From enterpreneur.com
It's okay to work on more than
one business idea if you're smart
about it. By Jonathan Long VIP CONTRIBUTOR Founder, Uber
Brands
I’ve pivoted my company before,
but nothing like what I am
currently going through. When I
started my marketing agency, it
was a service-provider. Years later,
it pivoted into a consulting agency. Now, I’m in the middle of another
pivot -- transitioning into a brand
umbrella.
1. Truly love the projects
you are involved with. One thing really stood out during
my talks with Rosenwald: his
emphasis on truly loving what you
do. Now, entrepreneurs hear this a
lot, but it has merit. When you are juggling several
different ventures, you need to
have a genuine love for each, or
you will neglect the ones that
aren’t true passion projects. It’s almost like a relationship -- without
love, it begins to crumble and
becomes a complete waste of time. 2. Make productivity a top
priority as you have limited
time daily for each venture. Managing multiple business
ventures is a lot like juggling balls
-- if you slow down and lose
momentum, you eventually drop
the ball. One thing that Rosenwald
stressed was the true value of the time we have each day. It doesn’t matter if you are a new
entrepreneur attempting to
bootstrap your first company or a
seasoned pro with multiple seven-
figures businesses in your
portfolio. We all get 24-hours in each day and not a second more. My biggest concern going into my
latest pivot is how I’m going to
effectively oversee the
development, manufacturing,
marketing and fulfillment of
multiple consumer brands. Being as productive as possible and optimizing my workday will give
me the most quality time to devote
to each brand.
3. Build the strongest team
to operate seamlessly in
your absence. Rosenwald credits his team at
Fortress Biotech for the company’s
success, and really engraved in my
head the importance of putting the
strongest people in each position,
across every brand. There was no sugarcoating it -- he said no matter
how great each venture’s potential
was, a weak team would ensure its
failure. One of the most eye opening
aspects about the team’s
importance was in respect to an
acquisition. Rosenwald suggested
that I do whatever it took to
assemble the right people after learning 5-year plan, explaining
that the team in place is a major
deciding factor when a company is
considering pulling the trigger on
an acquisition play. It can make or
break the deal. When your ventures can operate
without you present, their values
are ten-fold.
4. Evaluate the time and
energy commitment before
adding a new business
venture. Entrepreneurs are a very confident
bunch, and often think they can
bite off more than they can chew. I
was guilty of this in the beginning,
and I wasn’t successful because I
was trying to do too much. Now, I have a good understanding
of what I can and cannot
realistically take on, and you really
need to evaluate every opportunity
on a case-by-case basis, as they all
have varying levels of commitment requirements in terms of energy
and time. Rosenwald showed me that I need
to slow down in order to get to my
end goal faster. I have more than a
dozen consumer brands past the
early development stage, but if I
went 100 percent forward with each one at the same time, it would
be a complete disaster. There's
just no way I could effectively
distribute my time between them
all.
5. Always understand the
worst-case scenario when
entertaining partnerships
or joint-ventures. New business ventures often come
with co-founders, partnerships or
a joint-venture arrangement. It
sounds good in the beginning, but
if something goes wrong, you need to be fully aware of what can
and will happen in a worst-case
scenario. In my situation, I was approached
by a manufacturer that presented
what appeared to be a very
attractive deal, which would see us
partner up on the creation of a
new consumer brand. It all sounded great until Rosenwald
knocked me back to reality and
pointed out all of the potential
hiccups that could cause the
relationship to become not so
happy. You have to always think about the
what-ifs -- while not certain, they
are possible. After really
understanding the worst-case
scenarios, it made me revert to my
initial stance -- only creating brands that are 100 percent
owned by the company.
Soucre https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/321956