Go-it-alone businesses are total systems that by necessity are designed with the maximum possible flexibility. As a result, they are created from a perspective that significant shifts in the product, the service, and the customer base will be necessary— and frequent.
Innovation in Action
The continuous launching of new products and services is a notion to which almost every business pays lip service. But go-it-alone businesses really do it. The owners talk to you about what they have done to improve their offerings over the past month, and the specific timetable for ongoing releases over the next month. They also tell you that an enormous percentage of their time is focused on developing and implementing their next offering. Indeed, this systematic approach is a central way that solo entrepreneurs manage and reduce their risk. They clearly understand that in our fast-changing world, it’s best to have your eggs in more than one potentially vulnerable basket.
Moreover, successful go-it-alone entrepreneurs have figured out how to test and launch new products and services quickly and at minimal cost. Although there is no single answer as to how they accomplish this objective, they all put a great deal of time and effort into mastering this art. As part of this process, they develop specific metrics for judging whether they have a winner or a loser.
Here are some examples of different approaches to the need for low-cost product testing and introduction:
• Lars Hundley, the founder of CleanAirGardening.com—an online environmentally friendly gardening store—operates a go-it-alone business through extreme outsourcing: He is the only employee. He finds that “no matter how good I
