Taking on Too Many Projects as a Teen Entrepreneur

May 8, 2010

The world of teen entrepreneurship is interesting. In our everyday lives, we stand out among our classmates and peers. Most of us probably live at least two entirely separate lives. We have our normal, “offline” friends, but then we live in an entirely different world online. Online, we’re all connected to each other in some way or another. When one of us starts a project, we’ll usually draft some of our entrepreneur friends to work on the projects with us. This is a great way for us to get to know each other better and have the opportunity to work with friends. A great group of smart friends is one of the most valuable resources you can have when starting a project or company, especially as a teen. All of this is great, but I think it has gone a bit too far.

As a teen entrepreneur, it’s really hard to say no to all the opportunities we come across in life. In our minds, saying no means giving up on yet another possibility to become the next Facebook, Google, or Apple. We seem to have this idea that we need to do as many things as possible to increase our likelihood of succeeding. Teens are creative and filled with great ideas. Many teens, like me, come up with new ideas on a daily basis.

When I first got started a few years ago, I would do something, learn from it, and then move on. I would do this over and over. And in the beginning, this was a good thing. In order to learn quickly, I needed to experiment with lots of different things and I didn’t care about making something that would last. This worked great for learning, but once I actually wanted to start a project and turn it into something incredible, I needed to learn how to focus and make tradeoffs.

I have so many opportunities to work with friends on their projects and it would be so easy to say yes. I used to think it was cool to have as many projects on my resumé as possible. But recently, I’ve realized that I was wrong. It’s better to do a few projects really well than to be involved with everything but do nothing really well. Additionally, when I would start my own projects, I would have a lot of enthusiasm at first but then I would be tempted to move onto new ideas that I considered better.

Moving forward, I’m only going to work on one or two projects at a time and try hard to stay focused. Other teens should do the same!

I think teens should stop hiring their friends for jobs that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. I can’t count the number of times that teens create a group of their close friends and then make up jobs for them to do. This is a horrible idea! Especially because most of these teens already have projects that they are working on themselves. This is exactly where the problem of teens having too many projects begins. Having friends to talk to and share ideas with is great, but you don’t have to be working on the same projects to do so. In fact, I think it’s better when your both doing your own thing. In my experience, when you have to many people working on a project, you get way too distracted in dealing the “business” stuff and have very little time left to actually get work done.

I think teens should each choose one project to focus most of their attention on and do it well. If there is something that their friend legitimately needs their help on, than they can do a few more projects. But, for the most part, focusing on one thing at a time is a lesson that every teen entrepreneur needs to learn. Some of us have learned this already, and others will soon realize it.

What I’d like to see more of in the teen entrepreneurship community is advisors. There are so many of us with fantastic ideas. While we shouldn’t be working on too many projects, being an advisor to a friends company is a great opportunity to share knowledge and experience with each other. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll see more teens helping each other out and less unnecessary job titles and random projects that distract us from our overall goal—success (and happiness).

Do you agree?

http://twitter.com/BrackinTweets Andrew Brackin

Hey, awesome post. I totally understand. I'm not big shot but have an internet radio community, quite a good sized audience on my blogging networks but yeah. I have started a number of projects, all doing very well but each takes a lot of time and conducting different teams is hard, having 20 people talking at one time asking you to make decisions. Still it's great fun, I would like to live near silicon valley would be a big help for some more connections that London doesn't have.
Anyway great post!
netspencer

Thanks. I'm actually working on a project to help teens around the world support each other on their projects. It should be interesting!

Good look will all your projects! Oh, and the Silicon Valley is overhyped—the internet is an amazing thing
jakeosmith

Being a writer, I have to be focused on one blog/project at a time. I have had many offers to join other blogs, and I can't do it. I try to put my best effort into who I am working on/for. If I don't see any room for more growth in the current project, I move on. I think it's absolutely necessary to focus on growing one thing at a time. I have a couple teens in mind while writing this post that are making a huge mistake by not focusing.

