One Vehicle, Many Experiments
Focus on one business while testing channels and products inside it
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 98%
Select one primary business vehicle and concentrate the organization's scarce attention, people, and capital there. This does not require using only one product or marketing channel. Experiments are compatible with focus when they reinforce the same customers, capabilities, brand, or economic engine—for example, adding a podcast, newsletter, or course around an established content business. The danger begins when an initiative starts from scratch in an unrelated domain and competes for the same leadership attention. Classify every project as an internal experiment or an external business, then prune the external distractions until the core vehicle has sufficient depth. As the company grows, evaluate focus through resource allocation: each person and pound committed to a peripheral idea is unavailable to compound an existing advantage. Diversify channels inside the vehicle before diversifying vehicles.
Origin
Eric Siu developed this distinction after running an agency alongside software, education, senior-living, and other ventures, then confronting the overload created by acquiring two agencies.
Core principles
- 01You can do anything, but not everything at the same time.
- 02Compounding accelerates when learning remains inside one business vehicle.
- 03Channel diversification differs from starting unrelated businesses.
- 04Leadership becomes resource allocation as an organization grows.
How to run it
- 1
Choose the vehicle
Define the primary business, audience, capability, and economic engine you want to compound over time. Make the definition broad enough to permit useful innovation but narrow enough to exclude unrelated ventures.
Pro tip Describe the vehicle in terms of the value delivered, not a single current platform.
Watch out A definition broad enough to include every idea provides no strategic constraint.
- 2
Map active initiatives
List ongoing products, channels, acquisitions, courses, investments, and side businesses. Include projects consuming leadership thought even if they use little formal budget.
Pro tip Add abandoned-but-recurrent ideas that continue to distract the team.
Watch out Invisible attention costs can be larger than the initiative's recorded expenses.
- 3
Classify experiments
Mark each initiative as inside the vehicle when it compounds existing customers, knowledge, capabilities, or distribution. Mark it outside when the organization must rebuild those advantages from scratch.
Pro tip A new channel serving the same business is usually internal diversification.
Watch out Shared ownership alone does not make two businesses strategically related.
- 4
Prune external distractions
Pause, sell, delegate, or close unrelated projects that compete with the core vehicle. Restore enough organizational capacity to execute the main business exceptionally well.
Pro tip Finish one explicit shutdown or handoff before authorizing another experiment.
Watch out Keeping every option alive can preserve emotional comfort while destroying operational focus.
- 5
Experiment within bounds
Test new products and channels that strengthen the vehicle, using limited budgets and clear success criteria. Retain the winners and end weak experiments promptly.
Pro tip Prefer tests that reuse existing content, customers, technology, or reputation.
Watch out Do not let an internal experiment quietly evolve into an unsupported second company.
- 6
Allocate for compounding
Direct talent and capital toward the strongest opportunities inside the vehicle. Revisit allocations as evidence changes while preserving the overall strategic focus.
Pro tip Ask whether each allocation builds an advantage that will still matter several years from now.
Watch out Capital allocated to too many plausible opportunities can starve the exceptional one.
In the wild
A creator with a successful YouTube channel considers a newsletter, podcast, website, and additional courses. Rather than labeling every new format a separate business, the creator evaluates whether it serves the same audience and strengthens the same content-and-education engine. The team tests those channels selectively while declining an unrelated senior-living venture that would require new expertise, customers, and operations.
→ The creator gains channel resilience without repeatedly restarting from zero in unrelated industries.
Common mistakes
Confusing channels with businesses
A newsletter and podcast can diversify distribution while reinforcing one content business. Treating them as unrelated ventures can cause unnecessary pruning.
Using diversification to soothe fear
Starting unrelated projects because the core business might fail can divide the resources needed to make the core succeed.
Ignoring allocation costs
Every peripheral project consumes leadership attention, people, or capital that could strengthen an established advantage.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for entrepreneurs juggling multiple ideas, products, channels, or side businesses and struggling to identify legitimate diversification.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for mature holding companies with ample independent leadership and capital for genuinely separate businesses.
From the transcript
“you can do anything just not everything”
“there's just no way you can compete with someone that's all in on one thing”
“you're diversifying marketing channels like that's fine you're not diversifying businesses”
From the episode
Eric Siu: Building a $10m+ Marketing Agency
Eric Siu