Book Reflections

Company of One by Paul Jarvis

WHY IS STAYING SMALL THE NEXT BIG THING

Prologue

I have read a few business-related books in the past, such as Start Within by Karen Holst, Zero to One by Peter Thiel, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller, and a few others as well. In a general sense the premise of these books was ideas surrounding intense and expansive business growth. They discuss maximizing profits, getting in and out (creating startups and selling them, such as in Silicon Valley), and creating value in the world as a whole (i.e. in Zero to One). Books, such as The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, discuss maximizing sales and lifetime earnings. The book even goes on to like the gross sales and net worth of many widely successful relators.

After reading the Prologue of Company of One, the author, Paul Jarvis, seems to take a different approach to exploring business success. After moving away from the rush of the city to a small, isolated town, he was able to reflect and deem “why staying small is the next big thing” and what that means to him in his work as an online designer and along consultant for a wide range of clients. His journey began as a means to scale down for mental clarity; however, this seemingly personal work-life balance pursuit developed into something further; the “company of one” model.

Jarvis leaves us with this final note in the introductory section: “start small, define growth, and keep learning”.

I am looking forward to seeing ideas on how to manage robust business success, maximize efficiency without maximizing growth and expansion, and making the most of life along the way!

Defining a Company of One

This is the first chapter of the book Company of One by Paul Jarvis. The first key takeaway to note is as much as one may enjoy growing their wealth, there’s a point of diminishing returns if one does not also take care of themselves and their well-being. This work-life balance is something that must be learned (p. 9). “Grant Cardone, a self-made millionaire and real estate mogul, revealed that he works 95 hours per week to keep his business thriving. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of digital marketing company VaynerMedia, says that entrepreneurs should work at least 18 hours per day for the first year of growing their company” (Pfund, 2020). These extreme hours and work situation call to question whether or not this behavior is healthy, or even worth it. This book focuses on minimizing the number of hours worked per day and/or the days worked per week. To do so one, must maximize the efficiency at which work is completed.

In defining what a company of one means and what that looks like. The four typical traits that all companies of one exhibit are resilience, autonomy, speed, and simplicity. Dean Becker, CEO of Adapitv Learning Systems, found that the level of resilience exhibited by an individual determines their success in business, significantly more than their level of education, training, or experience (p. 11). This is concept reminds me of a book I read previously, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. This book takes a different stance than the premise of this idea. It delves into the differences of a growth mindset and fixed mindset. The growth mindset concept concludes that people have the ability to develop and nurture skills, they are not stuck within the genetic nature of their knowledge and ability to learn.

Another standout concept outlined within this chapter is ROWEs (Results-Only Work Environments). This allows employees to determine how they want to spend their time working; not set schedules, options meetings, the ability to work from home, and the opportunity to work during the hours of the day in which they are most productive. This is idea is very interesting, as it coincides greatly with the trend, among younger generations, like millennials, to exhibit a strong work-life balance. “Companies that started or changed over to a ROWE model include WATT Global Media, JL Buchanan, World Wide Webhosting and Summit CPA. The most well-known ROWE Fortune 100 company is Best Buy. Best Buy started the strategy at its headquarters and included all 4,000 then-current employees in the initiative” (Peek, 2024). The concept of ROWEs is ties back to the previous central theme of efficiency. Efficiency in one’s work is what makes this level of flexibility possible.

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• Whether growth is truly beneficial to your business
• How you could solve business problems without just adding “more”
• Whether you really need funding or venture capital for your idea, or are simply thinking too big to start (p. 23).

Staying Small as an End Goal

This chapter discusses the key concept involving one’s target market and the center point of any company, its customers. Jarvis states that “too often businesses forget about their current audience- the people who are already listening, buying, and engaging” (Jarvis, 2020, p. 25). These individuals are far more important to a business than the people the company is trying to reach. Oftentimes expanding and attempting to gain new customers in new market segments can be hurtful, opposed to helpful. Businesses looking to do so, must go about this decision cautiously, making sure to listen, communicate with, and help those who are already paying attention to the company.

