Multi-Venturing
Now that you have your venture up and running things are finally beginning to look up! Your product or service has been getting noticed by individuals within your community, you are landing some strong stable accounts and best of all you are exiting the red area and entering into the paradise zone known as PROFIT!
As you continue to gain more success and grow as an entrepreneur it is very important to begin considering expanding into new business ventures. Successful business professionals usually know how to operate and manage multiple projects at once.
One way that entrepreneurs stay in the game is by always looking for that next idea, opportunity, or partnership to turn into a successful operation. This helps you eliminate and hedge risk by diversifying, similar to investors who place their funds in multiple investments to increase their chances of gaining higher returns and decrease their chances of losing.
To give you an example of how you can always keep your ears open for opportunities while thinking creatively, I’ll use a situation which I experienced first hand. About a year ago I’d been considering the idea of creating a mortgage preservation & field services operation as an alternative business venture. I already had a strong business plan all ready to go, but I just felt that it wasn’t the right time yet.
Then after discussing business with a friend I noticed that he also was well prepared to enter into a venture which was a commercial janitorial service. He had the capital available, but this was his first business venture so he lacked that entrepreneur experience.
Since I’m always on the prowl for opportunities I immediately seen a great solution to the scenario. I proposed to him that I take my business idea and combine it with his venture, he would put up the capital and I would run the operation with my business knowledge and in turn we would split the profits 50/50! Now we have a commercial cleaning and field services business that has progressed very well and we are entering the construction removal market in 2007.
You have to constantly be on the lookout for opportunity like you’re a predator hunting prey, you need to possess that extreme hunger and be very aggressive. Even when it is far off, if the prey (opportunity) reveals itself you want to eagerly pursue it until you come upon it closer and have the chance to inspect it thoroughly to see if it’s worth attacking; if it looks good enough go ahead and dive into it with full force and eat it up!
One cautious note worth pointing out is that you don’t want to try and take on too many task at once prematurely. Before you look to create and enter new entrepreneur pursuits you should make sure that your original venture is stable. There is no need to bite off more than you can chew and eventually choking on both ventures.
5 Comments
Angela Gilltrap
October 6th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
I think this is great advice. IT is something I always attribute to entrepreneur-ism the ability to branch out and tackle several projects at once, letting them bounce off each other. I have found that opportunities have arisen from having the intitial business. For example at the moment I am writing a travel book, doing a travel TV show and eventually launching a luggage line. They are all inter-related - can help each other with exposure and yet provide three seperate strands of income, so if any one of them should have a lapse in profits due to timing or unforeseealbe forces(entertainment is always a tricky business)they will survive thanks to each other. Each business is partnered with an expert in that feild, alleviating the pressure to know everything about everything.
David Askaripour
October 6th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Excellent advice! I share your same visions, but I also feel that it’s very, very important not to spread yourself too thin (as you noted). Too many entrepreneur try to take on the world with a million ventures and end up getting nowhere in the end — it’s all about finding that balance.
Aaron K
October 7th, 2006 at 2:40 am
William,
I don’t know what your arrangement is with Mind Petals but it would be nice to have an introduction of sorts for you and your fellow contributors to the mind petals blog. Maybe a meet the author section.
David Askaripour
October 7th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
@Aaron: Excellent, idea. I’ll make it happen. Your feedback is much appreciated.
William
October 8th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
@David: You know your exactly right about not spreading yourself too thin, sometimes a young entrepreneur might be on to something good with one venture then they jump onto another opportunity too soon while neglecting their first money maker.
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