Self-Made Billionaires Pursue Multiple Business Opportunities [Chart]

As a serial entrepreneur, there is one question I have asked myself many times. Is it better to put our heart and soul into one idea that we believe in wholeheartedly, or is it better to spread ourselves amongst several business opportunities? I have asked several successful entrepreneurs their advice about this, and I have gotten answers all across the board. Since we only live once, it’s definitely a question worth exploring.

If we look at what some of the world’s top self-made billionaires have done, the answer becomes crystal clear. This chart called Serial Entrepreneurs: How To Pursue Multiple Opportunities (by Anna Vital at Funders and Founders) takes on this question and provides an interesting answer based on what entrepreneurial billionaires have done in their lifetimes.

According to this chart, there are 1,426 billionaires in the world (see the source for this data at the bottom of the chart). Out of those 1,426, 960 are self-made. Out of that 960, 830 of them made money from multiple businesses and 130 of them made money from only one business.

The 2013 net worth of each one of these billionaires is as follows: Richard Branson (4.6 B), Mark Cuban (2.4 B), Sheldon Adelson (26.5 B), Eric Lefkovsky (1.1 B) and Elon Musk (2.7 B). Another thing worth noting, which you can see on this chart, is that they all got going on their entrepreneurial endeavors at a young age.

So now the question is, how can we pursue multiple business opportunities, and do them all well with only 24 hours in each day? There are many people who find a way to do it, so I suppose it’s just a matter of time optimization (or cloning). Each one of these billionaires has the same number of hours in each day as we all do, so there is definitely a way to do it.