Ask HN: Your experiences building several startups at the same time
Do you have any experiences/advices about building several startups parallel at the same time? Do yo prefer to work one by one or with several at the same time?
Do you have any experiences/advices about building several startups parallel at the same time? Do yo prefer to work one by one or with several at the same time?
As someone who is working full-time and working on 2 start-ups (one with far more commitment) I know what it is to take one too much as an entrepreneur.
The first thought is a warning! Burnout! If you choose to go full-time and a startup you're going to hit a wall. Naturally if you do more than one startup you just hit it faster...
So the issue is commitment. My advise would be to divide your week into blocks of commitment for each project. In my case Mon,Wed,Fri,Sun using 4 hour blocks per dsy for startup A. Tues, Thurs of 4 hour blocks on startup B (Saturday is a much needed recovery day, normally resulting in a much deserved hangover).
Another consideration is how you work...
For example I am an 80/80 person. I work 80% and play 80%, the important part is that i'm never 100% at one time so have that buffer to avoid burnout... you have to find a balance between the minimum required effort to have a successful company and your own personal space (even work-a-holics sleep, generally on the keyboard)
As you have experience with startups i'm surprised you've so easily embraced another two projects. However that intimates that you know how to divide you time between them... It would be interesting to see a blog post from you in 6 months to discover if you were able manage both and how the progression/success of each respectively influenced your commitment in them.
What I personally find myself doing is dealing with several different projects on varying levels of intensity. So I have one startup that takes most of my time, and then some side projects that are either limited in time, or fall into the weekend project category, or just projects I like dealing with in my spare time, with no time pressure (and no ambitious goals).
But more than one 'real' startup? Don't go there.
As many HN threads point out, ideas are easy, but building companies, finding customers, and product/market fit are all hard and need a team's full focus.
Pros: working on multiple ideas will keep your creative flowing. it helps to connect the dots that you may not even realize. Keeps you going on mandane tasks on 1 start up because you may have something interesting going on the other project.
Cons you cant give your best to any of the ideas. all ideas may suffer from your lack of energy. You may keep working on interesting stuff and put off uninteresting stuff forever. and we know there is plenty of "uninteresting stuff" in any project.
my 2 cents.
There should be one idea that really jumps out at you above the rest. If not then maybe you haven't found anything big enough yet. In that case it may be helpful to simultaneously explore multiple ideas. But pick only one eventually.
I currently work at 6 startups, 12 hour shifts, over 24 days per month. The 2 main startups I spend 48 hours per week at. The other 4 take up 36 hours per week. One is very profitable and I use it to fund the others. However, I don't think this is a smart strategy at all. I'm just wasting money but having fun intellectual pursuits.
Focus. We all have a million great ideas but it's incredibly rare to be able to execute on more than one of them successfully let alone a single idea successfully. One is enough and if you have some extra passion to burn off well then that's why god created side projects. I won't give you advice on how to get through more than one startup as I believe it would hurt you (or anyone) more than it would help.
There's only one Jack Dorsey. Remember that.
P.S. I didn't say I'm Jack Dorsey. I really appreciate what he does and did. But I and anyone else can be better than him, if you ask my opinion.
You should have mentioned these details originally. If you can automate it and it really doesn't require too much attention from you then I'd say keep it running and pursue other options. Doesn't seem like a problem to me.
When you say you can't make more than 70k euros monthly I worry. 70k each month is a lot of money. Is that in your pocket or what the business is making before expenses? If that's your pay then I hope you're not in it for the money. Doing anything for the money is a sure way to fail in the long run. But all things considered I can't see a reason why you shouldn't go for 2 at a time in this particular situation. Good luck.