I think this book captures a lot of the things that are important about running an authority site.
Working by yourself and serving a community is hard.
It's a pretty dense book, more than you would think.
"Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business" by Paul Jarvis is a book that challenges the conventional idea of constant growth and advocates for building successful businesses that prioritize quality, sustainability, and personal fulfillment over rapid expansion. Here are the main points summarized:
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Embracing a Company of One Mindset: The book encourages entrepreneurs to embrace the idea of staying small intentionally, focusing on quality over quantity and finding fulfillment in the work they do.
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The Power of Autonomy: By staying small, entrepreneurs can maintain full autonomy over their businesses, enabling them to make decisions based on their values and preferences.
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Resilience and Agility: Smaller businesses are often more agile and resilient in adapting to market changes and customer needs, making them better equipped to navigate uncertainties.
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Maximizing Efficiency and Effectiveness: Rather than pursuing constant growth, focus on maximizing efficiency and effectiveness to deliver superior products or services to a loyal customer base.
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Leveraging Technology: Technology allows small businesses to compete with larger counterparts by accessing tools and resources that enable efficiency, automation, and scalability.
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Niche Specialization: Companies of one can thrive by identifying profitable niche markets and catering to a specific audience with unique and valuable offerings.
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Building Strong Relationships: Prioritize building genuine relationships with customers, clients, and partners, fostering loyalty and repeat business.
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Personal Fulfillment and Lifestyle Design: By staying small, entrepreneurs can design their businesses to align with their desired lifestyles and personal goals.
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Defining Success on Your Terms: Success can be defined differently for every entrepreneur. Rather than adhering to external standards, define success based on personal values and aspirations.
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Avoiding Burnout and Overwhelm: By staying small and focusing on quality, entrepreneurs can reduce the risk of burnout and overwhelming workloads, leading to greater work-life balance.
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Continuous Learning and Improvement: Embrace a growth mindset and invest in continuous learning to stay competitive and evolve as an entrepreneur.
"Company of One" challenges the traditional notions of growth and encourages entrepreneurs to consider the benefits of staying small while achieving personal fulfillment and financial success. By embracing the company of one mindset, entrepreneurs can build sustainable and rewarding businesses that prioritize quality, purpose, and a balanced lifestyle.
Notes and quotes from each chapter.
Don't have to focus on growth.s
It's assumed that hard work and smart thinking always result in business growth. But the opposite is often true: not all growth is beneficial, and some growth can actually reduce your resilience and your autonomy.
There are many ways to "grow"
...what if you acquired more customers simply by creating more efficiency, so you didn't have to hire more people? What if you generated more revenue by finding a way to spend less (again, for higher profits)? What if you responded to the growth in support requests by finding a better way to teach your customers how to use what you sell, so they didn't have to ask questions as often? What if you didn't have to work more hours to finish a project but just more efficiently, so you could then enjoy more of your life away from work?
Can just stay in business forever, as a small business.
Staying small doesn't have to be a stepping-stone to something else, or the result of a business failure — rather, it can be an end goal or a smart long-term strategy.
A company of one is a mindset.
A company of one is a collective mind-set and model that can be used by anyone, from a small business owner to a corporate leader, to take ownership and responsibility for what they do to become a valuable asset in any marketplace — in terms of both mental practices and business applications. It's a blueprint for growing a lean and agile business that can survive every type of economic climate, and ultimately it leads to a richer and more meaningful life — no cable-cutting or moving to the woods on an island required.
A company of one is simply a business that questions growth.
Technically, everyone should be a company of one.
So a company of one is not anti-growth, or anti-revenue, and it's not just a one-person business either (although it certainly can be).
Companies of one are becoming more popular because people want more control and autonomy in their lives, especially when it comes to their careers.
Basically, you have to be good at your skill set before you can expect to achieve autonomy from using it.
Companies of one work best under constraints — because that's where creativity and ingenuity thrive.
Keep it simple.
For a company of one at any size, simple rules, simple processes, and simple solutions typically win.
How you could solve business problems without just adding "more"
Be hard to kill.
Startups, as serial entrepreneur Salim Ismail states, are extremely fragile by nature. They're designed to be temporary organizations that may grow into large companies, under conditions of extreme uncertainty. They expend money and resources in the anticipation that revenue will catch up to spending. Most startups fail because that doesn't happen often.
