How I juggle 8 startups at the same time
The headline is a bit of an exaggeration. I'm not Elon Musk. But I am bootstrapping a venture studio, called Evernomic, with a focus on the media industry.
My Projects
Some of our projects include:
- Newsletters like Internet Is Beautiful and Discovery Dose
- SaaS projects like Feedboard
- A local newspaper in the Netherlands
- A private deal-sourcing service
- Websites like Find Newsletters
Mind you, Evernomic itself takes a lot of work. We also have contracts with other companies and many side projects, including:
- Quora spaces with 2M+ monthly views
- Telegram Channels with 20,000+ subscribers
- An exclusive community of writers at prestigious publications
- An internal API for detecting the "interestingness" of headlines
This is normally a liability for me in business interactions but I am still in university as well. People often look down on that and underestimate me for it but it's something I aim to go through regardless of my success in business.
Plus, I hate nothing more than being one-dimensional. I don't just want to be good at business or any ONE other field. I workout and take care of my health, I spend much of my time learning new things, I like to socialize and make memories, I pay attention to how I look, and I pursue hobbies that push me forward like writing and public speaking.
My Process
Now, this begs the question of how I manage my time to not fall behind on my responsibilities.
I'd like to start by saying I'm a strong believer of continuous improvement. I'm constantly looking at ways to become more efficient and cut down unnecessary responsibilities. I'm by no means perfect at time management.
Beyond that, I have developed what I call a Maintenance/Expansion Framework.
I divide my workload and things that require headspace into two categories:
-
Maintenance: ongoing commitments that require my continued attention on a regular basis that are necessary for me to keep going in the same trajectory. Essentially, things I need to do to maintain my current progress.
-
Expansion: one-time or open-ended tasks that improve the overall condition of my life whether it's in business, fitness or happiness.
This may sound controversial to openly admit but I avoid commitments, a.k.a Maintenance Tasks, at all costs. That's the danger zone. It takes away from my ability to expand and take on more things when I'm faced with better opportunities in the future.
I like to always leave some free margin to try new things, waste some time, let things go wrong without detrimental consequences and so on. Therefore, I'm very picky with things I commit to and I try to minimize them.
Conversely, I'm unafraid of the Expansion side of things. I can turn months into hell, taking on several things simultaneously, as long as I know it will be over soon. The only decisions that truly concern me are those that lock me into a certain future.
A typical agenda for me looks something like this:
- My daily routine
- Maintenance Tasks
- 3-4 Expansions Tasks at a time
This division gives a game-changing order to my life. I know what the bare minimum of what I should be doing is and it lets me focus on multiple domains within my life and business simultaneously.
Within Evernomic, I try to build systems and frameworks through which we push our projects which gives us a streamlined, efficient approach. Plus, things get delegated effectively which minimizes commitments to low-yielding tasks on the higher levels.
Naturally, focusing on so many things simultaneously has its drawbacks too. I often fail to match deadlines, I often don't end up acting on plans I've had, I often don't reach my goals. In fact, at any given moment, I'm probably not doing too well.
However, I've learned that time has a magic of its own. Whenever I've looked back on my progress over a few months, I was pleasantly surprised. Now, I've decided to trust the process and keep pushing forward regardless.
How do you deal with time management? Any feedback on how to improve my approach?
Follow me @arianadeliii for more insights from my journey!
Inspiring story, do you follow a daily 8-hour work time model or work anytime you feel like?
It's normally anytime I feel like but that being said, it's very rare I work less than 8-10 hours in a day. My life and schedule is thankfully very streamlined, so I never "work". I don't work and get back to life. It's one and the same. So, if I'm not dead tired or not busy doing something, I'm probably working. I have pretty consistent 12h+ work days.
Thank you, very insightful once again. How do you handle burnouts? Do you take weekends off? How frequently do you go on vacations?
Sorry if that is too many questions, I handle multiple projects myself (pie.host and codebihar.com) and struggling to manage life-work-travel balance. You seem to have walked this road further than me.
I try not to acknowledge burn outs, it just gives me an excuse in my mind to slack off. I naturally do get burnt out at times. I normally work the bare minimum I need to and spend a few hours per day just thinking about the circumstances surrounding me. This normally takes less than a week and I’m back.
I don’t take weekends off. My life is sort of like, if I’ve got no arrangements, I’m gonna work. Given my schedule, if one day I have plans then I’ll take the evening off for example. I hardly ever take a full day off, but there are times I naturally make other plans. It’s just no strict rule of “I don’t work on weekends” don’t really understand why. I find it momentum is a massive help.
I travel a lot but I still work on my travels. A lot of them are work related, so naturally that doesn’t count. But in terms of traveling for pleasure, I aim for a few times per year, and I work slightly less during those days. I try to be methodical though, so if I’m going to a particular country, I plan in advance to have meetings there, explore opportunities, etc. So sometimes I turn vacations into work.
Don’t get me work, I’m not someone that doesn’t enjoy themselves, I do. But I also like having a purpose. I get bored very easily if I go traveling to just “turn off”. So when I go back home to visit family, friends, etc. I arrange for a lot of meetings and so on. Plus, I still work on my normal schedule for a minimum of a few hours per day.
I hope this helps. Good luck on your projects! Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter for any further discussions!
Great insights once again! I can related to lot of stuff you said, specially "I get bored very easily if I go traveling to just turn off"
Thats what I needed to hear today, just followed you on Twitter. Cheers!
Impressive!
Do you think that a tool that allows to
Would it help you with you Productivity even better.
I am working such product (it's actually live) but is inspired from the fact when people work on multiple scopes, they need to remember lots of URLs for different documentation.
