It all starts with an interesting idea, further developed into monetizing and eventually a full-fledged business. This is a typical journey of an entrepreneur, whereas a serial entrepreneur will set up a business and find someone trustworthy to run it once all processes are in place and move on to their next big idea!
Once an entrepreneur gets the hang of serial entrepreneurship, it’s hard to hold back on constantly churning out fresh ideas and building new enterprises. However, serial entrepreneurship has a variant personality type that comes with its benefits and drawbacks, and it’s always good to know them before one decides to go down the path.
Let’s have a look at some of the pros and cons of serial entrepreneurship:
PROS:
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Creative Freedom:
The freedom to constantly come up with new ideas and unique solutions is extremely liberating; however, unless one is a serial entrepreneur, executing these ideas and seeing them turn into reality is quite impossible. One cannot club different kinds of businesses into one, so serial entrepreneurship allows one to make still a dream come true and not suppress the level of creativity.
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More Money
This is a given when one has not one but many businesses to their name! More enterprises mean making more money; however, it also means being more careful. One has to pay attention to the right kind of investments and returns to make sure they continue to make profits and lead to prosperity.
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Professional Growth
Meeting and collaborating with people from various walks of life, different business backgrounds open up a whole new world. It expands one’s horizon of knowledge, leading to personal and professional skill development.
CONS:
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Larger risks
Multiple businesses mean large capital, investments, technical know-how and a whole lot of livelihoods at stake. There are added responsibility for each business and extended accountability for every enterprise, and hence the stakes are much higher. One has to be extremely careful at every step because one taken wrongly can affect not just one but all the businesses.
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Loss of ownership
When a serial entrepreneur goes from one business to the next, he also has to find someone to trust with the management and smooth running of the existing business. This may give a person a sense of loss of control over things, or they may be too attached to the business to hand it over or sell it to someone else.
However, this is a situation that is inevitable to move on to building an enterprise with the next idea, but the extent to which an entrepreneur decides to give control to others to keep their ownership stake is up to them, and they should only part with how much they are really comfortable with.
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Lack of focus
Having more businesses than one also means that a serial entrepreneur’s attention is divided. One has to prioritize giving quality time to each business as much as required, which isn’t always possible. Hence time management is a major drawback of being a serial entrepreneur. One has to plan well to make sure not to neglect anyone or more business in the process.
If entrepreneurship requires a certain amount of resilience, confidence and courage, serial entrepreneurship requires two-folds! It is all about putting your head down once you’ve decided, and do not let anything or anyone stop you from achieving your goals!
