management, parallel-entrepreneurLooking for suggestions on how to be a massive parallel entrepreneur, which is to say an entrepreneur that actively manages more that just a few startups; note that this not the same as a serial entrepreneur.
Open to analysis based on family-controlled monopolies, though only if the logic presented is inferred to apply to a massive parallel entrepreneur; only singular word I’ve heard used for family-controlled monopolies is a zaibatsu.
NOTE: If you post an answer that is not completely oriented towards “how to be” (vs. “why not to be”) - I will flag the answer as off-topic and down-vote it too.
I’ve never done this successfully but I’ll try to help.
First, congrats on stepping outside the box! Prepare to get flak from the startup community for going against their tradition. I don’t agree that you should get any flak, but, at the end of this post, I’ll explain why you may get flak, and how to avoid it.
The Critical Question: Are you coming from money? The critical question is- do you currently have a strong funding source, or are you starting from scratch?
A strong funding source would be:
Most people I am aware of who did this first had one core business or funding source which provided a lot- often millions. Then, they split that revenue into many other ventures.
Some examples:
Classic example: Sir Richard Branson of Virgin. He started with Virgin Records. Only once that gained momentum, did he move to other things. But I wonder what stage it was at when he began to branch? That should be a well-documented case.
Ray Sharma might be one example of someone who started many things at once. But from what I know, it was mostly his work on Extreme Labs that generated the revenue for the rest of his businesses. I personally am skeptical that he started with dozens of companies before striking it big on one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Sharma
I know of someone whose father was into real estate. When he inherited the business, he then invested in several tech companies. I cannot say whether that was wise, I don’t know. I think he did have some successes.
From what I’ve seen in incubators and friends- parallel entrepreneurism is very rare. But, it’s also rarely attempted. Most people fall into a specific passion.
Starting from scratch: Personally, I think this is possible but hard. I’ve personally tried to start side projects, even non-profit ones, and I’ve always found that it just ends up taking too much focus from my core revenue-generating activity. That is only my experience, and I do believe that there could be better ways.
Why is this (currently, 2014) against the grain? People have found, so far, that focusing intensely on one idea or market is the key to breaking into it. Incubators and pro investors have been burned time and time again by entrepreneurs who abandon one idea for another, or who have divided attention, or who overcommit. Due to many incubators’ history of failure with founders who are parallel entrepreneurs, they shun it. In fact, top incubators likely will not accept anyone who has an outside business, even if it seems positive. There are exceptions in some cases, of course, but it’s rare.
I had to deal with this mentality myself. I was told this specifically when I tried to start a 2nd business and applied to Extreme Labs. They said my current business (call it First Inc), which was very profitable at the time, was a problem for them, because I had too little to lose. Should things go great with my existing business, I’ll stop focusing on the new company. Should the new company start failing, why would I pour more time into the new company when I have an alternative?
It’s also very expensive to grow, so spreading marketing, tech and sales dollars thin will be problematic.
Positioning it Without Getting Flak However, if you position it correctly, as in “I want to make a better incubator” rather than “I have 5 different businesses I want to start” then it’s possible to do this without going against the grain.
In the startup world, today's prevailing fashion is heavily influenced by the inter-related lean / customer development / agile movements. The search is for real problems, for a reachable customer group, where a solution is rare enough and important enough to create value.
So the multipreneur is a bit unfashionable, because the idea of many ventures doesn't fit this model.
However, when you look around, it's easy to find people who are creating multiple ventures, in related or totally separate niches. To find out about that world, I don't know a better place than the Startups for the rest of us podcasts from Rob Walling and Mike Taber.
In my experience, the kind of family-owned-and-managed conglomerates you have in view aren't a part of the startup world in any meaningful sense. Typically, new ventures are enabled by the ready access to capital, which is available in a pretty consistent way from seed / exploratory stage right up to scale.
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