Making "Small Bets" Is A Big Mistake. Build One Business And See It Through.
It's so tempting to believe that, by creating lots of little "bets", you'll increase your chances of creating a successful business.
The problem is that, ironically, by focusing on so many different projects at the same time, you actually decrease your chances any of them will succeed.
This is because the success or failure of ANY business will come down to how much energy and focus you put into it.
As long as other businesses are making money selling the same or similar products as you, then the more time you spend on your business the more success you'll have.
Of course, that time needs to be spent wisely.
Spending all your time and energy on building your product isn't going to get you what you need to succeed - revenue.
At first, you need to be spending 90%+ of your time marketing.
In Short
If you've got a business idea that others are making money off - stick with it!
If you don't, find a business idea that others are successful with and create your own version of it.
Then, focus 90% of your time and effort on marketing.
Note that success with marketing doesn't need to be some difficult, laborious task that requires a massive following on social media - 4 figures of the revenue that I made last year came off a single Tweet (which took 30 seconds to write) and I have an audience of fewer than 100 followers. You can check out an article I wrote about how I did that here - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/steal-the-tweet-that-made-me-4-figures-in-revenue-with-less-than-100-followers-on-twitter-cd1b6afe0b
I agree. Most entrepreneurs would be better off focusing on 1 project at a time instead of creating/maintaining a "portfolio of small bets."
You bet small on a bunch of things because you have no confidence in your main project.
You need to ask yourself why that is, and address that.
Absolutely, well put Jay. Confidence and optimism are absolutely crucial. You can't half-ass it and expect success
I agree. But maybe that's because i'm trying to execute on one big idea rather than build a bunch of smaller ones.
Quick question. Would you suggest 90% of time on marketing before or after you have an MVP to share? I'm still building the MVP and a landing page to support it, only once that's done do I plan to go-for-broke on marketing...
Hey Kain,
90% marketing all of the time.
The reason most founders have difficulty with this is because they've been fed this idea that marketing = talking about their product.
But talking about your product is literally the most ineffective way to convince people to buy it.
I talk about this quite extensively on my website (www.thebluntmethod.com) but to make a long story short, you shouldn't be selling your product (even when you have built it) but instead a new belief system/philosophy (which is unique to your business) to your potential customers that leads them back to your solution only.
This is a far more effective way to grow your business (as the numerous case studies on my site show) AND it enables you to start marketing your business long before you actually have a product to launch.
Hope that helps.
Best
Chris
Good advice Chris. The link to your website appears to be down. I can't access the http or https version.
Ah spelt my own url wrong! Doh! Fixed above and it’s www.thebluntmethod.com
Thanks for the kind words and the heads up!
I think that's a fair point, but the main idea behind the portfolio approach, as I interpret it, is that you don't know which of your ideas is going to be the one making it big, so you hedge your bet by trying multiple plausible things. Once something seems to have legs, definitely pursue it further and see where it goes, but don't pretend that you have a magic ball and know beforehand that idea A, B or C will be the winner.
Hey,
Thanks for the comment.
That's unfortunately the very seductive idea behind the portfolio approach - it makes complete sense and seems like the most logical approach.
Problem is that building a successful startup is like pushing a big concrete ball up a hill. To get it to the top you need to put all your energy into it.
The question is then, how do you know beforehand that idea A, B or C will be the winner?
Simple - pick the idea that already has existing demand. Are there competitors that sell the same product? If yes then you can be sure that (with enough effort of course and the right strategy) the idea is good enough to build a successful business.