And you are so right about having two lives. I have an offline and an online life. I only have one good friend who knows what I do online. I just wish I could tell these kids (my best friends) who would mock me for doing these things online, hey I am going to be WAY more successful than you, because I am starting early. And that is what we teens are doing, we are starting early. I guarantee you the kids I am working with now on these projects will be my co-workers here in 7-8 years. I certainly look forward to it.
netspencer

Yeah. I agree.

I had a few people in mind when writing this. I wish them the best of luck but I hope they realize that they are complicating their lives by being involved in way too much and running their companies in certain ways that I disagree with.

Also, I think I'm going to write another blog post about the power of the internet and how it was able to connect people like me and you! It truly is wonderful that you have other friends just like you to support what you do even when your offline friends would think you were crazy.
http://crystalcyan.com Crystal C. Yan

Feeling your pain. I hate saying no to people. For me, I actually first get recruited into organizations I'm semi-familiar with, and then become friends with the people in them later. One organization I joined a year or so ago is really difficult for me to keep up with. I love their community, but almost all their staffers are 3000 miles away and were friends in school together. When I first joined, there were lots of opportunities for me to contribute or create my own opportunities. Now, it seems when I push ideas out there I get little communication and thus there's not much I can do in my position since I don't see these people every day. Or for that matter, I've never met them. I get myself roped into many things, and I love doing them, but I'm afraid I can no longer deliver as much to each as I used to be able to when I was only a part of a select few. I definitely agree with some of the observations you've made!
http://andrewrauh.com/ Andrew Rauh

Completely agree! As a teen developer, I've come up with thousands of ideas for iPhone apps, new social networks, etc. I've learned through experience that if I buckle down and focus, I can be tremendously successful. For example, last year I worked on a science fair project and ended up winning 3rd overall in Chemistry internationally at Intel ISEF. Now, I am hoping to use that same level of dedication to pump out a few iPhone apps by the time I graduate high school.

One thing I want to add to this is this:
Teen entrepreneurs with amazing ideas need to share their ideas and get them out there. There is no way as 14-18 year olds we can finish large scale projects. We need to share all of the crazy things we dream up so that maybe someone with the resources and time will go farther and develop on our idea. We may not have the ability to make a finished, polished product, but we have the ideas to power the next generation of technology, science, and engineering.
netspencer

Yeah. I completely agree.

I think that sharing ideas is a great way to be more productive as a
community. We can get so much more done if each of us focuses but
helps each other along the way.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

As a perfectionist, I personally am very disappointed in myself when I can't do my absolute best.

And about meeting people after you join an organization: that happens too. I think what I was trying to say is that teens draw a fuzzy line between business partners and friends that they meet.
http://pmandia.com tennisman120

Awesome post

Ive had to do the same thing. There are so many awesome campaniles and ideas out there, but if you want 1 of them to work, you have to put all your effort into that one thing. I kinda put everything aside while I'm finishing up my iPhone app.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Sweet. Can't wait to see the app.
http://twitter.com/stephenou Stephen Ou

Very good points, Spencer.

I think the reasons why so many teen entrepreneurs are taking up projects that are exceeded their work ability is because they really want to be as successful as other full-time web entrepreneurs out there. But the reality is that teenagers (no matter who you are) often have limited time and resources when it compared to adults (schools, transportations, and even legality).

But even all the successful entrepreneurs out there, they always focus on one thing at one time (2 maximum), for those who are serial entrepreneurs, they always work on the separate company after they successfully exit from their previous business, they never do more than one pile of work at one time. That is unproductive and more likely, it is going to fail.

