How to build multiple products at the same time?
Hi all,
Lately, I've found myself increasingly frustrated. At issue is having a lot of ideas, but no time to work on them all. I know not all ideas are worth it, but assuming a few are, how can one make them all happen, while also working freelance to pay the bills? Is this a pipe dream or can it be achieved?
Cheers,
To be honest, you should just concentrate on a single idea. It is difficult enough already to produce something that people like and finding the audience for it - you can't do that properly doing multiple projects in parallel.
If you don't know which one to pick then make that your priority. Talk to lots of people and keep in mind that it's not sufficient to have an exciting product, you need to be able to distribute and generate money from it as well.
Good luck!
Currently determined to make it work! I’d say before even getting into validation/analysis of ideas etc. (lots of fantastic stuff here on that ) , make sure you’re clear on YOUR process.
Most of us understand being in flow — activities that get you into flow , engaged, energized ,and knocking out things all day - if you can identify aspects of your work/creation that keep you here - like actually logging activities for a bit to be extra aware of the boosts and drains— that’s huge for parallel entrepreneurs.
Ideas can be fantastic and validated but if you’re primarily working out of your natural zone of passion/genius, you’re learning and doing but likely not as energy efficient to manage multiple projects. I love challenge and learning quickly in new industries/new tech - but that “strength” has slowed my progress from productivity standpoint in successfully executing . But, the experience is a valuable investment — just be understanding and accept that it’s ok if it’s a trade off to momentum.
Get your systems and tools tight so that you don’t waste time or energy with decision fatigue, reinventing the wheel when you don’t need to, or using a tool that may work but is not aligning with the way you uniquely process info/work. With great ideas I don’t even decide any more right away, they go in a notion doc or physical notebook with notes so I don’t forget , I let it breathe , and schedule to revisit when I’m not possibly taking away from my other projects (we all go down rabbit holes that often aren’t of use after just formulating an idea - our subconscious will actually process the info a bit before we return to consider it so it’ll be more beneficial).
So many things to say but if you feel confident in managing your energy more like time/money , getting your environment /process solid (how you approach your innovation/build) so multiple projects follow a general strategy you’ve designed, then the last is see where you’re closest to money and/or prioritizing steps that are closest to getting paid because often those are the true MVP necessities and the rest will flow from there.
^^
May not be packed with productivity /growth tips but getting super real with your time (track it) , money (look often) , and energy (take quick note on cal/journal with activity, eval ideas with lens of what you’ll need to do to execute too ) —those alone will give you what you need to layer on automaton, delegating, optimizing sched :)
I love using the tool Sunsama for planning/time and I made a notion page with activity flow tracker —happy to share ( https://www.notion.so/byjordan/ACTIVITY-FLOW-JOURNAL-43e2265ff8784c678524e977c4d57dad) :) And if you have a cool idea with a name you love, get the handle and domain- you can do it or decide to pitch the detailed idea with domain and handles on several sites and get a premium at least!
Thanks for the thorough reply! Makes a lot of sense. I do waste a lot of time executing on tasks I'm not necessarily super efficient at, and doing research around them. My pitfall is actually to fallback into coding because that's where I feel most productive, but I would say I tend to code too early, before the idea is properly baked.
What do you do with tasks you're not productive at? Do you outsource?
As for names I've also wasted SO MUCH time thinking of good ones and looking at domains. That tends to be the first thing I do when I think of something. I should let it rest first like you said. And I can't quite ever feel satisfied with a name I find, unless of course it's taken...
Oh I am 1000% still struggling with a lot of what you're saying! I tend to "overdevelop" early, as well, coding or even just taking it too far on no-code! I am glad I solo built my company app **only ** for the experience, but I would never ever do that again for a new venture-- I'd maybe save money by architecting and building at first, but it would be bones and truly the most minimum viable product informed by only addressing 1-2 top points from feedback from potential users - my MVP was bigger than necessary and since I was new to coding, I lost more time and opportunity to get some signups/sales earlier.
I'd then try to generate some money to hire at least for someone to help execute -- if it's less about upleveling tech strategy, a solid junior dev can do a lot to save you time and $ to get to a more "finished" product. I could use more that time for another project or create a great cost-effective strategy to drive sales at the next phase launch.
