How to Build a Million-Dollar, One-Person Business – Case Studies from The 4-Hour Workweek entrepreneur how earn by blogging blog

Full disclosure: I am case study #4

My friend Elaine, who has been writing about entrepreneurs for years on Forbes, CNBC, and more, recently wrote a guest post for Tim Ferriss.

An interesting tidbit:

the growth of ultra-lean, one-person businesses that are reaching and exceeding $1 million in revenue. According to recent statistics released by the US Census Bureau, in 2015 there were 35,584 “nonemployer” firms— that is, those that do not employ anyone other than the owners— that brought in $1 million to $2,499,999 in annual revenue. That’s up 5.8% from 2014, 18% from 2013, 21% from 20 12 and 33% from 2011.

She also found:

Solo businesses and partnerships that hit the million-dollar range typically fall into six categories:

1. E-commerce
2. Manufacturing
3. Informational content creation
4. Professional services and creative businesses, such as marketing firms, public speaking businesses, and consultancies
5. Personal services firms, offering expertise, such as fitness coaching
6. Real estate

In it, she summed up 6 case studies that used an outsourcing approach to achieve success.

The six:

1. Split-Testing for Profit

One thing that helped Nadler was using automated approaches to doing things like conducting A/B testing to determine how consumers were responding to his web pages

Nadler acted on what he had learned by turning to the site Splitly. This saves him hours of manual work. Nadler has found the site’s small team offers smart insights to the questions he is trying to answer.

2. Mastering the Art of Delegation

To stay focused on the high-level decisions that grow their revenue, the Arnebergs don’t try to do everything themselves and, taking a cue from what they learned in The 4-Hour Workweek, outsource tasks like customer service and photography for the site. They also outsource order fulfillment, relying on their retail platform to handle this. Another example of how they outsource is by relying on a private label manufacture overseas, who customizes their products for them, instead of trying to become manufacturers themselves.

To avoid getting involved in distracting minutia, they actively empower their contractors to make judgement calls, such as issuing a refund, that will cost the company $50 or less—a general concept they learned in The 4-Hour Workweek. (Ferriss empowered his own assistants to resolve such problems if they would cost him $100 or less). “It’s about being smart and strategic and trusting others to make decisions,” says Ben.

3. Fewer Distractions = More Growth

He found it freeing to realize that he didn’t necessarily need a physical space where his team at Science of Skill would work together under one roof.

Faggella also learned another key lesson from The 4-Hour Workweek: the right cadence of communication with his team. Faggella found it helpful to learn that Ferriss only checked his email twice a day and made conscious decisions about when he would communicate with his team and how often.

“It wasn’t an unbroken, consistent stream of messages back and forth but was an organized way of communicating that kept things moving and functioning,” notes Faggella. “You could kind of bucket when you actually handle your digital communication and talk to these folks who are thousands of miles away. It became self-evident to me that those things were manageable.”

4. Success Through Liberation

“After having spent years building up my business, instead of attempting to just continue growing it, I put my #2 in charge (I trusted him and killed my own job), and then I gallivanted around the globe,” he says. Mobile access to the internet was so extensive by that point, he says, that “everywhere I went I could work… if I wanted to.”

The key to pulling this off was working with the right contractor. Orwell, who had initially gotten interested in nutrition while losing weight, had gotten to be friendly with a fellow contributor to the fitness community on Reddit and was impressed by the way in which his buddy shared his expertise with others on the site.

Orwell had soon enlisted his friend, as a contractor, to run Examine.com day to day, offering a small amount of equity to ensure his buddy was invested in its success. Orwell found the arrangement worked beautifully when it came to indulging his love of travel. “Giving him the authority to do whatever he needed to do implicitly brought initiative,” Orwell says.

5. Rethinking Scale (and Profit)

made him start questioning the conventional wisdom on scaling a business. “I had a desire to build a big business at the time, but I never questioned it,” Gaignard says. “It made me realize I was on a hamster wheel, running a business I hated.” He eventually decided to close TicketsCanada. “It was the biggest shift I’ve ever made in business,” recalls Gaignard.

Despite constant encouragement to grow his business, Gaignard has decided to keep it small, paying himself $250,000 a year. “How much more money do I need?” he says.

6. How to Overcome Your Doubts and Grow

“You make what would seem to be a complex, insurmountable task—starting a business—a lot more digestible,” he says. “All of a sudden you are going through the checklist—and a year later the business has launched.”

To get out of his funk, Walton looked for mentorship from other successful entrepreneurs, which he found at a high-end business retreat called two12 (Tim has been a mentor twice at the event). At two12, he spoke with Noah Kagan, founder of Sumo and an early Facebook employee, who helped him reset his own dreams. “He convinced me to double down on my business when everyone else was telling me to sell,” says Walton. “I felt like I’d really regret it if I didn’t give it my all.”

(#6 Allen Walton is also a redditor).

Full article: How to Build a Million-Dollar, One-Person Business – Case Studies from The 4-Hour Workweek

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