So all teenagers should really understand the theory of by doing one awesome things are better than doing ten thousands random things, even though you think those ten thousands things are awesome.
http://www.callmejeffrey.com Jeffrey

Fantastic post.
http://www.danielbru.com/ Daniel Brusilovsky

Great post, Spencer. Been meaning to write something similar to this for a while now. I went through this first hand, and noticed people in Teens in Tech Networks were starting to do it, and are still doing it, and denying that they're taking on too much. There needs to be a fine line between sanity, and being way too over your head. Every teen entrepreneur needs to read this post.
http://www.KingSidharth.com King Sidharth

I cannot agree more. In fact, I practice that. There are group projects too but only after we are done with personal things. The best help we can give to our teen-ent freinds is to set an example. That's even better then advice coz that will come anyways.

Loved your post man. Write more often. Do check this out and lemme know how you like it. It's something close to heart of a teen entrepreneur: http://www.64notes.com
MacTyler

Completely agree, there is something that just draws me to be a part of lots or projects and it really does have a lot to do with wanting to be successful and if I work just a little bit harder it might be the amount that makes the difference that pays off. If I can use a domain analogy, it is better to have one alexa top 10,000 domain than 7 alexa top 1,000,000 websites. I have had to learn this over the years and sadly i'm really not that young anymore (19) sniff, but yeah if I could give any of you guys some advice it would definitely be to focus on one project and do it very well. If you want to know my websites it is http://www.iphonedevforums.com and you can follow me on twitter at @mactyler I would love to answer any questions or talk with any of you on there.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Your blog is awesome. I'd love to talk to you more about this.

Your most recent post about GenY compliments this post quite well.
http://www.cell-designs.com Marcell Purham

I believe as a young entrepreneur that we take on many task at once. I know you might say you get overwhelmed and everything but that is what us entrepreneurs do. We take on multiple task and do a ton of things to see which works the best and the reason for is because we are bound to fail on most of them but able to succeed and learn from failing. To every success there is a failure.

Also it is a great idea to work with others. When you say work with friends you do not want to work with personal friends but as for friends online that would be the way to go. See when you have more than 1 person helping then you can get twice the work done because both of your are contributing and helping each other giving you both time to work on side projects. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, Is it worth it? and the answer to that would be wait and see.
http://robinkim.com Robin Kim

Spencer, you have a great ability to pause, look back, and unscramble tangled up thoughts and experiences in your words. Once you directly apply these realizations and improve specific aspects of your life, you will go far and succeed, and I am very confident about that.

Yes, I agree with your post. During the last several months, I have specifically limited myself to one project that I am most passionate about. Sometimes, I had to backtrack and discontinue working on projects that I had recently started or joined, ranging from NSPN.com/NASPEC to flyEutopia/YouthDialogue. I also had to turn down offers to participate in other projects. I also closed down ThinkRobin Media and sold or transferred clients to others. I stopped my internships in Boston. A little less than a year ago, I resigned from WSPN. The list goes on, but I am glad I made such decisions. As you said in this post, focusing on a project and doing it extremely well is very important. Now, I am only working on one project, and I plan to stay that way for many years to come.

On the topic of getting help from friends, I recall our Skype conversation about “entrepreneurial coders” and how we should avoid hiring each other, but support another and share knowledge. Because we are strongly entrepreneurial, it's best and most productive for people like us to do our own thing. Like you said, making up unnecessary “jobs” for entrepreneurial friends just won't do.

I am very glad I read this post. I look forward to telling you about my project as time passes, especially when I move to that area. I also look forward to hearing about your projects that you will choose to focus on. Our lives are exciting, and I think it's fantastic to share our experiences. As long as we maintain balance and focus, entrepreneurs like us will change the world for the better.
http://www.twtbase.com zacharycollins

Couldn't agree more with you Marcell.
http://dalejstephens.com/ Dale J. Stephens

Focus is valuable. I have been accustomed to concentrating myself to just one or two projects for sometime.

I fully agree with your point, but I feel a bit hypocritical saying so.

I recognize that I have perpetuated the problem you describe specifically with Eutopia Airways by saying “yes” too easily to others interested in the project.

I'm not perfect: I did you, Stephen, and Robin a diservice and I apologize. I hope you'll forgive me. I wish you the best on your respective projects!
ssunil

Great Post. I think the advice applies to everyone, and not just teens. Taking on too many projects is not such a good idea.