For example, for you Newsletter product you have 3 URLs
Imagine
https://u/newsletter/planor even betteru/nl/plannewsletterand your get all 3 URLs above in the response. At max 2 clicks.I am genuinely curious if it would further boost your productivity or you are satisfied with current set of Tools in you workspace.
If it makes sense to you, please give https://slackbooster.com/apps/ushort a visit and provide any feedback you might have.
Thanks for reading long post!
I think the current tools are satisfactory for me personally. Others may think differently however, best of luck!
Thank you for the reply! it's useful
Your way of dealing with multitasking looks impressive. Especially I admire dividing a workload and things that require headspace.
I'd add that half of the success definitely depends on proper planning. If you know how to plan your tasks, resources, and workload efficiently, then you can easily cope with the most complex project and series of projects.
Agreed! Glad you liked it!
what's your typical working hours look like ?
There’s nothing set in stone, I work whenever I have nothing else planned and don’t absolutely need to relax.
It’s rare that I work less than 10h/day. Normally average around 12h on a normal day. I do have days off when I have other things planned.
Albeit, it’s extremely rare I go a day without working at all. 1h is a bare minimum I don’t think I’ve gone below in years.
Really inspiring Arian!
Thanks!
Really inspiring, it require much effort at the end.
Thanks!
interesting, how do you decide which is the most important task to prioritize?
Some naturally have deadlines so you can tell the urgency. Especially the maintenance tasks that are repeating on a regular basis. Without deadline, you know by default, the extent of negative impact for each task if not done and you know the extent of positive impact if done. So, based on that you can easily prioritize.
Nice Arian. Inspiring journey and process.
Thanks for reading! The future is uncertain but if all goes according to plan, I don't believe I will focus on one product in the sense of changing my approach and business model. As of now, I am technically focused on ONE product. The product is a framework and system capable of supporting startup growth, a.k.a Evernomic.
But I understand you mean the subsidiaries. In that case, even now, I focus more on certain projects based on different circumstances. For instance, if some are at a stage where they demand more attention, then my focus shifts. Alternatively, I will always focus a bit more on that one product with the most potential and the one performing best.
Regarding the future, I can't possibly keep an eye on all businesses, so naturally much will be delegated and my focus would indeed be narrowed down. Plus, we have certain ideas we refer to as Primary Assets. They have the most potential and are the most scalable. We are planning the launch of a project like that this year, so my focus would naturally be more on it.
I know this is a longer answer than expected but in short:
Thanks a lot. I like long details answer, i appreciate it. Your answers is perfect 👍🏽
Is it possible to share more info about your businesses, profits, business models and other info. I'm curious to know more.
Please reach out to me on Twitter (@arianadeliii) and we can discuss more!
Nice framework! I'll steal it from my products :)
Haha, be my guest! Glad you liked it.
your ability to juggle multiple ventures simultaneously is remarkable. Your Maintenance/Expansion Framework is a unique and effective strategy for managing time and priorities. It's inspiring to see someone so young embrace both personal growth and entrepreneurial challenges with such vigor. Your approach to continuous improvement and adaptability in the face of new opportunities offers valuable lessons for entrepreneurs at all levels. Keep up the great work and thank you for sharing your insights!
Thank you so much for the kind words!
That's brilliant, I'm splitting my tasks like this too.
What do you think about doing the maintenance or the expansion tasks first thing in the morning ? I think that doing maintenance first might give you a safe feeling like you said, but also doing the expansion stuff first might make you do them with a fresh mind. Eager to hear your take on this.
Glad you like it!
I think that depends on the person. I prefer doing maintenance first so I know my interests are covered and I've done what I need to be doing. I can then attack the expansion tasks as I see fit. That being said, I'm not a morning person haha. But the sentiment remains.
I like the work I do though, so by doing the maintenance, I am still excited to tackle the expansion tasks, just more at peace. If I didn't like my work, I would likely do expansion first and leave maintenance for last as I would be more forced into doing it.
Have you considered putting a “mini-CEO” to handle each of those projects (or some) that report to you?
Yup, that's what we do for some of the projects already! Slowly rolling out a similar model on all projects.
Yes it sounds like you don’t like to commit by doing so many things at once. With so my things going on, there is always an easy reason why one thing does not work or does not progress. With so many things going on, nobody will think you have failed because you can pull out another „startup“ out of the hat. Maybe, to reach the next level, your true self, you absolutely have to commit and drive one thing to total success or total failure- which is, I have the illusion, that you may still be afraid of ;)
The maintenance/expansion thinking - like it!
Thanks for your comment! That's an interesting way of looking at it. I try to push myself very hard and hold myself accountable as much as possible to achieve almost the effect of progressing in all fields at the same pace as if it were the only thing I focused on. The fact is, I am only building one thing and that's a system and network for building startups efficiently. Traditional brick and mortar businesses are probably just as complicated. Regardless, there definitely are some drawbacks compared to laser focus on one thing, we'll see!
That's impressive! You've got your hands full, but I bet you've got all 8 startups under control. Good luck!
Thanks, appreciate it!
nice plan, appreciate it
Glad you liked it!
You're working hard, that's all that matters. You got this!
Appreciate it!
You take a very wise approach to time management by using the Maintenance/Expansion Framework. It's critical to strike a balance between continuing obligations and room to expand.
Thanks a lot!
It's great that you've been able to execute that. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage one startup.
Thanks a lot!
I think this is the best way to look at bootstrapping - splitting your tasks into maintenance and expansion. Otherwise, you're stuck working hours per day whilst not actually making any progress.
Great article!
Glad you liked it! Agreed!
This comment was deleted 4 months ago.