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thousanduniverses's review against another edition
3.0
This book is an introduction to the 'Company of One' concept. I found it interesting and it had some good key informations, but it could have been way shorter. It got a bit bored with all the examples.
jtth's review against another edition
2.0
I finished *Company of One*. This book seems to be a series of affirmations about starting and running a small business online. Its central argument is that small businesses are more nimble and can care more about their customers, and this is both good for profit, good for the psychological wellbeing of the owner, and good for society as a whole. I agree with this.
If you care about this space at all you’ve read almost everything in this book already when you read Jason Fried and DHH’s books. Which you should read. They were making most of these arguments 15 years ago in blog posts and magazine articles. So when, at the end of *Company of One*, the writer says he used to feel like he alone held these values until he embarked on the project of writing the book, I don’t believe him. (The author was a web developer, and every successful web developer in the West has heard of and been influenced by the two aforementioned folks.)
Most of the book seems to be some declaration of a value, like how being small means you can focus more on your existing customers and not on growth or scaling, followed by an example. The examples are where things fall apart for me. He profiles some real charlatans: someone whose webpage pitches how you won’t understand why your customer buys things unless you understand their brain (and pay to ask him and his undergraduate degree in psychology questions about that), someone who created a kind of alternative MBTI-astrology for people in business leadership, and a few people whose method of making money is arranging sponsored content masquerading as personal writing and marketing it all as a personal blog. This is not motivating. More than half of his examples are of people who are just lying about their authority within a domain to people who—while they command lots of capital—don’t know any better.
He also uses a lot of examples from companies that are not mere “companies of one.” Basecamp has 50 employees. Buffer has 72. He puts the behavior of Buffer on a pedestal throughout the book, while the premise of the book is to avoid getting that big in the first place, because being that big means you can’t do the things the book says are valuable about being small. So it all kind of falls apart. While Basecamp can talk a lot about how everyone should aspire to “lifestyle” businesses (e.g., ones that profit in order to afford a certain lifestyle for the owner, and not aspire to much more—note that this includes things like “I want to employ people at a living wage”), they still employ 50 people and make somewhere north of 20MM a year in profit. That is not a mere lifestyle business.
But there were some redeeming qualities, particularly as far as affirmations go. It never hurts me to hear that I should stop focusing on researching a product or planning some feature for something that doesn’t exist yet. I get motivated when I hear—almost independent of the source—that I need to just make and release the thing, that I need to interview potential customers, that I need to quickly get the thing in front of people and iterate. That’s useful and helpful. So the book isn’t worthless.
This book reminds me a lot of *Authority*, which is not a great thing.
If you care about this space at all you’ve read almost everything in this book already when you read Jason Fried and DHH’s books. Which you should read. They were making most of these arguments 15 years ago in blog posts and magazine articles. So when, at the end of *Company of One*, the writer says he used to feel like he alone held these values until he embarked on the project of writing the book, I don’t believe him. (The author was a web developer, and every successful web developer in the West has heard of and been influenced by the two aforementioned folks.)
Most of the book seems to be some declaration of a value, like how being small means you can focus more on your existing customers and not on growth or scaling, followed by an example. The examples are where things fall apart for me. He profiles some real charlatans: someone whose webpage pitches how you won’t understand why your customer buys things unless you understand their brain (and pay to ask him and his undergraduate degree in psychology questions about that), someone who created a kind of alternative MBTI-astrology for people in business leadership, and a few people whose method of making money is arranging sponsored content masquerading as personal writing and marketing it all as a personal blog. This is not motivating. More than half of his examples are of people who are just lying about their authority within a domain to people who—while they command lots of capital—don’t know any better.
He also uses a lot of examples from companies that are not mere “companies of one.” Basecamp has 50 employees. Buffer has 72. He puts the behavior of Buffer on a pedestal throughout the book, while the premise of the book is to avoid getting that big in the first place, because being that big means you can’t do the things the book says are valuable about being small. So it all kind of falls apart. While Basecamp can talk a lot about how everyone should aspire to “lifestyle” businesses (e.g., ones that profit in order to afford a certain lifestyle for the owner, and not aspire to much more—note that this includes things like “I want to employ people at a living wage”), they still employ 50 people and make somewhere north of 20MM a year in profit. That is not a mere lifestyle business.
But there were some redeeming qualities, particularly as far as affirmations go. It never hurts me to hear that I should stop focusing on researching a product or planning some feature for something that doesn’t exist yet. I get motivated when I hear—almost independent of the source—that I need to just make and release the thing, that I need to interview potential customers, that I need to quickly get the thing in front of people and iterate. That’s useful and helpful. So the book isn’t worthless.
This book reminds me a lot of *Authority*, which is not a great thing.
smschumacher's review against another edition
3.0
I guess this isn’t what I expected - I was hoping for practical application. He has questions at the end of each chapter (“start thinking about”) but otherwise it felt like a regurgitation of business concepts I’ve read elsewhere. I also didn’t need to be convinced; I’ve been running a company of one for years.
I guess read this if you have doubts about the advantages of staying small, but personally, I would have liked to read more about how to manage subcontractors, strategies for determining what work to invest your time in vs. delegating, etc. Chapter 13, with his personal story, was the closest it got to practical advice along these lines, and that’s the book I’d like to read.
Update:
The Million-Dollar One-Person Business by Elaine Pofeldt is the book I wanted to read. I found it much more practical and applicable and would suggest reading it instead.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34915571
I guess read this if you have doubts about the advantages of staying small, but personally, I would have liked to read more about how to manage subcontractors, strategies for determining what work to invest your time in vs. delegating, etc. Chapter 13, with his personal story, was the closest it got to practical advice along these lines, and that’s the book I’d like to read.
Update:
The Million-Dollar One-Person Business by Elaine Pofeldt is the book I wanted to read. I found it much more practical and applicable and would suggest reading it instead.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34915571
adamfortuna's review against another edition
3.0
The idea of a single person company, or a small lifestyle business is increasingly interesting to me personally. In an age like today where one person can create something that provides value and people pay for, its amazing how low the barrier is to entry — assuming you put in the work.
sarahmonster's review against another edition
4.0
This is kind of one of those preaching-to-the-choir books, in that it reiterated a lot of stuff that I either already knew or believed. Sometimes I feel guilty for enjoying books that just confirm or re-confirm my own worldview (see also Utopia for Realists), although it is nice to have the confirmation. Maybe I should follow it up by reading something about how infinite scale, relentless growth, and reliance on VS funding are the best things ever?
jennifer72's review against another edition
4.0
Very practical easy to understand information about starting your own small business and/or operating like a small business within a larger organization. A Company of One doesn't necessarily mean that it is a sole proprietorship, but it does describe a company that only grows when it must do so or when the benefits are consciously weighed against the drawbacks before doing so. The book is peppered with examples of companies that have intentionally resisted growth.
awolgs's review against another edition
3.0
I love the book's core thesis that questions the "growth above all" mentality of so much of business. As Jarvis succinctly puts it at the end of the book, "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." I enjoyed the exploration and defense of this thesis, but much of the book drifts from that focus by looking at how "companies of one" should operate — good stuff, but less insightful and fresh.