Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business

We don’t need an attitude of world domination and crushing it in our work in order to make a great living or even have a substantial impact. Our work can start and finish small while still being useful — focused on moving toward better instead of more.

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. James Clear figured that 10,000 subscribers to his new blog’s newsletter would be the magic number that would signify his success. But then he hit 10,000 quickly and nothing in h

Ego is the final reason most companies want to grow. It’s also the trickiest, because it’s harder to overcome. As a society, we give people more clout and respect if they own a large company, so building one is a desirable goal. Many of us dream of being in charge of a large company but fail to look at the bigger picture and think about the impact

Moreover, Peldi says, “I’m Italian. Italians measure things in generations, not quarters.”

When you focus on doing business and serving customers in better and better ways, your company of one can end up profiting more from the same amount of work because you can raise the prices until your demand flattens out to where you can handle it.

Basically, you have to be good at your skill set before you can expect to achieve autonomy from using it.

If you’re a company of one, your mind-set is to build your business around your life, not the other way around.

While it may seem counterintuitive to focus your marketing and trust-building efforts on a small and specific group of people, there are benefits to doing so. The more specific you are with who your products or services are for, the more you can build trust with that particular audience. The paradox of focusing on a niche is that the more specific

Where companies of one can use their focus on betterment over growth in marketing is by focusing on a specific niche instead of a massive market. Trust is more easily established within a smaller customer base because it’s easier to stand out as an expert or to gather referrals that hold weight from other industry experts in that niche.

MINIMUM VIABLE PROFIT As a company of one, you need to reach profitability as quickly as possible. Since you’re not relying on massive influxes of cash from investors, every minute you spend getting set up and started is a minute when you aren’t making money.