Although the term was first used in the 18th Century, the rise of the Entrepreneur, particularly Solo Entrepreneur, has found it’s largest growth in the past 20 years. The discontent around a lack of autonomy while working in big Enterprise, the desire to prioritise lifestyle over a comfortable employee pay packet and the large scale redundancies caused by a dramatically changing economic structure has exploded the Solo-Entrepreneur numbers.

It’s not just about Entrepreneurs themselves. It’s also the ever expanding market for the market. The newly sprouted Expert Industry allows some to make millions teaching people how to be Entrepreneurs. Many of these “tutors” have earned far more teaching people how to do it than they earned in their initial startup business. Now, with a saturated market, we find there is a glut of information in how to “make money from home”, often written by people who aren’t actually succeeding themselves in what they are teaching.

The craze for a dream of giving up the day job, being your own boss and heading for the beach while your business makes you all the money you need is fiercely pursued. Yet so few attain what they set out to achieve. In reality they discover they are caught in a worse lifestyle with:

• longer hours for little or no pay
• no support from colleagues they used to have in the office
• a lack of discipline and patience as it takes longer to build than expected
• debts mounting because they already quit the day job
• paying extraordinary amounts of money to “expert” tutors who don’t address the real obstacles for the individual leaving them feeling like a failure for not being able to utilise the information
• when they do find the right strategies to bring in some customers, the marketing and social network platforms they relied upon constantly alter their search result algorithms so the Entrepreneur is continually having to change strategy. This is not a set and forget process.
• by the time they build a successful business they are so sick to death of the topic they burnout and the business starts to decline = death to their dream
• feeling like a failure leads to isolation so they can avoid the “shame” of having to admit it didn’t work out. Isolation means they get no emotional support from others and limits the opportunity to network which could open doors for the next project or job.

With so much pressure and responsibilities many Entrepreneurs would rather swallow their pride, admit defeat go back to an unfulfilling job with a simple pay packet so they can once again finish work at 5pm and get an hour of surfing in before nightfall.

Like a pyramid scheme, the world cannot continue splitting and separating into millions of little one man bands fending for themselves. It’s time to look for a new business model. One which still gives autonomy and reward for great ideas but allows you to do just what you are good at and love to do.

So here’s a Entrepreneur business model of the future. It uses a balance of masculine and feminine energies. This does not have to be completed specifically by men and women to match but is done by those who are most naturally inclined to that style of work.

The 4 Part Business Model

The business model is based on 4 parts. It may be simply 4 people in a small group or a business of 100 people split into the 4 parts. Some parts will need more people than others depending on your industry.

Part One – Masculine – Yang – The Ideas People

These people spark the creative ideas, innovative products or services which make the business unique. In full flow they produce far more ideas than is actually used and may take less time to complete so could do this as part time work.

Part Two – Feminine – Yin – The Nurturers

To understand the masculine / feminine I’m talking about, compare this to the human reproductive system: the masculine spits out the new idea, the feminine takes the idea in, then nurtures and develops the strongest ideas till they are mature and strong enough to survive after birth. This is often the part most missed out by renegade Entrepreneurs keen to get their ideas out on the market.

Spitting out ideas without the time to develop and mature leads to a much lower ratio of long term successes. You might say the infant mortality rate of ideas is really high without this part in the business and generally we underestimate how valuable it is to have “feminine” energy people on the team who can develop your ideas before going to production and birthing on the market.

Part Three – Masculine – Yang – The Marketers

Sales and marketing are active, rather than passive, which is a naturally masculine energy. Women can be really good at this too just as easily as some men will be excellent Nurturers. It depends on the personality. This part needs outgoing sales, marketing and advertising people who raise the Company and Product/Service profile to draw in customers and interest.

Part Four – Feminine – Yin – The Collectors

These are the support people: surveyors, researchers, admin, accounts and customer service who collect feedback and opinion from the customers / audience, then curate the information and funnel it back to the Part One Ideas People so they can either alter or re-create new products and services.

Larger businesses are setup to house these four parts already but Solo Entrepreneurs are rarely set up to manage all these parts. If the Entrepreneur is not inclined to do one of the parts, the business will not last.

So, if you find your one man band business is not succeeding as naturally as you would have liked, consider collaboration in this Business shape drawing in team members who fit best into each part.

Don’t stress about having to share the profits between team members. When you are free to spend all your time doing what you are best at, as the other team members are, you will succeed well beyond what you could have done on your own and are far less likely to burnout.

You’ll probably find they would be delighted to support you in your endeavours which unburdens them from having to do it all themselves as well. This gives you the motivating camaraderie component back that you were missing from the office, makes work more enjoyable and gives you the lifestyle you were all craving in the first place.

Need help setting this Business shape up? Why not work with Kitegirl Coach to speed your progress and take you beyond what you’ve achieved before?  Make an enquiry.