A study conducted by the Kauffman Foundation illustrated that 86% if companies succeeded in the long term did not take venture capital funds. This is particularly because the company’s interests may not always align with the interests of its backers, while potentially leaving the business with less control, resilience, speed, and simplicity (the primary traits of a company of one) (p. 28). This is very noteworthy, as many entrepreneurs might be blinded by the idea of gaining large amounts of money to fund and start their dream business; however, this business move is not always entirely beneficial in the long run. Another point worth noting that directly relates to the financial aspects of starting and maintaining a business is spending based on current versus predicted growth. Oftentimes, businesses spend money based on what they expect to make in the future; however, Jarvis argues that businesses should allocate spendings according to what they are currently making, not what they may make in the future (p. 32).

The Hall of Fame basketball coach who led 5 teams to the NBA championship coined the term “disease of more”. He repeatedly noticed that winning players began focusing on more, instead of better; they would let their ego interfere with all of the tasks that helped them win in the first place. They strived for more accolades and media attention, instead of improving their gameplay (p. 33). This same concept can be carried into a business scenario. Not all businesses need to be scaled. Instead, entrepreneurs should find the size that works for them and from there, continue focusing on becoming better (p. 34).

This book continues to so a great job of introducing new perspectives that I have yet to see for myself (until now). For example, when you hire employees, yes, they are there to aid your company and ultimately maximize the company’s profits. However, you become the source of income that pays for their home and feeds their families. This is a heavy responsibility. This introduces a new perspective to consider, surrounding the thought that scaling up is not always best for all companies.

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• Whether you are payign attention to your existing customers or just your potential customers
• Whether you couldmake your busienss better (howveer you defien that) instead of just making it bigger
• Whether your business really needs scale to succeed
• Where the upper bound to that scale might be, the place where profit and enjoyment have diminishing returns
• How you could turn envy of others into enjoying their successes and learning from them (p. 44).

What’s Required to Lead

This chapter reviews who should lead a company of one (p. 45). The idea of a company of one can be implemented in an entrepreneurial sense, but also in an intrapreneurial sense as well. Not only can an individual create a company of one, but they can also introduce this mindset to their work within a preexisting company.

The population has a nearly even split between introverts and extroverts. Despite this, more than 96% of executives and managers are extroverted, and in a 2006 study it was found that 65% of senior corporate executives viewed introversion as a barrier to leadership (p. 47-48). Jarvis argues that this stereotype does not always hold true. Personality tests are often used to determine one’s inclination toward one or the other (Caprelli, 2022). Knowing where oneself stands can aid in channeling personal strengths to balance out potential weak spots. This can also allow people to understand how to work more harmoniously among others and pool differences between extroverts and introverts to better execute project deliverables.

Autonomy is another key concept discussed within this chapter. Businesses and companies of one must balance autonomy without creating an anarchy. Developing autonomy within a business is not as easy as simply removing all processes, rules, and prescriptions. There still must be some form of direction and management provided. 79% of Fortune 1,000 companies and 81% of manufacturing organizations today have employed self-directed/autonomous teams that are all led in some way (p. 49). Autonomous processes can play an essential role in harvesting flexibility and improving efficiency. Autonomy is something that can be developed over time. For example, as students we are self-autonomous within this course. We have received guidance through professor outreach and posted course material; however, we are able to work at our own pace. There are not schedule meeting or “working hours”, how long we spend on the course is dependent on our own work preferences and efficiency. Autonomy is something that can be gradually introduced to people, as it is an importance skill to foster, as it ties into personal motivation and responsibility (a core characteristic that promotes success). Psychologist and Hopscotch and Harmony director, Jessica Cleary, states, “If they [ children] demonstrate an interest in doing something, and there’s no safety reason why they can’t, then let them” (Gomez, 2023). This a key strategy that allows autonomy to be developed, starting in early life stages.

Jarvis also highlights the importance of mental health, knowing oneself, and paying attention to your mental health, triggers, and taking time to resolve issues and struggles as they arise. A fellow peer of mine, Curtis Fann, has a blog centered around mental health, particularly among athletes. Here is the link to his blog!

