How I Evaluate Business Ideas So I Can Make More and Work Less

What I’ve Learned After 7 Years as an Entrepreneur

Having spent almost a decade as an entrepreneur, since leaving the corporate world back in 2013, I’ve established a handful of businesses of varying degrees of success.

My first startup, Hotdesk, was a failed office-sharing marketplace. Sure, I managed to raise some seed capital, but demand and revenue were a different story.

I took some lessons out of the experience and went on to form Collective Campus in 2015, a corporate innovation and startup accelerator that has been a seven-figure company since 2016.

Collective Campus’ success gave me the financial and time freedom to explore a number of revenue-generating side projects, such as Lemonade Stand — a children’s entrepreneurship program and platform, NoFilter Media — a podcast network, and Collective Content — a content agency, among a handful of less successful ideas.

With the end of a crazy 2020 fast approaching, I took some time to reflect on what I’ve learned over the years and what my personal business selection manifesto looks like today.

This isn’t a manifesto for high-growth startups, but for those looking to live Seneca’s maxim that the proper limit to wealth is to…