The sooner people realize this, the better it is for them.
http://robinkim.com Robin Kim

Dale, your extremely kind offer was in no way a disservice! How could you even say that? Just pursuing a different path
http://dalejstephens.com/ Dale J. Stephens

I felt as though I was pulling you away from your passion. Hopefully I didn't lead you too far off the path you're forging.
http://twitter.com/runningman3 Chris Carlson

Through involvement in various entrepreneurship projects -yours as well as others- you learn powerful lessons regarding relationships and also your own personal likes, dislikes, talents and most importantly your own limits. Some people don't learn many of these lessons until they've been working for years. Yes, it is important to start taking stock of limited resources such as time and personal energy but it is also just as important to take stock of which of these projects really motivate you. Just because it may be someone elses project, it doesn't mean you need to withdraw your efforts. Likewise, you may be unaware of others who share your enthusiasm.

Sometimes you have to ask yourself what it is that you are really passionate about. Absolutely, be aware of what may be hindering progress or what limitations there may be, but don't let limits and hardship disuade you from what you really want to do. Focus your resources on those areas where you really want to be. It doesn't matter if you let other things move to the back-burner or even to the shelf for the time-being (as long as it isn't school). You may be surprised who follows you if you have passion and enthusiasm. That is what marks the difference between a ho-hum, o.k. effort and one that gets you and every-one around you really pumped!
If you are not focused and there are too many distractions or you are easily distracted by other ideas, then perhaps it is time to move to something that does focus you.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Yeah. I agree with Robin. Eutopia was a great experience. I wish you
the best of luck in the future.

I don't regret working for you (for an ever so short period) because I
got the chance to meet you. In the end, the lasting personal
relationships are what matter the most.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Yeah. I agree. The traits of a good entrepreneur are different for
everyone.

Perhaps my ultimately message was: “follow your passion”.

I certainly don't regret the time I spent working on many projects at
once. I've learned so much. I also think it's fine to work with
friends and on their projects. You just need to focus.

What I described in this post is what worked best for me.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

True. Teenagers can teach adults a lot.

But at the same time, adults can teach us a lot.

A wise man (my dad) once told me: “focus!”
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Very true. I look forward to hearing more advice from you, an about to
“graduate” teen entrepreneur.

Cool site by the way.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Thanks.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Thanks. And I guess I beat you to it. Ha.

Also, you could say I was inspired to write this because of recent
circumstances.

The future is looking awesome though.
jacksonfall

Great point Spencer, but I do have one gripe: as teen entrepreneurs, we are the best of the best and will have an insane amount of ideas coursing through your mind at any given time. We all have our main project, in my case it's http://www.velociteens.com. (like how I sneaked that in?) But what do we do with all these other ideas? Just let them pass? Thats like throwing away food — You may already have enough to get by, but you certainly aren't full.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Nice analogy. And yes, I like the VT plug.

Perhaps this post should be treated as a call to action. All the wonderful ideas us teens have should go somewhere useful as opposed to being thrown away like food. I completely agree.

However, I believe that working on all of these ideas—or even just a few too many—at the same time isn't any better.

Write the ideas down and talk about them with fellow teen entrepreneurs. Focus on one project to do yourself but you can certainly keep coming up with other ideas.

Maybe a friend will want to use one of your ideas and then you can be an advisor to them. Your so much more productive that way. That's what I like to do.

I think that's another things VelociTeens could do—help teens share ideas.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Everyone is different so you might be right that exploring different ideas is good. No one is perfect and will get it right on the first try.

However, a lot of what I said speaks more to the method to which certain projects are done as opposed to the number. It's fine to try out many projects over time. But its impossible to really know if an idea is good or not if we don't focus on it and give it a fair chance to succeed.