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• Where you could strike a balance between autonomy and guidance
• What areas you could learn more about that would benefit your business and make you a more well-rounded generalist
• Steps you could take to strike a balance between hustlin’ and recuperation (p. 59).

Growing a Company That Doesn’t Grow

Excessive and blind growth can contribute greatly to business failure. Growth must be balanced with meaningful, long-term strategies. “Growth-hacking” is a term coined to describe the exponential growth tactics commonly applied within Silicon Valley tech startups. This concept employes pushy and sometimes even shady tactics to promote growth in spite of excessive production of churn (p. 60). This idea is reminiscent of the notorious business scandal, Enron. This is a textbook example that has some implication to support Jarvis’ idea of excessive growth leading to business failure. As the company gained success and became the leading market competitor, Enron centered their company culture around aggressive trading. The competitive environment caused the main goal of employees to be closing as many cash-generating trades as possible in the shortest amount of time. They were not focusing on the quality of their connections, work, and trade, just focused on building an empire and marginally increasing their status within the market. This immense pressure and the lack of meaningful growth and lack of an upper bound, the company got too greedy. They began committing malpractice and creating fraudulent financial records, by focusing on “future” gains (something Jarvis advises not to do), which created the illusion of profits. This dishonesty and lack of transparency ultimately led to the demise of the company, as they plummeted into bankruptcy (Bondarenko, 2001).

In addition, Jarvis explains that people often focus on the wrong things when starting a business. They begin by working on scaling, website, office spaces, business cards, and computers. These are all things that accumulate expenses, which is not ideal when you do not yet have any profits to cover these expenses (p. 64). Sometimes these ‘flashy’ extras are not needed, not right away, thinking cheap and fast can be a helpful starting point, as the main thing to focus on is how to be good at what it is you specifically do and offer. This still provided individuals with the opportunity to market themselves, but for what they have to offer intellectually, opposed to how cool their set up is. Focus on one’s skill set can help in promoting career growth, through increasing one’s scope of influence and level of ownership (p. 70).

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• How you could prioritize your existing customers or transform them into repeat customers
• The smallest version of your business idea that you could start with now, with little to no investment
• How you want to grow as a business, or as an employee who doesn’t require transitioning into work you don’t actually want to do (p. 73).

Determining the Right Mindset

During the 2008-2009 recession, the top 5 companies in the 1% for the Planet saw record sales years, while most other companies were losing money. In times of economic downturn, such as this, people spend less and do business with companies they respect and trust, while in a thriving economy, people gladly purchase products that align with their values. The end message Jarvis provides in relation to this example is that either way, having a purpose is a win for all companies (p. 78).

A key piece of advice offered by Jarvis is that if you do not feel your purpose, then no one else will. Defining one’s purpose has more to do with personal ethics and values, not marketing strategies or business plans (p. 80). The main premise of the advice offered within this book is derived from personal fulfillment. In this example, heightened personal enjoyment and satisfaction can be gained from running one’s business in alignment with their purpose. It is important to note that purpose is different than passion. Purpose is based on a company’s core set of values or business owners that are shared with their customers. Passion, on the other hand, as Jarvis describes it, is “simply a whim based on what we think we enjoy doing” (Jarvis, 2020, p. 81). Passion involves feelings, interests, and emotions that bring pleasure or joy to an individual. Purpose refers to one’s reason for existence, the explanation behind one’s actions, and the impact they have on others (Wilson, 2020).

Another standout quote from this chapter is, “Opportunities are just obligations wearing an appealing mask” (Jarvis, 2020, p. 87). Although this may come across as quite pessimistic, it also takes a hyper-realistic stance on certain situations. This concept connects to the idea of passion versus purpose in a sense because an opportunity arising and the excitement of it can lead one to want to seize the opportunity and do so fast. Emotions and excitement are in effect here and can hinder one’s ability to see their true purpose and how that can align with the following obligations.

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• The true pirpose of your business and whether it shows up in your actions (not just in your marketing material)
• What you are skilled at that is already in demand and where else that skill could be leveraged
• Where you could test your leap into something in a small way first
• How you could align your day/schedule to be focused on single-tasking (p. 92-93).

