Go It Alone!: The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own

Front Cover
Harper Collins, Oct 26, 2004 - Business & Economics - 240 pages

There is an epidemic of unhappiness in the American workplace. A full 70 percent of workers in the United States report that they are disengaged from their jobs. When asked, "Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?" only 20 percent of nearly 2 million employees said yes. It is no wonder that 56 percent of all Americans dream of starting their own business. So why don't they do so? Because starting one's own business is seen as difficult, expensive, and risky.

In this extraordinary book, successful Go It Alone! entrepreneur Bruce Judson explains that the conventional wisdom about starting your own business is stunningly wrong. Using the leverage of technology -- e-mail, the World Wide Web, and the remarkable array of off-the-shelf business services now available -- it is dramatically easier to start your own business. Magnified by these new services, it is also possible to create, for the first time, a highly focused business.

Bruce Judson shows you the practical steps that will allow nearly any individual to create a business, often using job skills that seem to require an entire corporation for support. It is no longer necessary to spend time on the tasks that don't add value. It is now possible to stay small but reap big profits. Go-it-alone businesses allow the individual the freedom to concentrate on their greatest skills. After reading this book, your motto will be "Do What You Do Best, Let Others Do the Rest."

From inside the book

Contents

Conventional Wisdom Is Just Plain Wrong
1
The New GoItAlone Business
7
Principles for Success
17
The Great Shift in Whats Possible
43
Do What You Do Best
88
How to Create Your Business System
105
The Myths About Startups
127
Why You Dont Want to Be a Free Agent or a Franchisee
136
When to Quit Your Day Job
174
Why Venture Capital Is Not for You
183
Mistakes HappenLearn from Them
187
Suddenly Just Me
194
Fear Is the Enemy
199
The Web Site for This Book
205
Resources for Getting Started
206
Bibliography
210

Managing Extreme Outsourcing
144
Lessons from Some Inventive Companies
155
Evaluating Your Proposed Business
165
Index
214
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2004)

Bruce Judson is a senior faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management. An entrepreneur and lawyer, Judson holds advanced degrees from Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College. He is the author of Go It Alone! and Netmarketing, and the coauthor of Hyperwars. In 2008 he both predicted and hedged against the market crash, beating the investment results of virtually every mutual fund and hedge fund.

Bibliographic information