In my eyes, a good entrepreneur can take almost any idea and turn it into something successful. So, instead of working on many ideas as to have a backup plan when something fails, work on one idea. And if something goes wrong, you're forced to think outside the box and try to fix the problem.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Nice blog post!

http://zacharycollins.mp/blog/am-i-taking-on-to…
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

You're right Stephen! It's all about focus.

You're work on OneExtraLap.com is testament to that. (Great job by the way)
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Robin, it took me longer to reply to this comment than any of the other ones because it really made me think.

You, more than anyone, have made a drastic turn in your life, limiting your projects and trying to stay focused. And from what I can tell, it's turning out pretty well. (Your tweets about negotiations are quite intriguing.)

And yes, I remember our Skype conversation about “entrepreneurial coders” — I've been thinking a lot about that lately.
Will Tran

Yup. The hard thing about being a programmer is our ability to know no limitations. Don't lose your drive!
http://dalejstephens.com/ Dale J. Stephens

Agreed. The end results has been friendship, and that's what matters.
http://www.facebook.com/sahaskatta Sahas Katta

You're spot on about this topic. I had the same issue over the past few years. I always wanted to do everything. I would continuously pick up projects that were more interesting than the last. That would often lead me to drop my own work, which wasn't a smart move.

Even as early as this year, I decided to pursue a new startup and was trying to get early Angel funding. I didn't. However, I learned something that I wasn't thinking about in the past. Every hour I take away from one project, is hour away from another project. Every minute is essential. Even that one small link or tweet you publish has the potential to be seen by thousands of new people. Maybe even that one quick 5 minute phone call could bring in a new deal with a large company. Also, young entrepreneurs have classes, exams, papers, and studying to deal with, meaning time is even more of an essence.

As you stated, making trade-offs is very important. At a young age it's hard to realize the importance. I also would think anything not perused would be a lost opportunity. It's easy to get carried away thinking you can do everything. If I had gone back a few years, I would have pursued just Skatter Tech ( http://skattertech.com ). It was stable, quickly growing, and was recognized.

Finding that one thing you are most passionate about and have had the most long-term success with is the best choice. It's truly difficult to make that decision, but it's absolutely worth spending time to decide.

Also, don't be in too much of a rush to graduate thinking that taking too long will cause a loss in opportunities. I've been in that tough spot. Young Entrepreneurs are a unique creative breed who will always have some “crazy ingenious” idea. Be sure to not miss out on other important aspects of your life and development in the process.
chadhuber

I have the same problem… never saying no. Recently, however, I have tried to make my projects more like Apple's lineup. There lineup isn't very big but each one of their products is very successful – no weak points because they spend so much time / resources on each one to make them the best possible. I have begun to try and focus on a few things and make them great rather than focusing on a lot and making each one just average.
http://www.KingSidharth.com King Sidharth

Gee, thanks man!
I thought so too! That's why I mentioned it here. Hit with a mail?
king{at}kingsidharth.com

Couldn't find your mail id so giving mine. Hope to hear from you real soon man.
http://www.cameronrawson.com Cameron Rawson

I totally agree, it seems to be a trend that the majority of people contribute towards a project/venture based simply on the title they are given – when in fact it is much more than that. As you stated at the bottom of the post regarding advisor's, I would like to see that too. Rather than having pointless titles to give friends to make them feel good or what ever, why can they not be simply advisor's still offering a strong input to the future of the project/venture whilst retaining a realistic rank and not something that is unwanted and not needed.

Regarding what you have said about the amount of projects, again I couldn't agree more. I've experienced it already. Even though at first it didn't appear to be time consuming, further you get into it more time consuming it becomes and difficult to manage time with educating, social life and trying to run something successful.

Looking forward to seeing more from you Spencer, it appears you spent a while writing up this post and take it from me, it reflects from the quality of the post.

Thanks Spencer.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Apple is definitely a great role model. Thanks for pointing that out.

