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

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.”

As a company of one, it’s easy to mentally beat yourself up for not accomplishing enough during a day. But how often do you take into account how rare it is, between doing your core work and managing your business, to have a full day, every day, to sit and work without interruptions? You may be failing to realize how much of your schedule is taken

Cal Newport, the best-selling author of So Good They Can’t Ignore You, argues that passion is the side effect of mastery. To Newport, following your passion is fundamentally flawed as a career strategy because it fails to describe how most successful people ended up with compelling careers and can lead to chronic job-shifting and angst when your re

In sum, teach everything you know and don’t be afraid to give away your best ideas.

Past that, he didn’t need any more money — so he’d stop working when he hit his “enough” amount and travel for the rest of the year. He didn’t want to grow his accounting business into a bigger company with employees and offices in every city. If he did, his “enough” number would also grow, from having to manage more employees and a bigger business

For a company of one at any size, simple rules, simple processes, and simple solutions typically win.

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

As a society, we’re gradually starting to view “work” not as a single place of employment, but as a series of engagements or projects.

As a small business or one that isn’t aiming to grow rapidly, you can use polarization to provide an avenue for reaching your potential audience — without massive advertising spends or paid user acquisition — by getting people talking.