Focus on real cash flow.
Companies of one, with their focus on what can be done in the here and now, not what can be done with investment, can also be started without an injection of capital.
Small can be a long-term plan, not just a stepping-stone.
Most businesses set goals and targets, but few consider having an upper bound to them.
Culturally, growth feeds our ego and social standing. The bigger the company you own, with more profits and more employees than the next person, the better you might feel.
... make your business better (however you define that) instead of just making it bigger
You must lead.
Companies of one do require leadership. If you work for yourself, you've got to be a leader to successfully pitch your services or products, as well as maintain relationships with clients or customers. If you work with a team of contractors or freelancers, then you've got to be able to lead them as well.
Another quality that helps is setting extremely high goals — for yourself and for others.
Companies of one are sometimes quiet people who are internally motivated to make a difference in the world without shouting.
You must be a generalist.
As a good generalist, you'll usually start with a specialization and then add auxiliary and complementary skills as needed, until you're able to understand all or most aspects of the business as a whole, not just one specific job within it.
Work on the right things.
Do we really need to push our workers and ourselves to work longer hours to see better results? Or do we just need to get better at working the same amount or less?
If excessive and blind growth are the main causes of business failure, then how do we start and run a business to avoid all of that?
Staying small and not focusing entirely on growth keep your own integrity and personality at the heart of the business, making it much easier to run your business or team in a way that suits you and helps customers.
MVP!
To start a company of one, you should first figure out the smallest version of your idea and then a way to make it happen quickly.
Why did they buy? What motivated them to do so? How can I keep them happy? And most important: How can I help them succeed?
Starting a company of one requires that you embrace working on what's achievable now, which usually means embracing less than your vision for your ideal future. Remember, at the start you're the smallest and most agile you'll ever be. You have fewer (or no) customers, less established processes, and less name recognition. Being small and measuring meaningful growth based on profits instead of projections ensure much more stability.
Grow profits by serving well/better, not growth because that's the goal.
... if your decisions are guided by growth resulting from profit, you stay focused on how you can continue to make things better for your customers — with better products, better experiences, better support, and increased success for them. This is growth that stems from doing things correctly, not from making growth your top priority and just hoping you do everything right.
Focus on how to best help.
If scale isn't the goal, we can strip our business and business ideas to their essence to discover their greatest strength.
How you could prioritize your existing customers or transform them into repeat customers
Have a strong why.
To succeed as a company of one, you have to have a real underlying purpose. Your why matters as an unseen but ever-present element that drives your business.
Your why keeps you on track when things get hard, and they always get hard.
If your business is fully aligned with your purpose, you'll be more motivated to keep at it, even during the tough moments; your workforce will turn over less, since employees won't have to leave their values at home when they head to work; and your customers will become and remain loyal. Your purpose will also serve as a litmus test for all your business decisions, enabling you to make smart, prompt, and more confident choices in all areas of your work.
Passion follows purpose.
When you focus on solving problems or on making a difference, passion may follow, because you're actually involved in the work you're doing instead of just dreaming that you might be passionate about something.
... that passion is the side effect of mastery.
Learn to say no.
... we must also question the idea that a busier life, with a packed schedule, is a better life.
Opportunities are just obligations wearing an appealing mask. There might be a positive outcome to seizing them, but they always come at a cost — in terms of time, attention, or resources.
As a company of one that achieves ownership over your schedule and how long you allow yourself to work, you can be overloaded with the sheer number of tasks you need to do to keep your businesses running.
BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT:
- The true purpose of your business and whether it shows up in your actions (not just in your marketing material)
- What you are skilled at that is already in demand and where else that skill could be leveraged
- Where you could test your leap into something in a small way first
- How you could align your day/schedule to be focused on single-tasking”
Be authentic.
Personality — the authentic you that traditional business has taught you to suppress under the guise of “professionalism” — can be your biggest edge over the competition when you're a company of one.
A personality is required for your company of one, regardless of size. Your human characteristics are the way your brand speaks and behaves
Serve.
In short, helping your customers succeed and providing amazing service are good for business.
A company of one has one massive asset when it comes to customer service: it can be delivered in a way that doesn't scale.
Focus on customer service.
As companies of one, we are very much in the people-serving business. It's critical that we listen to each of our customers and take full ownership in making sure they are pleased with our service level and then successful in their own lives. Customer service is a huge differentiating factor in why people choose the places where they want to spend their money.
