet in the position to pay me a full time salary, so I'm looking at whether I invest time in other startups as well, do contract work, or invest in my main startup and just stick it out for a bit longer, or get investment. So was just curious as to what people thought. Yes I designed it all myself. Had a guy do the Halogy logo and Project Bubble logo though.
• neworbit 16y ago
  Run? Probably one. Help advise and the like? Maybe a couple others. You aren't really hedging your bets as much as you are dividing your efforts. Note, if you can get something started, (possibly also funded,) and operating largely without your intercession, then iterating on that model quickly can be completely awesome. But get something going first and don't try twelve things simultaneously - been burned by that one myself.
• arn 16y ago
  I run 3 sites which could be thought of as startups (each has employees). 3 is too many. :) I definitely feel overextended and that things are progressing slower than they ideally would if I had full time commitment to any one.