Watch this video: http://spncr.me/9s — another reason why Apple is such a great role model!
HunterOwens

In the past I was often very tempted to, and occasionally did, hire friends for jobs that otherwise wouldn't have existed. However, this was mostly because they weren't working on their own ventures at the time and I couldn't stand to see these smart people working at some boring retail job. While this is fun short-term, it's draining and results in less progress for both parties long-term. So, I've started advising my friends on their ventures lately and this has been much more productive. And in the future my advising role will elevate to angel investing since for most of them their primary issue is lack of money.

I've been into analogies lately, converting these essentially digital things (like online startups) into tangible equivalents.

The Situation: You and two friends want to build some awesome vacation houses.

Option A. As a group you decide to build ten houses so that one is located in every cool city: Paris, London, Fiji, Manhattan, Malibu, etc. You wouldn't want to miss not having a house in the world's next hott destination! You each put 10% of your time, money, and thought into each of the 10 different houses. A year goes by and none of the houses have made notable progress, just the foundation and two walls. You haven't put much money into each house, so you're relying on retired Uncle Bill's electrical knowledge and B- Windows and Walls. You also haven't put much time or thought into them, so the design doesn't look nearly as beautiful as you dreamt it would.

Option B. The three of you focus 90% of your energy on building your own one house, for a total of three houses. You devote the remaining 10% of your resources to advising your friends on their houses on topics that are your expertise. You hire the best architects and builders to complete the job in a quick, accurate, and high-quality manner. Everyone puts a lot of time and thought into building their house and they all come out looking epic. After a year, each of your houses are beautifully complete and you're enjoying traveling around and spending a weekend at everyone's house.

So which is better: 10 houses or 3 houses?
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Absolutely fantastic analogy. I also like to take observations from the real world and use them when working on online projects. It's awesome to see that I'm not alone.

Also, I think you've set a great example with your advising of VelociTeens.com

Thanks for the great comment, Hunter. I really appreciate everyone pitching in and sharing their thoughts. It really means a lot! http://spncr.me/a1
http://twitter.com/hejg Gustav H

This reminds me of the “automatically say no” chapter in Rework (well, I haven't read that chapter yet, just saw the title) and I am really bad at this. When I say yes to things it's because I think it'll be easy and done in a few hours. But it later turns out to clutter up my mind along with all the other little things.
But I think the problem here is to figure out what a project is and to estimate what I have to do to get it done. I often also feel bad for all the things that are half done and that I instead of doing them end up with cleaning up in Google Reader or scan Twitter every other minute.

But I am also too nice to say no to things – what will people think about me, eh?

I'm happy schools over in a few weeks so I can clear out my mind a little.

(During writing this comment I've checked Twitter at least three times. I should stop doing that.)
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Ha. Sounds like your quite like me with that whole Twitter distraction thing. I've found that sometimes I need to place physical restrictions on myself to stop checking Twitter so much. I have a secondary account on my computer that doesn't allow anything like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.

And I agree with you. My mind is cluttered with tons of anxiety surrounding unfinished projects. This clutter makes it hard for me to finish the projects that otherwise would have been interesting and easy to finish.

With every project you take on (no matter how small or easy), you have the possibility to create another distraction for yourself.
http://twitter.com/hejg Gustav H

But I actually think school is the worst thing for me with all the little assignments that are supposed to be done – and I always think I can do them tomorrow instead of now.

And then they all pile up and I dont care to begin somewhere.

But worser – the teachers always tend to not care about the deadline they have set for the things to be done and because of that, I feel I can just don't care about them a few days more. I hate when they do that and think they are nice to us. They are not.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Yeah. Same here.

Stay tuned for a future blog post on that exact topic.
HunterOwens

Although the other thing that no one has mentioned yet (and I just
read all 50 comments again) is who do you hire then? I've had this
conversation with a few people in-person and have yet to reach a
satisfactory conclusion.

- You only want the absolute best people working at your company. (Re:
Jason Calacanis's 'Fire Good People' rant)
- The absolute genius people have their own ventures 99% of the time.
And why would they want to leave a company which they have majority
*control* of to essentially be used by someone else to make *their*
company successful?

