Next, let’s look at the four typical traits of all companies of one: resilience, autonomy, speed, and simplicity.

Even the latest and greatest HR software, for instance, probably doesn’t need hundreds of screens and drop-down menus. A business selling thousands of products can probably cut most of them if the bulk of their sales comes from just 5 percent of their offerings. There may be no need for thirteen company-wide initiatives if three will do.

Sean’s goal of achieving a target profit and not exceeding it comes from shaping his business around an optimal life he wants to lead—complete with taking a three-month vacation each year with his wife and spending hours walking, cooking, and teaching and tutoring his two young nieces each day.

Too often businesses forget about their current audience—the people who are already listening, buying, and engaging. These should be the most important people to your business—far more so than anyone you wish you were reaching.

Kaitlin has also found that she’s able to get work done with more focus from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, so she doesn’t schedule meetings or calls during that window of time.

We’ve become enamored with new technologies, new software, and new devices, and too often large companies and even solo companies try to incorporate them into their existing structures in an effort to “keep up.”

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. In other words, by scaling down every aspect of my life, I realized this was how I had successfully built my bu

Set yourself up as a company of one that’s run to maximize your ability to solve existing problems and to adapt as new problems

Much of the research reported in this book will strongly suggest that blind growth is the main cause of business problems.