Do the basics well, then add personal touches.
Good customer service isn't about simply achieving the norms of courtesy. Being prompt, answering questions, and treating customers with respect shouldn't be rewarded — such service should be expected.
It also helps you better understand them.
The more you understand your customers — their needs, wants, motivations, and desires — the more you can feel with them and the better you can serve them.
Customer service sparks word of mouth marketing.
In short, customer happiness is the new marketing. If your customers feel that you are taking care of them, then they'll stick around and they'll tell others.
Do what you say.
As a company of one, you have to be very careful in what you tell your customers, or even potential customers, because your word is your social contract with them.
Where you could exceed expectations with your customer service
Start with a strong idea of what you want to do, then work backwards.
People tend to start with a business model and then become unhappy when their days are filled with tasks they don’t enjoy. Instead of thinking, What product can I create? or What service can I offer, James believes that we should first think: What type of life do I want? and How do I want to spend my days? Then you can work backwards from there into a business model that allows you to create scalable systems to deliver your product to your audience.
Scale using one to many.
By constantly working toward reducing one-to-one points of contact with customers and focusing instead on one-to-many relationships, a company of one can scale its connection with customers without actually scaling its business.
Use automation.
Collaborate with others.
Teach.
... creating a relationship with an audience that sees you as a teacher sets you up to be perceived as the domain expert on the subject matter.
The second benefit of out-teaching your competition is the chance to show an audience the benefits of what you’re selling
... educating new customers on how best to use your product or service and showing them how to get the most out of it or how to be the most successful with it, you also ensure that they’ll become long-term customers and tell others about their positive experience.
most ideas or processes don’t need to be kept under lock and key.
Customer education — providing an audience with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to become an informed buyer — is one of the most important parts of a sales cycle.
Teaching builds authority.
In business these days, it’s not enough to just tell people you’re an authority — you’ve got to demonstrate your actual expertise by sharing what you know and teaching others. You build authority not by propping yourself up, but by teaching your audience and customers — so that they truly learn, understand, and succeed. When you make that happen consistently, you’re building and establishing the right kind of authority.
Teaching builds trust and expertise like nothing else for a company of one. When someone’s receptive to what you’re teaching, they inherently trust the information you’re sharing. If you can consistently give your audience useful, relevant, and timely knowledge they’ll begin to lean on you for more information (which you can then charge for).
Word of mouth.
... the power of recommendation — or word of mouth — lies in its ability to create trust by proxy.
Companies of one can truly benefit from word of mouth because it’s easier for a company of one to create these kinds of personal relationships and stay more closely connected with customers.
Make it easy for customers to provide referrals.
Use automation.
By making customer happiness your top priority over new customer acquisition and then incentivizing customers to share the word about your business, less of your money needs to be spent on promotion.
As a company of one, you need to reach profitability as quickly as possible.
Minimum Viable Profit!
The assumption at work here is that your MVPr — not the number of your customers, not your measured growth, not even your gross revenue — is the most important determinant of the sustainability of your company of one.
Becoming a business that earns revenues predictably and consistently is a milestone for a company of one.
... you don’t learn anything until you launch.
For a company of one to launch a new product, the process has to be simple.
This may sound obvious, but businesses need to solve problems for their customers. [...] So your first goal, as a company of one just starting out, is to figure out the best way to solve a specific audience’s problems, and then get to work at doing it quickly and cost-effectively.
Launching isn’t a onetime, singular event, but a continual process of launch, measure, adjust, repeat.
A new business or product you could start right now by executing the smallest version of your idea
Chapter 12. The Hidden Value of Relationships
A company of one finds its true north by working toward being better, not bigger, and the way to do that is to build long-term relationships with its audience and customers.
Having the empathy to learn what a consumer really wants from your company of one besides your product or service — whether it’s knowledge, education, or just help — can go a long way. Empathy takes a relationship from “What can I sell you?” to “How can I truly help you?” This is the way to bank social capital: by starting a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship.
How you could get to know your customers as real people with specific problems
A desire to get rich quick or achieve business fame isn’t going to motivate you for long, since neither is quickly possible, regardless of who you are. There are much easier ways to make money or become famous in the world.
How to start advice...
How you could start your own company of one right now, with some first version of what you want to do