Why Every Entrepreneur Is Really Running Two Companies
In the early days of Strategic Coach, I was sitting in my office, staring at our quarterly numbers. We had great clients, strong revenue, and passionate team members, but we had stagnated. We’d hit a ceiling I couldn’t break through, and I couldn’t figure out why.
That’s when I had a realization that changed everything:
I wasn’t running one company. I was running two.
The two companies inside your business.
Every entrepreneur thinks they’re building one company. But the truth is, you’re actually running two completely different operations.
Company #1 is your R&D company, the creative space where your unique ideas live, where you innovate, and where you protect what makes your business special: its soul.
Company #2 is your multiplier company. Its focus is on scaling what works, systematizing processes, and growing efficiently.
And here’s the problem: Most entrepreneurs try to make one company focus on both soul and scale.
But you can’t.
It would be like asking one person to be both soloist and conductor of an orchestra. This would lead to diluted quality, burnout, and a loss of the magic that made the music beautiful.
So, one company creates. The other scales. Otherwise, you lose what made your business worth growing in the first place.
The counterintuitive truth about growth.
For decades, entrepreneurs believed growth meant more of everything.
More clients.
More products.
More complexity.
However, what I’ve discovered is that real, sustainable growth you can be proud of comes from clarity and preservation around what each of your two companies does.
Your R&D company stays small, focused, and creative. It protects your unique value and keeps innovating. Your multiplier company takes what works and scales it systematically.
Attempting to do both with one structure is what gets you stuck: The creative side gets buried under operational demands, and the scaling side gets slowed down by constant changes.
Looking at your business as two companies.
The most successful entrepreneurs will be the ones who create this separation clearly.
They’ll protect space for innovation while building systems for growth, and they’ll know when to create and when to multiply.
So, look at your business right now.
What parts need creative focus? What parts are ready to scale?
Instead of trying to force one structure to do both jobs, build two companies, run them differently, and watch what happens.
P.S. If you want to dive deeper into this concept, check out my conversation with Mike Koenigs on the Capability Amplifier podcast.
