One of the terms that always make me cringe is the term 'Serial Entrepreneur'. Maybe it's the relation of the word 'Serial' with 'Serial Killer' and 'Serial Rapist'.
I think of Serial Entrepreneurs as the human equivalent of a hurricane. They come at you at breakneck speed, throw a million ideas at you, mention their entire network of business contacts they think is even vaguely related to your business ("Oh! You're in Wi-Fi, I know a guy in Switzerland who sells cordless phones!"), talk about mergers with their own companies and even companies you've never even heard of.
Once they've finished talking they ask the stupid old question: "So What's your Exit Strategy?". I've always been confused by this question, as I'm working 16 hours a day getting a global Wi-Fi company off the ground, so my idea of an exit strategy is literally getting to work 10 hours or less a day. (See my previous post: "What's your Exit Strategy, Sonny?"
I've finally figured out that they're really not interested in my exit strategy, but rather in figuring out their exit strategy.
So imagine my expression when I looked in the mirror today and suddenly realised that perhaps, maybe, aw heck, admit it... I'm becoming a serial entrepreneur!
You see, I'm getting drawn into a little startup called Tinfon. Tinfon is one of those amazing little gems that come around very seldom, even to the most connected of 'serial entrepreneurs'. (more about Tinfon later)
One of the first things I was thinking about was an exit strategy...
Is there a Serial Entrepreneurs Anonymous chapter in Cape Town?
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2 comments:
Henk, when you talk about SERIES... and serial entrepreneurs: In math we have RECURSIVE series and I would like to compare these to RECURSIVE SERIAL entrepreneurs...
If the new effort is not a completely new venture, I think there is great potential for serialism in entrepreneurship. If I could find a certain (ideally a GREAT) degree of overlap between ventures, I believe your whole effort can be enhanced.
IF you can re-use by-products of your first effort and especially if you can recycle your market, then your efforts will compound rather than being spread too thin.
It is one thing if I start selling hot dogs and then decide I want to sell insurance. It is another if I sell hot dogs and then decide I want to go into the hot dog kart business and find many kart clients among my hot dog clients.
Tricky? Yes. Impossible? Absolutely not. Keep your customer base in a juicy, well-rounded database and that is half the battle.
Exit strategy? Well, you could always recoil into your first effort and wait for a better chance to seek greater depth later on. No neeed to call the bank about that full-time teller position...
There might not be a chapter in Cape Town, but I'm sure our group could help you start one.
Funny enough, its a Web 2.0 version of the Alcoholics Anonymous, called EntrepreneursAnonymo.us (http://EntrepreneursAnonymo.us)
I'm sure you'll like the site. It's a lot fun... we just launched it a few days ago.
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