Will definitely be using the split launch strategy for this next major build! I think for draining activities , there are very few that I'm stuck doing that make a huge impact because I'll batch it so i knock it out, occasionally outsource/hire, or be okay with automating or investing minimal time and know that's just a tradeoff in short term. Sometimes, it's not always the task itself -- I often will dictate drafts for longer form proposals/sales copy / outlines etc. or record a convo walking through a strategy to then translate. I get unnecessarily slow in a traditional process of sitting and knocking out a recap or description - or i'll record a video for someone .
I highly suggest the sitting on ideas! If you end up deciding to do it, you usually have more clarity on the steps and primary pieces after time away for a second. IN the moment of the excited emotional wave, you put everything high priority!
Just writing to thank you about the energy saving insight. <3
Thank you! I think biz culture devalues importance of personal energy, or we try to hack around it instead of getting in touch with it (leading to burnout/likely bad strategy) . It’s surprising what you learn about yourself in the process if you just start to observe :) !
Yes, I totally agree. Knowing you body also is key. I know that I am more productive with creative tasks in the mornings and I use it to organize my day. I will study about energy management. 😃
I like a lot of the advice from @jordandivecha here, but I'll add my .02 as well.
Counter to a lot of the other suggestions here, I don't think it's a problem to focus on multiple projects - this is actually key to keeping me happy, productive, and motivated.
New ideas are exciting and IMO the best time to work on them is when they are exciting - so when I get any new idea - I immediately hack away at it. Whether that's drawing mock-ups of an app, architecting the database schema, actually coding the most interesting part of it, etc. I want to maximize that energy when it is available.
I, too, get to a point where I'm either burnt-out on that idea, stuck, or want to move on to the next new thing - and that's ok!
The energy for the previous project sometimes comes back at the oddest times. Sometimes because of new information or insights, sometimes because a 'new idea' actually improves or merges with a previous idea to make them both better. And sometimes that energy never comes back - and that's ok too - maybe the idea wasn't as exciting or strong as I initially believed and now at least I scratched the itch and can move on from it.
Productivity wise - again as jordan mentioned - if you want to iterate on new ideas quick and often, getting your tooling down is key. Get a process of setting up your projects and automating or knocking out the grunt-work as friction-less as possible. This helps you play with the fun part of the ideas faster.
Hey @jpsidebets, curious how your approach has translated in terms of bringing new stuff out to the world/getting revenue?
Up until this year, I unfortunately spent most of my free time side-hustling as a freelancer vs working on my own side-projects. The projects I did make time to build, I then generally didn't have the time to promote or maintain them after launch.
I quit freelancing this year to pursue my own projects with this time and attempt to grow an audience and start building in public. It's one of the best decisions I've made.
I have nothing to showoff with as of right now, but I expect to launch 2 projects here in the next ~30 days, and am targeting ~half-a-dozen for the year - which I believe is extremely likely.
That's a great output :) Best of luck!
If you don't have any history of finishing, then focus on one until you are done. if you have finished multiple projects in the past, you can give it a try to juggle multiple. I have multiple ideas myself too, but I shelved the most and making sure I'm building reusable components I can use for next projects.
@segmond funny you mention building reusable components! The product I'm most excited about is related. Any way I could ask you some questions?
I wrote about this back in February. The short story is you probably shouldn't. BUT, it highly depends on you and your ideas. People who only say focus on a single idea without knowing the context of the ideas are wrong.
For example, I'm working on a few things simultaneously.
The main thing (and I hate this word) is overlapping synergies.
For example, I teach coding tutorials (building a real application from scratch) on my YouTube channel. I write code for Producer, and then use similar (or most of the same code) on the YouTube channel. Win-win.
Producer, the application, is an app for YouTubers. So I'm building a product to help myself. Again, win-win.
Other tertiary things I may build (twitter bot, etc) can often go into code I post to my YouTube channel as well.
So it's highly dependent on the ideas, IMO.
Unless you are an octopus I don't recommend it. I saw myself doing it n it sucks big time.
You will create pressure and burn yourself out, and the quality won't be the same.
Do one, then next.
I would really say "DON'T". As @Badestrand said, it's hard enough to concentrate on one idea -- especially to get it off the ground. Working on more is usually a safe way to fail everywhere.
It's definitely hard to pick one idea from many, but it's something you need to figure out, allocate some time to it (1-2 months), and if it doesn't pan out, move on.
Clearly, there's no clear cut way to handle it, use your best judgement.