Is launching multiple startups a good idea?

I have founded 8 ventures in the last couple of years, 6 of them tech. But I’m not running any of them - each business has their own CEO.

It’s certainly working well for me. But bear in mind, I’ve been running businesses for 11 years.

Elon Musk manages SpaceX, Tesla, Hyperloop, SolarCity, OpenAI, The Boring Company, Neuralink, all at the same time.


And he’s certainly not the only person that has done it successfully. Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, Patrick Grove are great examples, and on a corporate level - Samsung, Google, Hyundai are essentially each composed of multiple businesses.

One thing that people overlook is the benefits to each startup:

I’m in and out between each startup. That means ideas from one constantly being crossed over into another. The teams learn from one another too.
All funding comes through one source - investors I know and myself - which makes fund-raising relatively pain-free.

Especially at the early stage resource sharing can be a big benefit. For example one startup might not be working out, so instead of firing a great talent they just move to another.
But before you rush off to start 10 startups, get one right first. Then, and only if you’re not needed in that startup, do another. It’s much better to do one startup damn well than 2, 3 or 10 quite well...


Source: https://www.quora.com/Is-launching-m...ps-a-good-idea