running 2 brands ?

[MailOrderCo]

Hi Guys

A mate of mine has been running his company for a few years now, and its got to a stage where it makes a nice little earner, but this is all it will do, he can't take it any further

He has spare time, energy to start another brand while taking in a income from his main brand, the brands are in different areas which he know's both the industry and market place.

I know usually chasing to many rabbits means you catch none, but my advice to him in this was to go ahead with another brand aslong as your main one does not suffer, i suppose if you have time and energy to make the new one work while still running the current one, then thats great.

What do you think ? if you have caught 1 rabbit and have it caged up getting as fat as it can, then you should go out and catch another ?

[ECI]

If I caught 1 rabbit, I would get another from pets world and let them breed so i could have lots of rabbits...

Seriously though, If a rabbit (or company) can look after itself with the staff and resources it has, then why not play with another idea?

As long as you keep the eye on the overall picture, all will be good.

[RoughJustice]

Lots of companies run 2 brands, if not more.

[freeform]

Agreed, but it might be worth spending a few months putting every little thing in place with the existing business. We all leave things hanging that we know we can fix as the need arises but this won't be the case if he's devoting all his time to a new venture.

As a rule of thumb, when we launch a new product or service or take on a big new client -- we stick with that until it's self-sustaining, profitable and liquid enough to take on someone or devote someone to managing it.

Then it's a matter of a few weeks or months transition to make sure the 'new guy' knows his onions and can deal with anything that crops up.

Then we start project no. 2.