The Multipreneur Manifesto
Discover more from Late Checkout - a Substack by Greg Isenberg
The Multipreneur Manifesto
Defining the next generation of entrepreneurship
Before we dive in…
New pod is live with Case Kenny. You might recognize him from his popular Instagram account with 525k+ followers or his top podcast on SiriusXm.
He was kind of enough to share with me (and you) his playbook to building million dollar businesses through a content flywheel.
Super tactical convo on growing internet brands.
Enjoy —> Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube
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Okay, now let’s get into this week’s post!
Back in the day when I was a fresh-faced newbie in the tech scene, there were two unwritten rules that everybody seemed to swear by:
It's all or nothing, baby. You either hit it out of the park, or you go down swinging. 'Aim for global takeover' was the mantra everyone was chanting.
Location is king. Want to make it in tech? You best be in Silicon Valley. Into finance? Better get your butt to Wall Street. Aspiring actor? Hollywood is calling your name. Where you were was just as important as what you were doing.
Fast forward to now, and things are looking a bit different. We've shifted gears into an era of multi-entrepreneurship - a space where moonshots and single-mission startups are making way for more diverse portfolios.
We've become "multipreneurs," juggling several ventures, but it seems like no one's really broken down what that really means. So let's do it:
Mul·ti·pre·neur (noun)
A multipreneur is someone who creates multiple products per year, with the aim of creating a company that creates companies.
For 20 years, we have had venture studios or product studios. Their entire schtick? Pumping out venture-backed startups like a factory assembly line. But we're not in Kansas anymore, folks. This is 2023.
Creating a product doesn't require you to cozy up to VCs looking to bankroll your ideas. You don't need a Scrooge McDuck-sized vault of cash to get your dream off the ground.
And let's throw out the old rulebook while we're at it. No more 'go big or go home'. No more bending over backward to raise venture capital in the 'it' places.
Who needs geographical validation when you can get community validation? That's where the real juice is. Everything else? Just noise. Forget what the big shots say. Listen to your community. They're the ones who matter. Everything else? Just static on the airwaves.
That's exactly why I've been championing the concept of community-based products for such a long time. I'm advocating for a shift away from traditional venture capital (VC) towards a new model I call "venture community." It's about turning to your community for validation and growth, not just the deep pockets of venture capitalists.
With this freedom, you can make multiple bets per year, stay creator-led, operate with low overhead and integrate each of your products together.
Let's put some clarity on the board here: a multipreneur isn't just a beefed-up solopreneur. Trying to juggle 5+ businesses solo is like playing dodgeball with a dozen balls coming at you simultaneously - it's a spectacular failure waiting to happen.
Imagine the first time the customer service inbox lights up like a Christmas tree? Boom, you're toast.
So let's not confuse these terms. Being a multipreneur is about building small, capable teams for each venture, fine-tuning your game as you progress. It's not about going it alone, it's about leading a pack.
Most importantly, AI, no-code and global talent allow you to be a multipreneur from anywhere in the world — giving you the freedom to work wherever you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want, faster than you ever thought possible.
This fires me up, how about you?
So you want to become a multipreneur…
Here’s four steps to building a company that creates companies:
1. Write your product thesis
What do you stand for?
At Late Checkout, our thesis statement is as follows:
We believe community-based products outperform non-community based products. Therefore, we start every business by creating a community and monetize by building products to serve the community.
Figure out exactly who you are, what you believe in, and let the belief flow through every aspect of your business.
Have a clear answer to this question: why do you exist?
2. Write your operating thesis
What are the constraints of your business?
What's your philosophy around building products in your multipreneur empire?
This could be a commitment to launching a new product every month, or only using no-code tools, or each product exists as an upsell to a specific product.
Come up with 5-10 constraints for exactly how your company will run.
3. Write your growth thesis
How will you market each product underneath the umbrella?
What social media platforms do you start on?
How do you grow those accounts?
Are you using paid advertising?
What is your unfair advantage on social media?
What's your thesis on growth, and how do you bake that into the incubation of each of these businesses?
At Late Checkout, our first step is to create audiences for the product. We’ve done this for Boring Marketing, Dispatch, and You Probably Need A Robot. From there, we “tweet like a human” and interact with other popular accounts in the space. This positions our productized services as creator-led alt brand accounts. I wrote about that last week here.
4. Build your teams
Who are the people who are actually going to build and operate these businesses?
What’s the breakdown between agencies, full-time employees, and contractors?
With global talent and AI, finding the right people to lead each product is the easiest it’s ever been.
You don’t need to go big or go home anymore — you can go big from home.
Greg’s bookmarks (new section of my newsletter I’m trying out)
Some bookmarks/ things from the internet I found interesting:
Justin Kan (co-founder of Twitch) has a new company called Rye
Nick Gray reviews cruise ships and reminds me that I love niche YouTube
Andrew Yeung shows some new social apps to pay attention to
Sterling Crispin talks about best practices designing for VisionOS
See you next week,
Greg Isenberg
P.S: are you subscribed to my YouTube (exclusive videos there)
Some ways we can work together:
Boring Marketing - There’s nothing like boring ways to bring your profitable customers.
Example: Boring helped Danny Postma rank high on Google for “headshots” with his AI startup HeadshotPro. Boring works!
Book a call with Boring Marketing and ask them about their secret SEO audit for $3000 🙃
Dispatch - if you want your customers to love your designs, Dispatch can be your design partner
Set up a call with them and ask them about how you could work together.
You can order a design audit, landing page design or deck design for a flat fee or work with us monthly. We haven’t publicly announced the flat fee pricing, so give the team a call.
Note: Unfortunately, Dispatch will be moving to waitlist only soon due to demand
The Multipreneur Manifesto
Simple in theory. Harder to do - which you’ve mastered.
How do you approach the employees? Float their salary while you wait for demand to pick up? Or put them on. A performance based salary as a freelancer?
Thanks for all your great insights brother 🙏