Personality Matters

Traditional business has taught people to mask their personalities under the blanket known as ‘professionalism’. Jarvis argues against this notion, as expertise and skills can be replicated, while style and personality are nearly impossible to replicate. It is apparent that Jarvis is following his own advice in his company of one, as many of his clients have noted they his caring nature. This is expression of personality and quirkiness is even apparent through his writing, as he pokes fun at himself after called the app Snapchat ‘young and fresh’ by saying that him referring to it as that likely means he is neither.

Something that I found extremely interesting in this chapter was the amount of backlash and hatred that surmounted when Hampton Creek released it “Just Mayo” product, which is mayonnaise without eggs. The makers of Hellmann’s Mayo are one of the parties that filed a lawsuit against the company, as they deemed eggs were a “required” ingredient for mayonnaise. The hated towards this idea went as far as the CEO received death threats and fraudulent letters sent to major retailers that carried “Just Mayo” alleging that it contained salmonella and listeria, forcing it off many shelves (p. 101). This whole scenario and the level of outrage seems wild to me. What makes this whole thing even more ironic is that Hellmann’s now has an eggless mayo. I believe this comes with an avocado oil substitute (unless there is another option; however, I know my roommate purchases Hellmann’s mayo that used an avocado oil base). Hellmann’s released their vegan mayo option in 2016, after filing against Hampton Creek in 2014 (Axworthy, 2021 & Strom, 2014).

In addition, Jarvis argues that companies should not what to be neutral. Instead, they should aim to become polarizing, find your niche; people either love it or hate it! To do so a company can implement three strategies. The first is placation, which involves trying to change the minds of those who don’t like your offerings. The second is prodding, which refers to intentionally antagonizing haters. This strategy can also aid in swaying neutral customers, who agree with your polarizing stance, into becoming supporters. The third strategy is amplification, which is singling out a characteristic and leaning heavily on it (p. 102). A strategy I have noticed in practice is prodding. Many companies poke fun at haters or competitors. This is seen in very simple forms, such as through commenting comebacks on social media. This has to potential to reach many people, and oftentimes they are viewed as funny or entertaining, which can aid in swaying neutral parties. One company that has made a very noteworthy appearance with polarizing social media comments is Wendy’s. Here are just a few and many more can be seen here.

(Iveta, 2017).

This polarizing content definitely connects to the first point if displaying personality, not just professionalism!

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• How you could infuse your own distinct and unique personality into your products and company image
• Where you could lean on what makes your business r product quirky or different to garner attention in the market (p. 104).

The One Customer

This chapter gives some great and even heart-warming examples of truly above and beyond customer service. One impressive example is that provided by a call service representative at RackSpace. She heard someone in the background of the call saying he was hungry, so she quietly put the customer on hold and ordered a pizza to their address. She continued her assistance, and the pizza was delivered while they were on the call together (p. 109). This is a super cool, and effective, way to get customers to talk about your company to their friends. In inducing word of mouth marketing, this is a great way to do so, as people are more likely to talk about your company or recommend it to friends if they have some level of emotion connected to it and if they have a specific story to tell that invoked those positive emotions (Schwarz, 2020).

A very intriguing piece of advice from this chapter is to look beyond problems customers are presenting to you in order to be the most helpful to those customers. Sometimes, as customers make complaints, they are looking for specific answers, but sometimes they are inadvertently asking for a specific feature (they are unaware they are even asking this). This leaves the entrepreneur or the company with the need to look beyond the problem (p. 116). This provides companies of one with a way to look at the bigger picture.

Jarvis also advises that all business must acknowledge mistakes as they are made (p. 122). Any level of acknowledgment is better than none. Acknowledgment and apologies can come in many forms and some businesses today have turned to humor to combat major issues or let-downs. For example, the KFC ‘FCK’ advertisement was a quick and simple way to ‘apologize’ for running out of their fried chicken. That advertisement can be viewed below.

(Campaign, 2018).

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• What you could do to ensure that your existing customers feel both happy and acknowledged
• Where you could help exceed expectations with your customer service
• How you could create opportunities for word of mouth and referrals
• How you own and then fix mistakes
• What you could do to ensure that your customers end up with wins (p. 123).

