Company of One — Book Summary
A “company of one” is a collective mindset that can be applied to small, medium or large businesses alike. The impact and implementation process will be different in different contexts, but the fundamental principle is always the same. A company of one is a business that questions growth, not because of stubbornness, but because growth is often not the answer you are looking for.
A company of one is a mindset that develops the business around the lifestyle, to gain mental clarity and freedom of action. Although freelancing is a great first step toward the “company of one” mindset, it isn’t it yet. Most of the time, freelancers exchange their time for money. Their earnings are tightly linked to the number of hours they work. If they don’t work, they don’t earn money. That’s why freelancing is different from being a “company of one” (although a freelancer may have the “company of one” mindset).
Fundamentally, a company of one has four traits:
Resilience
Autonomy
Speed
Simplicity
When you run a company of one, you ask yourself “what can I do to make my business better”? instead of “what can I do to make my business bigger?” The latter question implies no upper bounds: you’d seek growth as much as possible. Instead, a company of one sets intentional upper bounds to avoid mindless growth (e.g., upper bounds in monthly revenues). To respect your upper bounds, you’ll need to practice the mindset of turning down opportunities that don’t align with your vision. That’s a leadership practice that you can only achieve by relentlessly focusing on embodying your vision and not compromising in any way.
““Companies of one aren’t anti-scale; rather, they’re aware that they need to determine which areas of their business need to scale and when it makes the most sense to do so.””
Key principles for a company of one
““The social badge of honor for always being busy and always working has no rewards past bragging rights. It also has no place in the company of one mindset.””
Operating in a company of one means immersing yourself in the process of doing the work, rather than achieving the outcome. Passion follows specialization. When you commit to becoming great at what you do—whether it’s your passion or not—you gain career capital and truly distinguish yourself from the rest of the crowd.
Unapologetically show your personality
As a company of one, the pivotal factor that can give you an edge against the competition is your personality. Show it unapologetically. People relate to other people, not to companies. By showing your personality and taking clear stands, you don’t leave people with space for guesswork. Instead, they can identify your business (and you) clearly, and choose to support you or not.
Showing your personality allows you to attract the kind of customers who gravitate and are energized by your type of persona. That, in turn, will make your work and life smoother. While your skills can be replicated by anyone else with enough time and effort, your authentic self isn’t replicable. So, you can make your personality shine through the “professionalism” of business and gain a competitive advantage through it.
There are three strategies to effectively show your personality and become “polarizing”:
Placation: trying to change the mind of those people who don’t like or resonate with your product/service.
Prodding: antagonizing haters to get support from neutral individuals who resonate with your point.
Amplification: singling out a unique characteristic of your/your company personality and leaning on it to show yourself fully.
2. Truly focus on the customer
As this study from McKinsey shows, 70% of buying experiences are based on how the buyer feels they’re being treated. As a company of one, you have a stark competitive advantage compared to bigger organizations: the ability to do things that don’t scale. You can infuse the buyer experience with personal touches and a level of detailed care that makes customers feel delighted. Satisfied customers who feel valued turn into evangelists of your products. That is a powerful asset that amplifies your customer reach without additional costs (akin to a “network effect”).
“If you promise to give someone something at a certain time, then do it, and do it on time.”
If you don’t deliver your promise on time, apologize as if this was your last day on Earth and you wanted to get rid of a life’s worth of regrets. Then treat your customer with the attention of a mum to her newborn child during the first 3 months.
3. Share your knowledge for free and you’ll be rewarded for it
A company of one also shares knowledge freely, openly, and honestly. To distinguish your company of one from the competition, you need to out-teach the competition, not attempt to outgrow it. By showing your personality and disseminating as much knowledge for free as you can, you inadvertently establish a strong sales cycle that creates a connection with your audience. By sharing knowledge freely, you position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and you foster the humane process behind every relationship: reciprocity.
“In studying how trust is built between companies and consumers, Urban has found that there are three aspects of trust: confidence (”I believe what you say”), competence (”I believe you have the skills to do what you say”), and benevolence (”I believe you’re acting on my behalf”).”
4. Launch quickly and then iterate
A key advantage of a company of one is agility: the ability to build products quickly, launch, and iterate with speed and intention. As a company of one, you want to seek profitability as soon as possible. Profitability means being able to pay a salary to the owner(s) of your company of one.
As a key rule, you can only decide to grow your company of one when the realized profitability allows you to do so. Not “expected” profits, but realized profits. The core aim of a company of one is to question growth. So, you can only grow when there is enough evidence that tells you to do so.
As long as you’re receiving data and feedback from the market, you must iterate to make your product better, more reliable, and more aligned with customer needs. Hence, your strategy must be able to change each time you receive valuable feedback that justifies updates.
A company of one who unapologetically questions growth shows her authentic self to the world, shares free knowledge, incessantly cares about her customers, and builds resilience and customer satisfaction along the way.
