I get a lot of questions about how I manage multiple companies. Following the Alpha Male 2.0 business model, for the past several years, I’ve maintained three companies, at least off and on. If you want to follow the Alpha 2.0 model, you must have 2 – 4 businesses that are location independent, with no employees, extremely low overhead, and are serving completely different customer markets. As I’ve said many times, relying on just one income to support your lifestyle (regardless if that income is a job or a business) is not a smart idea in today’s economic and technological era. People with only one income stream are asking for future problems.
I have much more to say on the topic of starting and managing businesses later, but today I’ll give you a general overview of how I manage multiple small businesses.
Unsurprisingly, the first company you ever start will be your hardest. You will make all kinds of mistakes, waste a lot of time on things that don’t work, and often, it will take 1 – 3 years of work before you start making real money. It will be both very fun and very frustrating at the same time.
That’s the bad news. The good news is the second business you start, once your first business is up and running and profitable, will be a breeze. You will be shocked at how easy it is and how fast the money comes. My first business, way back when I was in my mid-20’s, was a bitch to get going, but every other business I’ve started since then was easy as pie, and made money pretty damn fast.
As just one example, I started my Blackdragon business back in 2009 just to make an extra $200 or $300 per month to help pay for all the first and second dates I was going on back then. However, in less than a year, the income from that business was paying for my entire rent. A few months later, it was paying all my rent and all of my utilities, and this was on top of my normal day income. I was shocked at how fast the money started rolling in, and how easy it was… but it was because I was already a successful entrepreneur before I started it. You will experience the same with your subsequent businesses once you’ve been successful at your first business.
Your third business (if you want three which is not required; two is the minimum) will also be easy, but your biggest challenge there will be time management. If you don’t mind working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, then no problem. But if you have other priorities in life besides work, you’re going to have to get very good at time management to make sure all three of those businesses run well.
(Frankly, this is the reason I became a time management expert back in my early 30’s. I realized that in order to juggle multiple businesses and projects, I had to get really good at time management; I had no other choice.)
Under the Alpha 2.0 model, your business will go through four phases:
Phase 1: Make Money
Phase 2: Outsource
Phase 3: Optimize
Phase 4: Innovate
The make money phase is when you’re starting your business from scratch and trying to make money. It’s the hardest phase by far, though usually it’s the most exciting.
Once you hit your monthly income goal for that business (whatever that is, and it’s up to you), you enter phase two, where you start hiring virtual assistants and subcontractors to offload the work you’re doing so you can free up your time while still making the money.
Once this is all done, you go into phase three where you analyze your business and look at all the possible tweaks you can make to it so you can increase its income. You then implement these changes and grow the basic income from phase one into big income.
Then you hit phase four where you create new products and services for your clients/customers based on what they want. Phase four is optional.
In terms of time management, your goal is to get your business to the end of phase two as fast as humanly possible. At the end of phase two, you’re making real money and you’re not working very hard; you’re just spending the minimum amount of time babysitting the business to make sure there are no catastrophes.
At this time, you can put your business on maintenance mode, and start up your second business. While you pause your hard work on business A between phases two and three, you start up your second business B into phase one. Get that business to the end of phase two as fast as you can while doing the minimum in business A.
Now you’ve got two businesses making real money, and you’re not working that hard. It’s a very good place to be. You can get there in less than four years if you put effort into it.
At that point, you have a decision to make. You can go back and implement phase three on business A, and double, triple, or even quadruple business A’s income (this is in addition to the phase one income of business B). Or, you can hold off on that and start business C, get it through phase one and two, then circle back to phase three in business A while enjoying three sources of income.
Here’s a little secret. My Blackdragon business (my current business B) is currently in phase three, and has been for about a year. I’ve been updating all the ebooks, updating all the websites, and streamlining everything. I’ve increased the already nice income from that business by a lot. In about six months I’ll be done, and then that business will be back in maintenance mode while I refocus on my business C (my tech marketing company).
I have something very, very big coming out later in the year that relates to all of this business stuff. I can’t tell you about it yet, but the above is a tiny little taste of what’s coming. Stay tuned.
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I have something very, very big coming out later in the year that relates to all of this business stuff. I can’t tell you about it yet, but the above is a tiny little taste of what’s coming. Stay tuned.
Am I getting hot or cold?
(In terms of your big big that is to come. No helping or explaining. I am curious to see if I can intuitively arrive at a connecting point to your future state. I present a tiny little taste from this article.)
-INTJ Instinct
Cold. But very good guess!
Maybe he is going to offer live coaching or an online course on creating/developing a business. Personally, I would love to find a good course on how to buy an existing business. I mean a small one with potential for growth, and how to grow that thing into a business that could replace my job income. I’m talking 6 figures annual or greater, as that’s the job income I need to replace. Starting a business from scratch is not very appealing for me given my time constraints outside of my day job. I would prefer to buy something that is proven and is currently generating income, that can be mostly automated/outsourced, then grow it.
Good work man! I started my site legitplayer.com over 2 years ago now and only get about 10 visitors a day so i’m a long way from even step A! but i’m going to keep at it and then one day start a second business as you recommend. I just have no idea what i would do as a second business at this stage. But the future will store some great opportunities! 🙂
I bet what Caleb mean by ‘something very big’ is when he decide to goes showing his face after all.
I mean his big F- face and yes it’s really moving!!
Uh… there’s been pictures of me on my blogs for at least three years now. Click the About link on the sidebar of either of my blogs and you’ll see some.
I’m between Phase 1&2 for my internet stuff. My other project has gone through all 4 but I like doing the “work” myself for that project. But I still look (mostly accidentally) to outsource many things that other people are better at, take time, etc.
This seems like a good idea. That’s my bet, too. I give it a 50% chance of being correct.
They say 80% marketing/20% content. Something I’m still very much learning. I am currently at about 95% content/5% marketing for the second project. i do hope to get it around 50/50 in terms of time, energy and money.
Good article, you should do more business and time management posts.
Will you do some kind of ”The Story of my History with Business” series? I know you talked some in your book, but a more thorough look would be interesting.
I guess Caleb(starting this year) would give away ALL of his Intellectual Property for FREE(humanitarian mission) and for exchange to that He will going ALL IN in order to make an IPO on his profile(persona), so eventually he would change his online presence via video interactive or anything similar (God bless Technology!)
*Probably he would make money via Patreon-like(supporter based) approach. Think kind of Stefan Molyneux.
I think it involves videos somehow. I am very curious too about what caleb’s big project will be.
I will continue to do them here, but only in moderation. Unlike other advice or commentary, there’s a dollar value assigned to business advice.
That’s a good idea. I think I’ll do that.
It does. But that’s only part of it.
probably the most helpful post for me at this moment!
+1 to the History with Business (similar to History with Women).
Great post, helps to give me some structure of how I should be setting up/working on my own business. I’d love to see an Alpha2.0 Business book from you!