Dave Pollard on How to Build a Company the Right Way

I'm a bit more uncompromising, as I see no necessary tension between these three things. As I've said in The Natural Enterprise, most high-stress, high-struggle, hard-work, constant-compromise businesses fail to do four things, none of which they teach you in business school:

  • If you do your research properly and thoroughly before you begin, you can virtually eliminate the risk of business failure and the stress that goes with it.

  • If you finance your business organically, you owe less, and those you owe appreciate the value of what you do and demand neither exorbitant returns on or influence over the business in return for their investment, so the business is always fully in your control.

  • If you market your business virally, your overhead costs are dramatically less and your message is dramatically more powerful.

  • If you do business as equal partners with people you love and whose skills complement your own, and you agree on operating principles at the outset, all of the managerial and 'HR' issues of your company (salaries, recruitment, motivation, promotion, absenteeism, strategy and unpopular executive decision-making) disappear. There is no hierarchy and everyone makes decisions collaboratively and improvisationally, making your company resilient and keeping you and your co-workers empowered and happy.

Dave Pollard sums up great thoughts.

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