I am working on at least 10 different "startups" right now. People think it's too many. It's not focused. But I think the world moves slower than I do, so I work on lots of projects simultaneously. If I hit a wall on one project, I procrastinate with another one.
A lot of people dedicate themselves to one project, but I liken it to putting all one's eggs in one basket. It doesn't take much to build something quick and see if anyone is interested. If they aren't, move on to something else.
You never know when someone might come along who is the missing piece in one of your projects.
I don't know how you get over the fear of being last on everything. I'm working on 3 VERY VERY simple projects right now; calling the 'projects' is almost a stretch, and while I genuinely don't expect any of them to make much (if any) money, I'm trying to get through the 'start everything, complete nothing' mantra that I've apparently been plagued with since relocating to the DC area.
I honestly can't imagine a worse scenario for me, with the particular type of brain plague that I have, so I'd love to hear about them as they are completed (or even as they near completion.)
Indeed. There are lots of things about building a site that require Calendar Time to elapse to see results. SEO results, A/B results, AdWords performance, word-of-mouth spreading.
A lot of that stuff can happen in parallel with development on the site, but it's always nice to have a few other projects to work on to make that Calendar Time tick by a little faster.
That's how I see it too. Right now, I'm waiting on other people on most of the projects and I'm thinking about better interfaces or architectures for some. It helps me to have other things to work on that are productive to distract me from the angst that builds up when I'm waiting on someone else or calendar time like you said.
Something I read a while back said "sleeping on it helps." If you're only working on one thing, then you may be spinning wheels that your brain can do itself when given the right amount of time to evaluate or even discover all the options.
Another reason I can do this is a lack of demands from a timeline. A lot of project die simply because there wasn't enough time to let them evolve or find a market or they were "ahead of their time." That's fine, just be patient and work on something else. If it's a VC backed idea, that's not an option. You can't tell investors, "Hey we're just going to wait right here and see what happens..." But often times that's really the best route to success.
A lot of people dedicate themselves to one project, but I liken it to putting all one's eggs in one basket. It doesn't take much to build something quick and see if anyone is interested. If they aren't, move on to something else.
You never know when someone might come along who is the missing piece in one of your projects.