How do you know which project to focus on?

[illmasterj]

Last year I made a decision that I was going to get out of "agency life". I'd built a monster and wanted out ASAP.

Since then I've purchased 3 websites and built 5 others. Results have been mixed but I have learned a lot. I've wound down the agency and productized a few services that some clients have taken me up on (I now have a "service business" that takes 3-4 days per month to run). In addition to this I have (proven) people wanting to partner on new projects/acquisitions - I want to get involved but don't know where the time will come from.

Most days it feels as though I'm giving each project 1-3 hours of my time. I'm constantly hopping from project to project.

I think after previous failed projects I've taught myself something untrue: If I have multiple projects, surely one of them will be a success. As a result, all of them are mediocre right now. No one project is bringing me a full time wage, despite most of them having the potential to do so.

I'm looking to 2020 and trying to figure out what I should be focusing on. Currently I am thinking to:

1. work on each project until it hits a certain revenue goal
2. doing 1 month sprints on each project, and returning back months later
3. pick 1 "winner" project and focus on that until exit

There's definite downsides to all of these though.

Many of you have multiple businesses. How do you do it?

Did you decide to focus on one? If so, how did you choose that one project (the one with the most potential I'm guessing)?

 

[bernard]

Work on them in weekly batches, while of course doing the necessary running upkeep one day or so.

Then plan them into months of 2-3 projects. Rotate them.

Also, just from personal experience, I can't run more than 2 larger projects. I have a few smaller sites now, that earn, but they're just that, smaller sites that don't need that much upkeep. I work on 2 sites at a time now, but's easier for me, since I have one obvious project that I make 90% of the income from now. I want to supplement with a second site, to get a similar income, so I have worked on those two sites this fall. I also have one site that is summer oriented, so I will work on that site this spring. And so on.

I then consider my smaller sites as something I can work on, when I need a break or to test stuff.

So I'd recommend doing what I do. Break it into months of working on 2 sites, splitting time into weekly planning. Then work on stuff that can benefit all sites in the evening or weekends, like learning a new skill.

 

[eliquid]

Last year I made a decision that I was going to get out of "agency life". I'd built a monster and wanted out ASAP.

Since then I've purchased 3 websites and built 5 others. Results have been mixed but I have learned a lot. I've wound down the agency and productized a few services that some clients have taken me up on (I now have a "service business" that takes 3-4 days per month to run). In addition to this I have (proven) people wanting to partner on new projects/acquisitions - I want to get involved but don't know where the time will come from.

Most days it feels as though I'm giving each project 1-3 hours of my time. I'm constantly hopping from project to project.

I think after previous failed projects I've taught myself something untrue: If I have multiple projects, surely one of them will be a success. As a result, all of them are mediocre right now. No one project is bringing me a full time wage, despite most of them having the potential to do so.

I'm looking to 2020 and trying to figure out what I should be focusing on. Currently I am thinking to:

1. work on each project until it hits a certain revenue goal
2. doing 1 month sprints on each project, and returning back months later
3. pick 1 "winner" project and focus on that until exit

There's definite downsides to all of these though.

Many of you have multiple businesses. How do you do it?

Did you decide to focus on one? If so, how did you choose that one project (the one with the most potential I'm guessing)?

I dont think anyone can give you the right answer.

For me, I'd pick the one with the most potential. But I have full-time income plus more coming in right now.

For someone in a different situation than me, they might pick the one most able to provide them direct income right now, which might be the one with the least potential.

You need to figure out your goals and lifestyle/personality and then align your work to that. That might weed out some projects for you.

 

[Ryuzaki]

If you need to get to the money fast, choose the one that's showing the most favor in the eyes of Google (assuming we're talking about SEO here). Use other metrics if not.

If you have money and time is the problem, outsource content production, then get to where you can outsource "drafting" and image insertion. Then you can go back, tweak the on-page SEO, and hit publish.

Alternatively, have a few days out of each month to give each non-main site a post to keep them fresh and alive. Then spend the rest of your time on the winner. When done with the winner, sell it and pick the next best and dump some money in it to make it happen faster. Rinse and repeat. The nice thing is they'll all be aging and you'll have a growing war chest to keep it happening.

Ultimately we all have to make the decision when the money isn't there about running many or one or two sites. I've always opted for doing one main and one back burner that's aging and getting content (after making a mistake with 30 sites at once, etc).

Eventually you'll start getting the infrastructure down for hiring, training documents, etc. To where you have a writing team, and from there having 10 projects ain't no thing. Then the problem becomes links and you either train people for that or buy them.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Hi OP. There's a thing called decision fatigue. Basically, you can only make so many good decisions a day before you run out of decision making power. Because of that, your limited resource is actually your decision making abilities.

IMO, you should focus on one project for a long period of time until it becomes big enough where you can hire managers to run the business for you and that the business can grow itself, without you actively working on it.

This comes from the lifecycle of a business: startup, growth, maturity, and decline and decay. It looks like all your businesses are in the startup stage and never reached the growth or maturity stage. A startup is one where the business model has yet to produce more revenue than expenses and the product is not yet feasible. Once it is proven to be feasible, the business enters the growth stage. The business is in the growth stage until it reached a majority share of the market. At the maturity stage, it spawns off more businesses. The decline and decay stage is for businesses that no longer have a product/market fit (ie Sears).

So, with that in mind, you're not growing your businesses to their full potential. You do not have a dominant market share since you're unable to hire workers and managers.

You're just a skilled freelancer working for yourself.

You can keep on juggling multiple sites or you can focus on one business for a long period of time and grow your business. You also need to expand your skills into other areas such as management, finance, accounting, support, tech, etc or at least figure out how to hire people who are experts in those areas to help you.

Good luck, you have a ways to go.