The clearest example of a time-dependent business is any kind of personal service. Doctors, lawyers, and counselors of all kinds earn incomes based on the time they spend with clients or patients. The leverage available to these types of businesses is limited. Nurses who help doctors make better use of their time are one form of leverage; so are paralegals who take care of the less complex aspects of a lawyer’s activities.
The absolute contrast to a personal-service business is an automated business that earns money while you sleep. The ultimate example of a business of this kind is a digital book sold on the Internet. Here, your personal time does not limit your income potential. If you can create demand for this information product, an infinite number of customers can buy it (via an inexpensive Web site with an automated payment system) and receive it (through an easy-to-establish automated fulfillment system that sends a password or the digital content itself via e-mail to the buyer).
This is not to say that you should establish a digital book business. Rather, it is meant to illustrate the importance of time in assessing your business idea and operations. It’s likely that you will develop a business that makes use of a mix of your time and leveraged systems: The important point is to recognize that the more you can create a product based income stream (such as a digital book), the higher your income potential—because you have eradicated the limits created when income is tied to time.
Here are some examples of businesses that have been designed, or shifted, to limit their time dependence:
• JangoMail (www.JangoMail.com) is a sophisticated e-mail management service provider for over 300 clients in 2004, including Nokia, Epson, Reuters, Wells Fargo, and General Motors. The company is profitable and has two full-time employees. Ajay Goel, the company’s CEO, started the company
