【後疫情時代】斜槓收入、遠距工作＆零工經濟的可能性

One person too have other clients and other work; they can fend for themselves when they're not working on a job for a compamy. One person is able to create a stable, long-term business that's small enough to handle any economic climate, resilient enough to not have to lean too heavily on a single project or client, and autonomous enough to let him/her build a life around his/her work (not the other way around). He/She is able to grow his/her revenue without having to also grow the trappings that typically come with it.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　－－《一人公司（Company of One）》

These industry disruptions or market changes aren’t a sky-is-falling scenario — they’re truly just opportunities to redefine work and adapt to changes. When I was doing web design full-time, each time an economic bubble burst or a recession hit I found myself in a great place to find more jobs because I could offer the quality of work a larger agency could provide, but at a price that had one less zero in it. And not only was I still making more profit than if I had been salaried at an agency, but I could still make the most of the price I was charging because my overhead was almost nothing past having a computer and writing off the second bedroom in a rented condo. And then, when the economy picked back up, agencies were so busy that they had to farm out work, which Iwas available for. So either way, I had a model for revenue that larger agencies couldn’t have replicated without scaling down immensely.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　－－《一人公司（Company of One）》

Being a company of one lets you control your own life and your job. But to achieve autonomy as a company of one, you have to be a master at your core skill set. Competence and autonomy are tied together because the opposite — having complete control but not a clue what you’re doing — is a recipe for disaster. You have to have a skill set, or a combination of skills, that’s in demand. With a well-developed skill set, you’ll know what areas will benefit from growth and what potential places for growth don’t make sense.

As a society, we're gradually starting to view "work" not as a single place of employment, but as a series of engagements or projects.

But bear this in mind: achieving control over a company of one requires more than just using the core skill you are hired for. It also requires proficiency at sales, marketing, project management, and client retention. Whereas most normal corporate workers can be hyperfocused on a single skill, companies of one, even within a larger business, need to be generalists who are good at several things — often all at once.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　－－《一人公司（Company of One）》

Companies of one work best under constraints — because that’s where creativity and ingenuity thrive. Companies of one question their systems, processes, and structure to become more efficient and to achieve more with the same number of employees and fewer hours of work.

Speed is not merely about frantically working faster. It’s about figuring out the best way to accomplish a task with new and efficient methods. This is the concept at work in the ROWE method: employees no longer have to work a set amount of time, but are rewarded when they finish their tasks faster. By being smarter at getting more work done faster when you work for yourself, you can create a more flexible schedule that fits work into your life in better ways.

Another aspect of speed in a company of one is the ability to pivot quickly when a customer base or market changes. As a solo worker or small company, a company of one finds this much easier to do, because it has less infrastructure to cut through.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　－－《一人公司（Company of One）》

For a company of one at any size, simple rules, simple processes, and simple solutions typically win.

By contrast, growth for a company of one can mean simplifying rules and processes, which frees up time to take on either more work or more clients, because tasks can be finished faster. With this goal in mind, companies of one routinely question everything they do.

For a company of one to succeed, a strategy for simplifying isn’t just a desirable goal but an absolute requirement. Having too many products or services, too many layers of management, and / or too many rules and processes for completing tasks leads to atrophy. Simplicity has to be a mandate.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　－－《一人公司（Company of One）》