With the tech industry offering entrepreneurs so many different ways to look at solving the same problem, it can sometime be difficult to stick to solving only one issue. We recently asked the members of our community their thoughts on starting multiple projects in contrast to just putting all your efforts into just one. The responses from our community members were very much aligned to one another, which led us to sharing a message with all of you through this article. Why put all your eggs in one basket?
Similar to a view on investing money, it simply doesn’t make sense at first glance to put all your efforts on one single project, but the reality behind entrepreneurship is that it requires effort, focus, and time. It is easy to look at a project or business and anticipate that it may not work, and as a result start multiple ventures in the hope of just one making it. The main issue with doing this is you simply lack conviction when you invest your time in multiple projects. Think about the basic idea that you as an individual must believe in yourself, much more than ever before, just to make one of those projects come to life — and yet by starting many, you are indirectly telling yourself that you don’t believe that any of them are worth investing all your time in. This takes us back to the idea behind why you started to begin with and what your intentions truly were from the beginning. If your intention was to make money, it is very likely that you will create multiple projects with the hopes that some of them start making a few bucks or with the hope of an acquisition.
The reality is that every entrepreneur will tell you that unfortunately, no great project or great business came to life out of just greed, but rather passion at some point, even if it no longer exists today.
When your focus is broken into multiple projects, your beliefs follow along, keeping you from breaking the barrier of innovation and reaching that place you envision. The biggest problem, however, is that this envisioned place often doesn’t exist for those that focus so much on money, as their visions are about themselves rather than the impact of their product, service or technology. When your goals are based upon becoming wealthy or making money, it is simply because you are combining your skillset with your personal desires and/or goals. The lack of vision in terms of the business itself is the reason you will most likely not succeed to the level you desire. The devotion and constant push to bring a vision to life is the ultimate element that creates passion and allows that to become a reality.
As much as we agree that having options is a viable solution, having options also means you are accepting failure as a possibility, which in our book shouldn’t be the case. If failure is considered giving up, and you are willing to accept that, then perhaps ask yourself why start to begin with. Why start a project and assume it will fail? Why start many others in case one doesn’t work?
There are no bad ideas in society, none. Every idea you have, every idea you think of or can imagine is a great idea. It is in the execution of bringing an idea to life that most fail; an execution which doesn’t have enough substance as it lacks passion and drive to keep moving forward with great velocity year after year. If you read ART-E: The Master Entrepreneur, you would remember our argument for vision being your road map, and passion being your currency to becoming resourceful and bringing that vision to life. There always is an element of money involved but think of it as a reward for completing the journey, and not so much for each task performed on the journey.
To all of you with side projects or multiple main projects, keep in mind that even though you are playing it safe by diversifying your portfolio, you are truly minimizing the risk of failure, but as a result lowering your chances of success significantly “Safety” is not a word that exists for many successful entrepreneurs, and many will tell you that you won’t win anything if you don’t put yourself out there and take a chance on yourself.
