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Serial vs Portfolio Entrepreneurs
New research shows that serial entrepreneurs are not always great at learning from failure. Interestingly, portfolio entrepreneurs, who hold multiple businesses simultaneously, seem to be better at adjusting their expectations and behaviors following failures. The HBR article points to psychological research, which suggests that strong emotions often prompt people to blame others or external factors instead of themselves, as a possible cause of this difference: because serial entrepreneurs only devote themselves to one project at a time their emotional reaction to failure is much greater than that of portfolio entrepreneurs, potentially impacting their ability to learn. Portfolio entrepreneurs have their commitments spread across various companies and therefore don't experience the same intense emotional pain when one fails.
An alternative possible explanation, not mentioned in the article, is that portfolio entrepreneurs have chosen to become portfolio entrepreneurs precisely because they have more realistic expectations and learn more from failure, and therefore are more risk averse. Similarly, serial entrepreneurs could in some cases continue on that chosen path precisely because of an underlying inability to learn from past mistakes. As always, cause and effect are difficult to distinguish.
Read the full article here.