In this solo talk, the speaker examines the trade‑offs between concentrating on a single business (the classic "focus" mantra championed by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates) and operating as a portfolio entrepreneur or product studio that runs multiple ventures simultaneously. He begins by questioning what "focus" truly means, noting that even historically successful companies like Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway have managed diverse product lines or subsidiaries. He then outlines the concept of a modern portfolio entrepreneur, highlighting benefits such as broader perspective, diversified income streams, and risk mitigation, alongside drawbacks like diluted focus and reduced appeal to investors. The discussion moves to product studios—organizations that systematically create, acquire, and scale multiple products—citing examples like Maker Studios, Tiny Capital, Constellation Software, Vista Equity, and Andrew Wilkinson’s studio (Waking Up, Supercast, Z1.digital). A recurring theme is the importance of a unifying mission or vision that ties disparate projects together, which the speaker says he developed after extensive coaching. He shares his own multi‑business ecosystem (ad agency, software, investments, education) under the "Leveling Up" brand, linking it to his upcoming book and marketing education platform. The talk concludes with practical advice: entrepreneurs can pursue multiple projects if they maintain a clear, shared vision and stay within their zone of genius, while also recognizing that investors often prefer focused commitment.
Chapters
Alright, so today we are going to talk about the concept of a portfolio entrepreneur and we're also going to talk about the concept of creating a product studio. So, when you think about what most people say, so Warren Buffett and Bill Gates when they first met, the first thing they said when people asked them, what does it take to succeed at business? They both, you know, wrote that on a piece of paper and then they kind of handed it in. The one word was focus, right? And so there's an argument to focus on one thing at a time. So maybe Bill Gates is working on Microsoft, Berkshire is working on— or Warren's working on Berkshire Hathaway. But if you think about it, at the time Bill Gates was already very successful and Microsoft had multiple product lines. They had Word, they had Excel, they had Windows, all this stuff going on. Berkshire Hathaway was already a conglomerate of companies, right? So they had You know, they have See's Candies, they have GEICO, they have Berkshire Hathaway in there. Just have a lot of stuff going on. And so, you know, when they say the word focus, what does that mean exactly? Does that mean to work on one thing at a time? What does it mean? Because I know for me, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs, we like to do a lot of different things. And entrepreneurs tend to get the entrepreneur ADD, meaning they see the next shiny object, they want to jump on it. They see the next opportunity, they want to jump on it. So, I think there is, there's a spectrum, right? There's one where it says focus completely on one thing and the other side is you're trying to work on, you know, every new thing under the sun. I think there's got to be a healthy balance of both. And so if we look at my screen over here, I'm actually going to pull this up. Let's see over here. There we go. So I, every 2 weeks or so I talk with Marvin Liao, who is a, he's a VC. And, you know, we had a discussion here and he— I'm not quoting, I'm not trying to quote myself here, but we had a discussion about the concept of a portfolio entrepreneur. So you can see here highlighted basically the idea around the modern entrepreneur having multiple projects, portfolio of projects. More below, some benefits. So multiple projects equals multiple perspectives equals a more well-rounded entrepreneur. And then multiple income streams de-risks the entrepreneur. A detractor might be that it decreases focus and investors don't like it either. So, totally true. I mean, it's hard for you to get money if you say, if you tell investors, I'm gonna be working on 10 different projects or 5 different projects, right? So, you know, that's why there's an argument to maybe bootstrap. Or on the other side, if you're trying to get investors, focus on that one thing while you're trying to get other people's money. Because I know if I'm gonna invest in something, I know that I would like my entrepreneur for that project to focus on that one. Otherwise, you have split focus, you're gonna have less chances of success. Now, there's a concept of also of product studios. So, product studios, if you think about Maker Studios, they were just pumping out a bunch of content and then they're— I think they were acquired. I forgot who they were acquired by, maybe by Disney. But Berkshire Hathaway, let's use them again as an example. They are very much a studio of companies. You have Tiny Capital, which they started out as a web design firm and they took the profits from that firm and they just started buying other online businesses. So, they're trying to be the Berkshire Hathaway of the internet and when I had Andrew Wilkinson, founder, one of the founders on the podcast, he was reporting that combined businesses were doing over $100 million a year in revenue, which is great. Now, let's then take a look at who else is there. Constellation Software, you have Vista Equity, and you know, Vista just buys SaaS companies. Constellation Software buys smaller SaaS companies for the most part, but they do have a focus, right? So, I think when people talk about focus, They talk about a singular focus on, perhaps it could be the mission, right? Because Berkshire Hathaway, their mission is to go buy other wonderful businesses. Tiny needs to buy wonderful internet businesses. And then you have Maker, they're focused on creating content. Now, when I think about what I have going on with, you know, we got the ad agency, we got the software, there's businesses that I invest in, there's other stuff we have going on such as education and a whole host of other things. I think of us as the ultimate tagline is, you know, we're leveling up, right? It ties in with the book. We're leveling up marketing businesses. Because even my book, it ties into building habits around gamers, but eventually if they want to get to the next step, I'm going to teach them how to do marketing and eventually, you know, put the next tier of people up into boot camps and then eventually those that want to learn how to do business, they'll do it, right? Because again, you know, me right now, I'm teaching. I love learning and I love teaching. So I think the concept is important to understand that a lot of different things going on, it's really important to have a unifying mission because— and this is not like something I've been, you know, I've had figured out from the get-go. In fact, recently I spoke with my coach and we did talk about a unifying vision behind everything. And it did take a lot of thinking to get through it. But, you know, when you have a lot of disparate things going on and your team is just kind of being pulled in a lot of different directions, when you unify them with a vision, it's a lot easier. And people pay a lot of lip service to it. I used to think it was a bunch of baloney. But turns out at the end of the day, this stuff matters, right? And I think, you know, here's a good example. This is Andrew Wilkinson's, I believe it's a company that he invested in, but they actually helped build a lot of these products. So, Waking Up, Supercast, you know, a lot of these things over here, they call themselves a product studio, right? They build a lot of these things and they look cool. So, Z1.digital, you know, that's what they call themselves. So, you know, no matter how you want to look at it, whether it's a portfolio entrepreneur or a product studio, I think it's really helpful to, you know, have that lens on it and then you can go out there. And by the way, it took me, you know, 3 to 4 hours to think of that unifying vision. So I was trying a different— a bunch of different things. So take the time to think about it and if you want to do different things, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's been proven that it works, but you got to have a focus, right? Again, if you think about kind of the zone of genius for me is around marketing. Right? The zone of genius, we'll even say for my podcast co-host Neil, happens to be around marketing as well. And the industry is big enough for, you know, multiple people or many people to exist, right? So anyway, that is it for today. And yeah, go check out levelingup.com to learn more about the book that I have coming out, and we will catch you later.
