Serial Entrepreneurs And Their Business Development Strategy.

Some people jump businesses with gloves.

Online marketing business.

Then, coaching business.

Then, a drop-shipping online business selling RTV equipment.

Then, some other affiliate sales.

Then, some content platforms with materials about health and how not to die too soon.

Then, online webinars on how to become a better parent.

Then, some recruitment tools.

Then…

Whatever is trendy at the moment, business development managers are very active.

This phenomenon is usually referred to as “serial entrepreneurship.” What it means is creating businesses one after another — and these businesses can be loosely related to each other. It looks impressive but in reality, it is just another example of how NOT to build a business.

These people usually get lots of attention at meetups. You meet them and you think to yourself, “Man, this guy really tried everything, what perseverance! I wish I was that ambitious…” Or “This lady is superhuman! She built companies in ten different sectors. She must be so knowledgeable… What a great role model!”

However, after spending my time among entrepreneurs for the last few years, it became obvious to me why serial entrepreneurs get it all wrong. 

The difference between serial entrepreneurs and successful entrepreneurs has become even clearer in the corona crisis. Namely, businesses of many people in my circles fell apart recently. And all these people happened to be serial entrepreneurs.

What Is the Wrong Assumption Behind Serial Entrepreneurship?

So, why being a serial entrepreneur is not a good business development strategy? Well, it is for a few reasons.

The most straightforward answer to the question is that serial entrepreneurs believe that success is all about grabbing the opportunity: finding yourself at the right time and at the right place. No success in the previous project?

Well, perhaps the topic was not trendy enough, or my product arrived at the market too late. Or perhaps, my co-founders were the wrong guys for the job. The next time I’ll find someone better and everything is going to be just fine.

So, let’s be this heroic, unflappable serial entrepreneur who always stands up again and starts anew… and let’s jump on some other topic straight away. If you throw shit against a wall ten times, something will stick, right? Let’s keep on trying. Well, this is not the best approach to business development strategy. Your professional development will also be at stake. 

Three Main Reasons Why Serial Entrepreneurship Doesn’t Work As a Business Development Strategy.

1. No Added Value.

The first reason is that the approach assumes that you don’t need to create any added value for your business; you just need to spot the opportunity, initiate the project, and motivate the people around you.

And then, all the rest will be done by itself, or rather, by the hands of your teammates. Serial entrepreneurs do not provide any intrinsic value to the projects but rather, they tend to associate their value with those they know.

Yes, if you were active in business development for the last ten years, and you’ve been attending business meetups and conferences for all this time (and failed at ten different projects so far), you will casually know a ton of people.

But what’s the added value of that? Have you ever experience the situation when you were invited to a business meeting and met someone who spent the whole hour on naming all the people they knew? Or rather, all the people they had ever spoken to. 

Lastly, serial entrepreneurs tend to be conformists. They just follow the trends without taking risks. There is a ton of public interest in web3, Metaverse, NFTs, AI – you name it – and so they re-pitch their business proposition and follow.

As Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell from Y Combinator pointed out, conformism is a major problem in today’s tech in general. Despite an enormous interest in entrepreneurship and in the startup world, while at the same time few people can think independently and can solve real problems.

2. Lack of Personal Development.

The second reason why serial entrepreneurs never become truly successful is related to personal development as well as professional development. Or, a lack thereof.

Namely, they not only lack the expertise that would bring a new IP to their company, but they also don’t learn from working on their projects.

Since every business they build has a different target group, the only know-how that they can transfer from one project to another, are very basic business skills such as the principles of online marketing or a growing network of causal business contacts.

To come up with real innovation, or to even correctly diagnose the failure of the previous project, one needs to have some depth in knowledge about the subject matter in the first place.

All these observations bugged me for a long time. In business development, they always tell you that failure is a success in fact. Allegedly, investors think warmer about the budding entrepreneurs who can get over failure rather than those who succeeded with their first project.

Is this true though? If you don’t learn anything from your failures, but rather, jump on yet another business opportunity, what is the value of that to the investor? There is no value. There is a huge difference between pivoting, namely changing the business model for your business following the demand, and jumping the ship.

3. Lack of Genuine Passion.

Lastly, serial entrepreneurs don’t hone any genuine passions or interests. Or rather, their only passion is a hustle: they just want to capitalize on something. Whatever that something is. While in business, authenticity is a very important factor for success.

When potential stakeholders of your project talk to you — whenever it’s your potential business partners, clients, or employees — they need to have a strong feeling that you are authentic. Namely, that you have a personal mission, and that you are a real leader who is in the business for a little bit more than just money.

Serial entrepreneurs master the art of making mechanistic, generic sales pitches. Yet, they can never be as real and persuasive as people who have a mission. If you’d like to know how this works when brought to the extreme, place take a look at the Contrepreneur Bingo series on Mike Winnet’s YouTube channel.

Why Is It So Hard To Tell The Difference Between an Amateur and a Real Expert?

Telling the difference between the two is hard because both beginners and experts speak similar business language and look at the problems in general terms. But the underlying reason is different. 

While beginners do not know the nitty-gritty details of the business, experts have so much experience and know so many mechanisms behind business that they take a helicopter view at problems and summarize the conclusions in simple terms.