Scalable Systems

In this chapter Jarvis discusses the Need/Want model. This model recognizes growth based on realized profit, which is actual profit that has already been generated. The typical model adopted by most startups or venture capitalist-backed companies is based on potential profit, which is profit expected to be accumulated in the future (it has not yet been earned) (p. 126). As the majority of this chapter is centered around how Need/Want is able to scale its company and increase revenues without necessarily increasing the number of employees, I decided to look into their offerings. Here is the link to their website! The company encompasses a portfolio of various small startup businesses that it owns as a collective. These small businesses fall within a range of different industries. Their website displays the six companies they own, and they include physical product offerings, as well as more technology-based service offerings. They likewise invest in some other companies, whether they be their friends’ companies or investment funds. There are currently six companies listed on their website that Need/Want is invested in.

Need/Want is able to scale their revenue by minimizing their expenses. They operate in ways so that they do not need more staff in order to reach more people. For example, they have a heavy reliance on social media and newsletters to remain in contact with their customers. These are scalable systems, as they have the ability to reach vast amounts of people at a low cost. They aim to increase effect messaging and positioning. On way they do so is by using A/B testing in their advertisement campaigns, which let the company test variations. They then see which variant performs the best, and from there, send the highest-performing variant to the remainder of the list (p. 126).

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• Where you could use automation and technology to scale so your business doesn’t have to
• How you could outsource tasks that require massive scale
• How you could address personalization and segmentation to your one-to-many communication channels (p. 134).

Teach Everything You Know

People typically view making sales and being a good salesperson as being pushy, building a good argument on why they should by from you, or even being somewhat manipulative or deceiving. Jarvis, on the other hand, explains that if your product does not fit someone’s needs you need to let them know. A company’s sales increase when you first evaluate what they need and then teach them the value of what you are selling (p. 137). According to Harvard Business Review, sales success is highly correlated with three things. They are as follows.

1. “Spending enough time with customers and prospects
2. Having a large and healthy network in your own organization
3. Spending time with and getting attention from your manager and other senior people in your own organization”

(Fuller, 2014).

“To stand out and build an audience as a company of one, you have to out-teach and outshare the competition, no outscale them”(Jarvis, 2020, 138). Jarvis explains that the act of teaching your customers allows them to view you as the domain expert on the subject matter. It also provides the company with the opportunity to show the audience the benefits of what is being sold and it helps develop long-term customers (as they will know how to bets use your product or service through you showing them how to get the most out of it (p. 138). Teaching your customers, also more commonly referred to as ‘customer education’ in research drives lead generation, reduced customer support-related costs, improves product adoption sales, offers high quality customer service, and increases customer engagement and satisfaction (Cleverism, 2021)

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• What you could begin to share with or teach your customers or audience
• How you could focus more on executing ideas than on protecting them
• What investments you could make in consumer education as a marketing channel
• What you could share that would position you or your company as an authority in a niche (p. 146).

Properly Utilizing Trust and Scale

One statement that stood out within this chapter is that “a lot of people, especially creative people, look upon marketing in a negative way” (Jarvis, 156). I find this extremely interesting, as this is something I was unaware of. I usually view marketing in a neutral way, or am impressed by the creativity, pose, or humor behind the marketing initiative. However, the one way in which I can definitely see the negative, or distasteful aspects of marketing is when it is a seemingly pointless usage and display of wealth. For example, huge displays in the center of cities that cost lots of money to construct, just to be disassembled and throw away (because this large sum of money could have been used to product greater good for a greater number of people and it can be very wasteful). Jarvis primarily agrees with my personal viewpoint on marketing, as he says that people really should not view it in a negative way (p. 156).

Jarvis explains an opposing viewpoint of common practices to measure marketing success. He states that social media followers, subscribers, or clicks are “vanity metrics” He continues to say they do not measure trust or engagement, instead, they simply measure how many people took some form of marketing bait. This perspective may be controversial, especially today, as many marketing analysist and companies use the metric known as click-through rate to assess the success of their marketing campaigns. This measures how successful an advertisement was at capturing user attention, so the higher the click-through rate, the more successful the advertisement is at gaining interest. It is important to note that the conversion rate may be a more useful measurement in determine the success of an advertising campaign, as it accounts for the percentage of click-throughs that lead to actual sales (Hayes, 2022).

