How many projects can you handle at once?
In other words... what are your capabilities?
What are your multi-project management skills?
Because I feel like people like Marc Lou or Levelsio do a lot of them and as solo founders, they are pretty fast and versatile (but they probably delegate some things to other freelancers - that's my guess).
How many projects can you handle at once? Either solo or together?
For example, I was handling 5 or 6 at one time, but it soon took its toll on my health. When it struck, I didn't care about project anymore.
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I've learned that I can manage several projects, but I can only make real progress on one or two at a time.
When I tried juggling too many, context switching became more exhausting than the actual work. Now I prioritize the highest-impact projects and keep the others moving with smaller, scheduled blocks. It's been much more sustainable for me.
This hits really close to home
Right now I'm technically handling 3 things
simultaneously building Ritually (my AI habit app), growing the Instagram page, and preparing
the Product Hunt launch for next week. And I'm already feeling the pull to add more.
But honestly? I think the answer is 1. One project deserves your full obsession before
you add another. The makers who look like they're handling 5 things are usually just very good at
finishing one thing fast before moving to the next. Marc Lou himself has said he finishes each
project in weeks, not months it only LOOKS like he's doing many things at once because he ships so fast.
Your health breakdown is the most important data point in this thread. No project is worth that cost.
Now I'm actively trying to resist the urge to start my second app (Soul Guide) until Ritually is fully launched. It's hard but necessary
How are you managing it now compared to before?
I can do 5 to 6 projects. It's just a matter of better planning and efficient time managing.
Varun's point about context switching being the real bottleneck (not time) is exactly what I built FounderFlow around. I ran a software company, a care home, and a cafe at once for years, and the expensive part was never the hours, it was that every ping felt equally urgent so I was context-switching into three different "modes" a day. What ended up helping wasn't cutting project count, it was a filter that told me which 1-2 things actually needed a decision from me today vs. what could wait. Curious if others here found a similar signal-vs-noise fix, or if reducing project count was the only thing that worked for you. (I'm the founder of FounderFlow, in case that's useful context.)
I’d include founder time in the definition of cost. A tool that saves ¥100 per month but requires hours of maintenance may be considerably more expensive than the subscription it replaces.
There seems to be a big difference between keeping several projects alive and making meaningful progress on several projects. I’d probably maintain one primary project and treat everything else as a tightly limited experiment with a clear deadline.