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

The first trait that resilient people have is an acceptance of reality. They

Alongside a salary and a runway buffer, I truly think companies of one should invest as much money as they can save up in passive investments like index funds. If inflation is approximately 3 percent per year, then you’re losing money on any assets you’ve got that aren’t making at least 3 percent per year in returns.

over any other form of advertising. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association found that a word-of-mouth conversation drives sales five times more than paid online media and is responsible for $6 trillion in annual customer spending.

A company of one questions growth first, and then resists it if there’s a better, smarter way forward. Next, let’s look at the four typical traits of all companies of one: resilience, autonomy, speed, and simplicity.

Just as Michael Pollan’s food ideology is summarized in three simple rules — “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” — the “company of one” model can be laid out in a similar fashion: “start small, define growth, and keep learning.”

For myself, I happen to like choices. I like that I can choose to make less money by saying no to a project or a client or a customer I don’t think is a good fit for me. I like that I can choose to unplug for three months at a time and go on camping road trips across American deserts with my wife.

This clarity highlighted something I had unconsciously been doing for nearly twenty years, even before going out on my own, and that was building a business full of resilience, driven by a desire for autonomy and, on most days, enjoyment.

While Delicious was rapidly changing hands, Pinboard was started by web developer Maciej Ceglowski. He offered his simple service to users at $3 per year, a fee that increased over time to $11 per year. Since the beginning, Pinboard has been a one-person company with a limited feature-set and with no investors. Ceglowski operated it as a side busin

But like many others, Sean feels that the opposite is true — that success can be personally defined, and that while profit and sustainability are absolutely important to a business, they aren’t the only driving forces, metrics, or factors in business success.

To emphasize that last point, customers really don’t care if you’re profitable. But if what you sell them can help them become profitable, they’ll never want to leave your business. They’ll stay on as customers and then probably tell others to become your customers too. When you treat your relationship with your customer base as simply transactiona