So if you don't want to hire idiots who do you hire? Because of how
MTQ works, it will be essential to have more physical people in order
to continue accelerating and elevating and I'm not exactly sure how to
proceed with hiring smart people.

+ 50 Comments? This blog is going to get big, fast!
http://twitter.com/hejg Gustav H

Ha, I've got one in my head about that too. Looking forward to read it!
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Of course you should hire smart and awesome people!

I also think it's fine to hire friends as long as your not hiring them just because they are your friend, if you know what I mean.

Networking is all about meeting people. A lot of the time, you will meet someone and consider them a friend. Keep treating them as friends and getting to know them. Then, you'll build a bigger network of not just close friends.

When the time is right, and you need to hire more great people for your company, you can choose from those people.

It's certainly not a black and white topic. And the word friend can be interpreted in so many different ways. I certainly would only hire “friendly” people. You won't get any work done if your company is filled with evil people because you were reluctant to hire people you consider friends.
HunterOwens

My issue isn't at all with finding smart people. It's that I wouldn't
ditch what I'm doing to have a smaller role in another company (unless
if it was something absolutely epic like Tesla and most people I
talk to share that opinion.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Yeah. That's a good question and I have no answer to it. I've felt the same way quite a few times!

Hopefully I can find someone who knows the answer to this question to reply.

All these comments are amazing. I'm becoming such a smarter person by reading everyone else's thoughts and opinions.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Yeah. I certainly hope to see more advisors in the teen entrepreneurship space. I can't wait to see how the future turns out.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Hendrickson/4600185 Mark Hendrickson

I don't have first-hand experience as a teen entrepreneur since I started my first company only a year ago and I'm turning 25 next month. But the question you may want to ask yourself is why you want to be an entrepreneur.

I get the sense that teens want to be entrepreneurs because it gives them a chance to work on challenging projects outside the scope of school and to be treated by others as adults. There's also the cachet of even being able to call yourself an “entrepreneur”. An ambition to build the next big thing is presumably there for a lot of teen entrepreneurs but my guess would be that it is (or should be) of secondary importance given the other priorities in a teen's life (notably, finishing high school and going to college…which I've recommended to Bru and would recommend to virtually all smart, promising teens).

For that reason, I'm not sure it's crucial whether you focus or diversify your efforts, since perhaps you shouldn't be overly concerned about creating something that takes off and pulls you from those other considerations anyway. The biggest reason for focusing could be to teach yourself *how* to focus, which is a skill a surprising number of people lack even as adults. But notice that this reason is meant for cultivating oneself, not for ensuring the outcome for any given project.

I don't mean this as a slight to teen entrepreneurs' ambitions — I think it's great to see teens starting their own companies and building their own products. It's unfortunate that our educational system doesn't foster more of that initiative. The circumstances are just different when you're in high school than when you're in your early twenties and beyond. I tend to recommend that non-teen entrepreneurs focus their efforts, since starting a company is largely a matter of endurance and time management, and it's detrimental to the odds of your success (i.e. market growth and eventual liquidation) if you split your time and effort. But “success” is not a one-size-fits-all concept regardless of what we may be led to think, and there's nothing wrong with gauging success differently as a teen (i.e. as learning a lot about yourself and business from an early age while creating some cool things along the way).
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

That is a great point. Focus is important but we're just teens after all…

Perhaps teens should be doing things that in the adult world wouldn't work as well. Your only a teen once and those years of our lives are perfect for experimenting with multiple ideas.

When your an adult, you can't fool around as much because your startup needs to support your life and make you money—and failure is much harder to deal with.

I still think teens should learn how to advise each other more without having to be involved in too many projects!

And about school: you're right. It's important that we focus on school. I often am frustrated and feel that school is holding me back. But really, I'm luck that, because of the wonderful internet, I can be a part of the entrepreneurship world at such a young age in the first place.
http://twitter.com/garrytan Garry Tan

So true. Razor focus on one project trumps the dilletante's smorgasbord of half-done mini-projects.

