Focus
‘ Nothing kills startups like distractions. The worst type are those that pay money: day jobs, consulting, profitable side-projects. The startup may have more long-term potential, but you’ll always interrupt working on it to answer calls from people paying you now. ‘
Calling ALL entrepreneurs!! This is such a true statement for me and I’ve heard this is the trend for most other entrepreneurs. Like musicians, we have to constantly be thinking over the next best thing while still paying the bills with the recent gig. Where does distraction begin to take part of the failing of a business? Dr. Jeff Cornwall is always getting on to me for not focusing because he mentioned to me that he too struggled with this and wants me to begin to develop this skill. It’s not that I don’t listen to him but I do have trouble with distractions.
At the age of 22, I’ve launched five companies with positive cash flows. If I focus on one of these will I be more successful than if I slowly grew the other four? This is my current struggle / drive to find the answer. I think a point to make here is that all of the businesses require greater attention than others. For instance, I’m partnering with an online wedding guide site that only needs to be checked up on every couple of days but it’s still providing some extra cash. If I were to invest 30 extra hours a week into this site would the business grow – Well I think so. But we’re also running a high end video company that is producing a much higher cash income so my focus remains with this company while still giving minor attention to the others.
Last point to make: Team building and prioritizing might be the solution toward running 4-5 successful businesses. If you can delegate certain duties within these businesses that can be watched and developed, I think that the companies can survive and grow at a healthy rate.
