In a recent study, Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth, found that for every 5,000 employees, at least 250 will be true innovators and 25 will be innovators and great intrapreneurs (or companies of one) as well.

The company started when founders Marshall Haas and Jon Wheatley became interested in applying the knowledge they’d acquired from working at tech firms to physical products. Prior to their partnership, Marshall was making money selling products that you couldn’t actually touch (software), and Jon was creating things that could be touched, but

Creating the image of busyness may be all the rage in startup and corporate culture, but the busier we are, the less space we have to think and be creative in solving the problems that companies of one need to solve.

Each year Peldi takes out $1 million personally, keeps an eighteen-month runway in the company (in case anything bad happens), and pays out the remainder to his twenty-five-employee team (which grows by only two to three people per year).

With this goal in mind, companies of one routinely question everything they do. Is this process efficient enough? What steps can be removed and the end result will be the same or better? Is this rule helping or hindering our business?

It can be scary to draw that line in the sand — especially when it’s your business and livelihood. Doing so immediately alienates certain people or entire groups. But taking a stand is important because you become a beacon for those individuals who are your people, your tribe, and your audience.

Researcher John Pencavel from Stanford University says that if you start to define your productivity in physical terms, you can see that your ability to focus drastically diminishes after fifty-five hours a week.

I’ve always believed that good accountants should save you more money than they charge. This belief may be misguided — I have no studies or data to back it up — but nevertheless, my own accountants definitely do this.

As a result of her research, Sally has compiled a twenty-eight-question personality test that, instead of explaining how you see yourself, explains how the world sees you.