At all times, the focus should be on building and not anything else. It is easy to get carried in away by 'entrepreneur-ism', the startup scene, reading blog posts, tweeting, or going to conferences. That's not building. That's being a part of a scene.

The only thing that really matters is making something that changes the way people live, work, or think. And that's building real product that solves real problems.

Great post, Spencer.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

My point exactly!

It's awesome hearing this from someone who's built something so awesome.

Any advice about finding others to help with projects? One thing I've found, and quite a few other people have pointed out to me recently is that it's so hard to find people who share the same passion as you and want to help you during the building stage.

So many of these teens “startups” branch off of one idea and one teen who really understands what you said about staying close to building itself. They then “hire” a bunch of people that they don't need to do “business things”. But what if they actually do need someone to help on the development?

How would you suggest that teens go about collaborating and working together to build the product without losing focus?
http://twitter.com/garrytan Garry Tan

Break the project into parts, and let the people who own those parts drive that all the way to shipping the feature — sure everyone should be able to give suggestions and talk about it, but someone needs to own it.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Brilliant!
http://branchr.com Aaron Ray

I absolutely agree that teens need more mentors/advisors to guide some of our ambitions, visions and dreams to build something BIG. Seldom do people step up to the plate and help aspiring entrepreneurs but lets take a vow to change that, to help the next generation that comes after us and make sure they have everything they need to make it BIG like us.

“Think Big and kick ass” – Donald Trump

Best,

Aaron Ray
http://www.corylevy.com cordor91

Spencer – I recently arrived back in the sates from a month long trip. So, I just now read this post.

“It’s better to do a few projects really well than to be involved with everything but do nothing really well.” – this says it all. I find it difficult to say “no” sometimes, but it is so important.

I recently had a fellow teen entrepreneur join one of my projects. This teen had too much on his plate and was aware that he had too much on his plate. Nevertheless, this teen said “yes” to my project when he should have said “thanks for the offer, but no thanks”. In retrospect, I should have asked this teen to simply advise me instead of join me.

Lastly, I would be happy to advise you (and other teen entrepreneurs) on any of your projects.

-Cory
http://www.corylevy.com cordor91

Spencer – I recently arrived back in the sates from a month long trip. So, I just now read this post.

“It’s better to do a few projects really well than to be involved with everything but do nothing really well.” – this says it all. I find it difficult to say “no” sometimes, but it is so important.

I recently had a fellow teen entrepreneur join one of my projects. This teen had too much on his plate and was aware that he had too much on his plate. Nevertheless, this teen said “yes” to my project when he should have said “thanks for the offer, but no thanks”. In retrospect, I should have asked this teen to simply advise me instead of join me.

Lastly, I would be happy to advise you (and other teen entrepreneurs) on any of your projects.

-Cory
http://www.facebook.com/people/Spencer-Schoeben/532345880 Spencer Schoeben

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http://www.facebook.com/efrizor Buntu Redempter

So true, I been trying to get like 5 things done at the same time and ended up no finishing even one thing. Since when I been hearing and receiving advices about not doing too much projects at a time, I worked on Wikindu.com and finished. Focus, is really a way to go and something anybody has to do.
@Connorrlee

Going through the same thing as a teenager – more specifically with the two separate lives. As far as taking on more than one project, it just isn’t suitable not only for entrepreneurship in general but also as far as high school or college goes; balancing academic tasks on top of it is close to impossible. I’ve found that devoting your ambition to one thing, instead of half-assing two, always works out better in the end. That’s the problem with (some) serial entrepreneurs, they just can’t stick with one. It’s like cheating on your girlfriend, 5 relationships will never be as strong as one real relationship. In the end it really comes down to managing your time though.
http://netspencer.com Spencer Schoeben

Totally appreciate the comment and insight. It’s nice to see other’s who agree. Nice comparison to multiple relationships. It’s very much the same. In both a relationship and a startup, you need to put all your energy and emotion in one place.