works today at scale may not work tomorrow.” So the firm must keep assessing how it functions. (See Chapter 5, pages 111–114, for a detailed discussion of how Guglani applied these principles to build a remarkably successful go-it-alone business.)
I have a close friend (who did not want his name to appear in this book) who operates a go-it-alone business that generates in excess of $1 million per year in profits. I estimate that he spends fully 50% of his time experimenting with ways to increase the effectiveness of the business. “You never know when a competitor will come in,” he says. “The only way I can ensure that the business lasts is to keep developing new ways of operating.”
In his influential book Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life
, Gary Hamel similarly argues that a portfolio of experiments is critical to the survival of enterprises: “Ask yourself if your company has a portfolio of . . . ongoing experiments. If it doesn’t . . . its future is at risk.” While Hamel is concerned with larger firms, the same basic reasoning holds true for smaller firms, which are inherently less stable. He notes that all experiments are valuable, regardless of outcome. “Most experiments won’t pay off. But this hardly means they are worthless. . . . Everyexperiment produces learning, which . . . can help a company increase the odds that the next radical idea finds its mark.”
TAKE YOURSELF OFF THE CLOCK
As go-it-alone entrepreneurs develop business ideas, they focus hard on the idea of time. The central question you want to constantly ask yourself is how you can get the greatest benefits out of the use of your time. In a practical sense, this means you want to look for business ideas that don’t necessarily link your time to your compensation.
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GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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