Entrepreneurship is a dog and pony show.
It’s evolving. It’s #disrupting itself. And it’s bloody refreshing.
It’s about time we stop having all these Mark Zuckerbergs wannabes wanting to become rainbow unicorns, and go back to the heart of entrepreneurship: creativity.
The idea of “Multipreneurship” is different at a foundational level because it encompasses the new role of “creator” into businesses.
It’s the idea that businesses are now community-led, not product-led. And the best bit is this new form of entrepreneurship is more inclusive and accessible to the average Joe Blow like me.
Here’s how it works according to its creator Greg Isenberg.
A sexy new approach to risk
The typical startup was a Disney Mermaid fantasy.
You’d quit your job, chuck all your parents’ money into a business idea, hope it goes well, and go down with the Titanic if it fails. If you lived in Silicon Valley you had a better chance of survival.
If you couldn’t afford San Francisco rents then bad luck, pal. Game over red rover. What a stupid business model.
I can’t believe we led with this approach for so many years.
Multipreneurship is about having a portfolio of small bets. Inside that portfolio are several businesses. If one business hits the wall or goes out of fashion, then another one can take its place. Smart.
Solopreneurs will become Multipreneurs
Greg is critical of solopreneurship.
He says you’re swapping the rat race for the mouse race. While I don’t 100% agree, it’s an idea worth considering.
Greg says solopreneurship can be lonely. It’s a good place to start but it’s not the end point creators should aim for. As a solopreneur myself, I am already starting to (unknowingly) become a multipreneur.
Multipreneurship is a natural evolution.
Multipreneurs are people who create a company that creates companies.
Before Multipreneurship there were either google-sized companies or solo business owners. Multipreneurship will fill the void in the middle. And (***does Forrest Gump Voice***) I-like-it-a-lot.
The holding company Late Checkout, that Greg started, is a perfect example of what’s possible.
They do 8 figures in revenue a year and have raised $0. Their portfolio looks like this:
@youneedarobot — AI community
@boringmarketer– Leader in AI/SEO helping companies make $
@DispatchDesign — Your design team
@brandkitchenplz — Creator holdco
Creator-led, not founder-led
The Mark Zuckerberg fan club are gonna hate this one. Soz.
Creators are the future, not entrepreneurs. The hardest part of any business is getting customers. In the old days, you blasted the market with bullsh*t ads and hoped they’d fall for your half-truths.
In the creator-led future it’s about authentic, trusted voices putting their reputation behind a product or service using their social media accounts and email lists to draw attention to it.
Entrepreneurs need to partner with creators in this new world — and it’s already happening. Yay … go team!
Communities are the most valuable currency in the world
That’s right.
Not Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Worldcoin. Nope. Communities. It takes a lot of hard work and skill to build a highly engaged community.
Social media was thought of as the ultimate community. The problem is it’s mostly a one-way conversation. Creators blast out their messages and then never reply.
A real community is built outside of the public eye in a Discord, Telegram, or Slack group. Creators engage in two-way conversations with their audience.
As those communities mature, leaders amongst the community emerge. They become evangelists. In some communities the evangelists are more influential than the creator.
When it’s time for a creator to offer a product or a service, they don’t YOLO their life savings into a random idea. No. They let the community build the solution by uncovering their biggest problem.
The community then provides feedback and the creators use that as the basis of a business. They either build the business on their own or bring in a skilled entrepreneur to do it for them — with a new or existing business.
Multiple ventures stem from the same community
Instead of one business attached to a community, multiple businesses are launched or attached to the community.
The insights from one business bleed into the other. Customers of one product become customers of another related venture.
Community ownership instead of stockholder or VC ownership
Attention Venture Capitalists: Multipreneurship is coming for you.
We’re going to eat your lunch. In this new model the businesses in the portfolio are focused on profitability — not B.S. valuations.
The funding of ventures happens from within. And most importantly, the community members can become part owners in the business.
We saw this recently with $ubstack. Creators, like me, were able to invest money into their business to help fuel their growth. In return we get a form of ownership and share in the profits.
This connection between the community (aka customers) and the business messes with the incentives and nukes many of the former biases.
We should own the products/services we help to build.
Built from home instead of a skyscraper
We hate offices.
They’re noise traps that require us to commute every day and waste our precious time. Enough is enough.
Multipreneurship encourages work from home. Social media is at the core and it doesn’t matter where creators, community members, or entrepreneurs reside. They can all connect on Zoom whenever, wherever.
Final Thought
The best multipreneur in history is Youtuber Mr Beast.
He’s taken his massive audience and used it to fuel multiple ventures. Expect many more creators to adopt this business model and earn 7, 8, or even 9 figures.
Creators are the future. Become one.
