Allison Bailey’s Reviews > Company Of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business > Status Update

“There’s only one rule for being a company of one: stay attentive to those opportunities that require growth and question them before taking them. That’s it - one rule. The rest is entirely up to you. But if you ever stop questioning the need for growth, you run the risk that the beast of growth will devour you and your business whole.”

“The average life span of a business on the S&P 500 is only 15 years total.”

Interesting!

“In Japanese, shinise is the word for a long-lasting company. Interestingly, about 90% of all businesses worldwide that are more than 100 years old are Japanese. They all have fewer than 300 employees, and the ones that still exist never grow quickly without reason.”

“First, ensure that your company of one is making enough profit to cover your living expenses. Second, make sure you've got enough of a runway buffer built up to work full-time at your company of one, even if things get slow. Third, with your salary and runway buffer covered, you can reinvest money in your company; if things are going well, you should be able to get a better than 3% return on such an investment.”

“In studying how trust is built between companies and consumers, Urban has found that there are three aspects of trust: confidence ("I believe what you say"), competence (“I believe you have the skills to do what you say"), and benevolence (*I believe you're acting on my behalf").“

“…collaboration is the one area where companies of one should scale down - from an environment of always on, always-available, slow-drip messaging distractions to a regiment of clearly defined times to work together to accomplish large tasks together. Otherwise, you run the risk of being available for distraction during every hour of every day.”

“By allowing collaboration to grow from face-to-face contact to notifications on all our digital devices, even the ones we use outside of work (like phones and tablets), we’ve let it scale beyond what makes for focused and efficient work.”

“Samuel Hulick, founder of User Onboarding, believes that tools like Slack are "asyncronish": they're neither truly real-time (you sometimes have to wait indefinitely for an answer) or asynchronous (no immediate response is expected). While the use of messaging tools can seem like a truly great advance in collaboration, too often they lead to daylong half-conversations, like a slow-drip coffee maker.” 🤔

“A study from McKinsey showed that 70% of buying experiences are based more on how customers feel they are treated and less on the tangibles of a product.” Yes!!

Discovered the Fascinate personality test by Sally Hogshead. Went ahead and took it online and found it to be really interesting in understanding my leadership more. I recommend checking it out! There is a free version that I did (though it has limited results).