All of the worst jobs I've ever had in my career were the ones where I worked for somebody else. The only times I've ever felt truly happy in my career are the times where I was working for myself.

About two years ago I made a pretty fundamental shift in what it meant to work for myself. I decided to start a company of one.

Today, I want to revisit with you why I decided to go the solopreneur route, why I intend to stick with it, and why you may want to consider it.

Labor Exploration

We go to work to make money. Ideally, we enjoy that work and find it meaningful, though this seems to be the exception, not the rule.

Whether we make a living working a job, starting a company, or working for ourselves in a company of one, we're all trying to make a good living. We want to make enough money to cover our costs of living, save for college or retirement, and have some left over for leisure. I would argue that among the options, self-employment provides the simplest path to making the best living.

Not necessarily the easiest, but certainly the most simple.

A Job

If you have a job, your labor is an expense to the company.

Therefore, it is in the company's best interest to keep salaries and payroll low while trying to get as much revenue generating productivity out of each laborer. Even in a well-paying job, a good portion of the revenue that your labor produces is taken by the company to cover fixed costs, to pay the higher salaries at the top of the organization, or dividends and profit-sharing for shareholders and investors.

In order to increase your salary, you are relying on someone else giving you a raise or venturing out to find a new position with the requisite salary. The new job will come with pre-set expectations and possibly a team that you did not choose.

In a job, it's mostly out of your hands, and an uphill climb. This is roughly what it's like when you work for someone else.

A Company

When you start and run a company, unless you are a co-op, you must continually generate significantly more revenue per employee than they are paid, in order to cover costs and generate profit. Every dollar you bring in must first go toward covering the cost of overhead and labor. As a company, your labor costs are more than just salary and also include things like healthcare benefits and 401K matching. As you scale, your total labor costs will increase as do your requirements for capital in the bank to cover you in case the business takes a downturn. If you don't have enough in the bank, when you lose a client or have a weak quarter for product sales, you may need to layoff one or more members of your team.

As your labor force grows, your business becomes more complex. Now, you need a human resources department, an IT department, and you're offering new benefits to keep team members and lure top talent from competitors. You may need office space to legitimize your business in the market, or maintain a place to bring the team together. Once you do that, you're buying coffee and snacks, office equipment, and that ping-pong table your company culture so desperately needs. After all of that, if there's anything left, you get to take money out of the company for yourself.

So, if you're looking at starting a company, you need to know that your entire company must first reach a point of sustainability and then profitability, before you are able to start taking a salary. Ask any owner and 99% will tell you that they get paid last. Even though you're working for yourself, a lot of people get paid before you do. So, who are you really working for?

Alone

As the owner of a company of one, much like the owner of a company of many, you still get paid last, but because there's no one else it means you also get paid first.

This is a simple structur