In today’s social media-centric environment, the hype has been placed on influencers and going ‘viral’. Many entrepreneurs may now believe that if their product or company goes viral on social media, they will become success and generate lots of customers, sales, and revenue. Jarvis argues that this is not the case (remember growth is not always scalable). Going viral means that your business does not fully understand who your intended audience is and tries to appeal to the masses instead. Connecting and engaging with one’s niche is far more important and far less costly to generate (p. 159). This connection and engagement can be created by building trust. Trust needs to be formed in all aspects of a business and should begin at the very core of the business and your values (p. 161).

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• How you embed trust and honesty as a marketing strategy in your company of one
• The relationships you could foster with your customers to incentivize them to share word of your business with others
• How to ensure- whether through email, support, or social media- that you’re always honoring social contracts with your customers (p. 162).

Launching and Iterating in Tiny Steps

When following and adopting the company of one mindset and practices explaining in the previous reflections and in more reflections to come, it is important to note that growth is much slower in a company of one. This is because growth within a company of one is incremental from zero (there is no venture capitalist investing money and you are not operating based on expected profits). Due to the scaling focus of a company of one, exponential profit increases are not a core objective, as just hitting profitability is usually enough (p. 166). Previous readings I have done discuss growing a company (with the help of venture capitalist funding) as fast as possible, and then selling that company to turnover a profit (book titles are mentioned in the Prologue book reflection post). Jarvis holds an opposing view of these strategies. I believe much of the analysis points discusses all tie back to Jarvis’ point that it is important for entrepreneurs to first decide what they want their life to look like. A study conducted by Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria, coded and collected over 60,000 CEO hours were collected that represented work time and work-life balance data. The study concluded that a CEO’s average workday lasts 9.7 hours during a normal work week and CEOs spent an average of 62.5 hours a week working (Harrop, 2018). This, in fact, is not the life that Jarvis lives, as he focuses on scaling, opposed to growth, to avoid this extreme amount of working.

A super cool example I would like to note is Katherine Krug, the CEO of BetterBack. She turned down a Shark Tank deal and funded her company through crowdfunding, as she finds it more liberating. She has gone on to be highly profitable and she is now able to spend each business quarter in a different country! Her and her business (along with her employees) are more focused on personal growth, rather than on exponential profit growth (p. 172). This is a truly amazing display of workplace flexibility and work-life balance. It was all done by starting simple and finding ways to have the least amount of expenses and investment upfront (p. 174).

This is something I plan to research more in the future; however, I figured I would ask my audience now! How is one able to get fired from a company that they created (they are the CEO)? This was mentioned within this chapter and is something I find very interesting and quite odd (p. 174). What is the legal process or rules that go in to doing something such as this?

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• A new business or product you could start right now by execiting the smallest version of your idea
• How to determine your MVPr, the steps that could be taken to ahcive it as quickly as possible, and what could be scaled back to reach it faster
• A product or service that would be the simplest solution to a problem your customers are having
• Whether you could start your company of one without capital and what that would look like (p. 179).

The Hidden Value of Relationships

Personal outreach, such as referring to a customer by their name or speaking to them directly can allow companies to use this personalized approach to their advantage. This can be easier among smaller companies. However, many larger companies are now trying to act more like smaller ones by developing a more personal connection or relationship with the company, so customers are able to feel better understood by the company (p. 181). The three R’s of customer loyalty are reward, recognition, and relevance (Shivkumar, 2023). This examples homes in on the recognition aspect, as referring to and addressing customers by their name allows them to feel recognized. Along those same lines, “77% of consumers view brands more favorably if they seek out and apply customer feedback” (Morgan, 2021). The Forbes article referenced and linked here also exhibits many other statistics supporting that personalized customer interactions heighten customer satisfaction, and in turn increases returns and revenues (Morgan, 2021). Some key notes that reiterate the importance of this concept that are left to us by Jarvis are Relationships are currency and You can only take out what you put in (p. 188).

