Thomas Frey on the Future of Entrepreneurship

U.S. News and World Report yesterday featured an e-mail interview with entrepreneur and futurist Thomas Frey, Senior Director of The DaVinci Institute, on the future of small-business start-ups. The interview talked about two major trends in entrepreneurship:

Confluence of Influence

"This has to do with the do-it-yourself-content movement, where bloggers, podcasters, and others have been given a voice. The single points of influence from the past have changed, and now several million people will have a voice in what's going on. The trick is to find the people who can influence your particular industry and figure out how to get them to say something nice about you."

Certainly major media outlets continue to carry a lot of weight, but there are more and more people who are "slightly famous", or, more accurately "niche famous". Within an industry or market segment, their opinions can carry as much or even more weight than major media. This makes it more important than ever to proactively network, because these people are best reached through relationships, not pitch letters.

Empire of One

"An empire of one business is a one-person business with far-reaching influence. [...] Manufacturing, marketing, bookkeeping, accounting, legal, and operations are all outsourced to other businesses around the world. The empire-of-one business model is one with great appeal to former corporate executives with global contacts and good ability to manage things remotely. We will see a sharp increase in these types of businesses starting in 2006."

This is an intriguing business model. I've seen it in action (one of my past clients follows this model), and while it presents some challenges, it has a great appeal, too. When everyone in your organization are vendors, not employees, accountability is even greater. You don't have to have any HR department, no payroll, no office space, etc. It allows the entrepreneur to stay out of the day-to-day management of organization and stay focused on the key things they can do best: design, market and sell their product.