Focus on just one business or multiple businesses?

This is how I usually make decisions -

Ask yourself what business model will make you money in the quickest way possible.

Just focus on this one thing and you'll always know what to do.

My strategy is to focus on multiple business opportunities in the beginning provided they are somewhat complementary because you can leverage knowledge and experience between the businesses and you can't always accurately pick the winners early on. Once you know where the winners are though, focus there like a laser.

It is always best to diversify, but you should never spread yourself too thin. Rarely something good can come from something thrown together because you are working on too many projects. Try different approaches/businesses just dont chase after everything that appeals to you.

I believe that focus stands for: Follow One Course Until Successful.

Take what you will from that.

While I can certainly respect wanting to "try it all", the truth is that you'd be better served FOCUSING on ONE thing... haha

No one will care if you're mediocre at everything.

They'll care if you're really good at ONE thing.


Having a good base of understanding to work from is important - how else could you decide which is the one thing you're best at? - but don't get so caught up trying to do everything that you don't do any of it well.

Having multiple businesses each focused on something in particular is fine, but don't try to set them up simultaneously. The first few months (and sometimes years) of a brand new business generally result in a net loss for the bottom line.

Why would you want to take on several losing investments when there's no need to? I know you can manage your risk better than that.


Cheers,
-Adrian

Just the one for a period. Map out its profit growth over a couple of months to a year and see what the increase is over time. Then work out the difference between each month or quarter. If the difference is growing larger then you have exponential growth and you should stick to it. If not then it will be a hard slog to make a good living out of it so maybe consider you other options.
There is a lot to be said for sticking to your guns though.

DEFINITELY ONE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE JUST STARTING OUT! Sorry for "shouting", but it's just that important. If you don't choose one business model and stick with it, your attention and focus will be distracted all the time and you'll never get around to do any "real" work on any of your businesses. It's better to start small and then grow from there, then not starting anything serious at all.

Just my 2c,
Edward

I am desperately wanting to start on other business models, but I have decided that I must, must, MUST Follow One Course Until Successful and make my business run almost entirely without me and pay all of my basic expenses.

Good tips guys. Thanks for sharing your advice.

When I lost my main client November 2nd due to his cutting back on costs; I became a firm believer in multiple streams of income.

Besides my writing business, I am also a premier marketing partner. The writing is full-time and the marketing website is part-time.

Yes.agree.

Whelp, it's a economic question. Do you want to spend a lot of time learning about one or two things, or do you want to learn just enough to be able to start many things?

I'm always thinking of something new, so I'd go with the latter!

That is such a good question you are taught that multiple streams is the way to go, but I think that you do what you can handle..

I now focus on 3. I did start out focusing on 2, but the business models were the same - just the content was different.

I added a third last year.

If you can leverage existing knowledge/resources to get a second business going, by all means go for it. However, I wouldn't do so until you have one model working well.

Moreover, it also depends on your definition of a business. Is a website that earns and a list from that website one business or two?

Are a web of sites in the same niche working together one or several businesses?

Are two niches in the same market on one site two businesses or one?

If you're asking about building 2 unrelated websites, that's what I did (the concept was the same). Both worked out well and I'm glad I built both.

Another reason for me to build 2 different niche sites at the same time was they take time to earn. I could have done twice as much work on one site but I don't think it would have been twice as successful at this point. I do SEO a fair amount and part of it is time. Sure I could have done more non-SEO efforts, but that's not my cup of tea.

When I started both sites I had no idea that they would be profitable. Therefore, doing both was a bit of a hedge.

If you have two sites/businesses, but one earns while the other doesn't, it might make more sense to focus on the earning site.

It depends upon what you want to do. I can understand someone building multiple interactive sites. If each brings in $200/month...and you have 50 of them, you make $10,000/month. That works for many people.

In my niche, I choose to focus on one thing. That is my group. (signature) I feel that anything that I would do in terms of earning affiliate money or any other online source of income would cheapen my message.

Ultimately, once you have decided your niche; that is one of the decisions you will have to make. Most people do earn their income through multiple sources.

Focus on one business. Make it profitable, and find a way to automate it's income. Then go and launch your other website business and do the same thing.

I should note I speak of multiple businesses in future tense, not present.

If you build multiple businesses, then you are in the one business of "building multiple businesses."

Which, in turn, is also multiple businesses. You have one business of building those businesses, another one of tracking the progress of those businesses, another one of managing the activity of those businesses, the list goes on.

Whatever you do is both one business and multiple businesses. There's no way around it.

I would go for multiple businesses but giving more focus on the main cash cow.

And improving other businesses slowly along the way.

In that way, you are protecting your main cash cow and building other possible cash cows as well.

I'd rather to play the two, having several options for me will help you improve your decision-making skills which is very important in business. If you are having trouble in doing so but your heart and mind is really willing to take chances then prioritize one of it then work the rest simultaneously.

My personal mantra is to do multiple things at once, then fully dedicate to the most successful projects or businesses and then rinse and repeat to scale.

Depends on how you define a 'business'. Setting up multiple niche sites in the traditional IM way is having one business IMHO. Opening multiple stores (online or offline) selling the same product is one business. If you need to separate them legally via registered DBA's, EIN's, FED Tax Id's or whatever, then they might be considered in the multiple.
Is it smart? - only if you've mastered the first one and it won't suffer when you reduce your involvement in it. Fallen foul to that mistake in the past and I'm still paying for it.

A couple more points.... It also is a very personal decision based on your work preferences and prioritization. If you think that there are multiple sites that your are willing to invest in and you can pay for it in time or money. I would do it. If you can only handle one this just focus one.