In furthering the foundation and extent of one’s relationship to their customers there is a simple rule that is suggested by Sam Milbrath of HootSuite. The rules are that mass interactions with one’s audience can be divided into thirds. One third of updates should pertain to business content, one third should be shared content from others, and the final third should include personal interactions that build relationships with one’s audience (p. 189). This is a straightforward way to simplify one’s business outreach and marketing efforts, so I thought it could be very helpful to know.

I will leave you all with one last key point, so as to not over-complicate customer relationship building. “What can you do as a company of one to make your customers happy?” (Jarvis, 2020, 194).

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• How you could get to know your customers as real people with specific problems
• Where the true north of your business lies and what actions you could take to stay aligned with it
• How you could build relationship wealth by increasing your value and thus your social capital
• The ways in which you could empathize with your current customer base (p. 197).

Starting a Company of One- My Story

This final chapter (aside from the Afterword) discusses Jarvis’ personal business story in how and what he had to go through in order to create his company of one (p. 198).

He first started his professional career working for an agency, where he built and designed websites. He did not like the unloyalty the agency and to its customers, as they prioritized the quantity of their work over the quality. The day after he quit, some of his past clients (that he served while working for the agency) called him upon hearing he was no longer with the company. They had recognized his desire to deliver services and products of a higher quality to them and they wanted to take their business wherever he went because of this (p. 199). This is a great example to see how some of the processes and methods that he analyzed previous throughout the book (using other entrepreneur’s examples) worked for him.

He began by offering free help in small doses. He would look for people with questions he had the answers to, without pitching or selling himself (just simply offering advice) (p. 203). This is a great way to build genuine connections, as oftentimes people can sense when someone is trying to build a superficial connection for their own benefit or with ulterior motives behind it. He touches on a lot of great point corroborated by an article published in Forbes, such as starting with the right intent and asking questions that build positive energy (Inam, 2018). Being helpful towards customers can in turn promote lead generation for one’s company. This goes hand in hand with a point made in a previous chapter’s analysis. Customer education (teaching customers can likewise help them and be helpful to them) can also result in lead generation (Cleverism, 2021).

In discussing the financial side of starting a company of one, Jarvis advises us to reflect on two questions. “In the beginning, can you reduce any of your expenses so that you can do less work to be profitable each month? And how likely is it that you’ll get the number of clients or customers you need each month to be profitable?” (Jarvis, 2020, p. 207). These same two questions must be asked about the company’s expenses, product, and pricing. You also what to focus on getting the initial version of your product to the market quickly to start building revenue (p. 208).

Jarvis concludes this chapter with the following thought-provoking messages. The following has been retrieved directly from his book.

BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT

• Your purpose or reasoning in starting your own company of one, and whether it will hold up over time
• How you could start your own company of one right now, with some first version of what you want to do
• What you need to do to set up your company of one correctly and responsibly, both legally and financially (p. 214).

Afterword: Never Grow Up

This final piece shows a historical success of the company of one model and the power in putting one’s practice quality and customers first. It discusses the resilience (through mass changes and economic crises) of Buddhist temples in Japan, due to their commitment to their work and dedication to serving their customers. Instead of building something that is ‘too big’ to fail and thus accumulates bigger dangers, bigger risks, and more work to become more profitable. Jarvis urges entrepreneurs and businesspeople alike to build something that is ‘too small’ to fail (p. 218).

Here is an exceptional quote that I would like to leave everyone with: “The ideas, research tied, and lessons in this book point to a broader philosophy of business achievement: business success does not lie in growing something quickly and massively, but rather in building something that’s both remarkable and resilient over the long term” (Jarvis, 2020, p. 217).

Jarvise leaves us with some concepts to consider. What if growth doesn’t matter? What happens when we put an upper bound on our goals? What if business and capitalism itself are turned on in their head (Jarvis, 2020, 220)?

He even ends the book by providing his email, stating that he would like to hear everyone’s company of one story and that he will respond to as many as he can. I would list his email (I’m sure you can easily find it online); however, I think it is best gained by reading his work.

Click here to view all references for the reflections.