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/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
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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.