David Colgan

They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question, and everyone will lie to you at least a little. As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it, and it's worth doing right.

Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own. Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business.

You run a business. And running a business is hard. The burden of responsibility, the weight of stress, and the loneliness of running your business are a far cry from your friends who work salaried jobs. The path of least resistance is to let the stress and isolation of starting, running, and growing a business infiltrate most aspects of your life. Over and over, we've watched our fellow entrepreneurs succumb to the mental toll and chaos of running a business. We've also experienced it firsthand as we've launched and grown our own businesses.