The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
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Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#2>I’m not sure that these are all truly one-person businesses. In my reporting, I often come across firms with a regular team of 7 or 10 people, but only one or two classified as W2 employees and the rest working as contractors.
I have to agree, since I find it mind boggling that one-man construction firms are making millions.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#3It's interesting that technology businesses didn't appear in any of the top grossing slots. I suspect this could be because they get lumped into professional / scientific.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#4>I’m not sure that these are all truly one-person businesses. In my reporting, I often come across firms with a regular team of 7 or 10 people, but only one or two classified as W2 employees and the rest working as contractors. I have to agree, since I find it mind boggling that one-man construction firms are making millions.
I have to agree, since I find it mind boggling that one-man construction firms are making millions.
That's not that uncommon for a general contractor: you do project management and client relations, sub-contractors hire the people who string wires and swing hammers.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#5> Many institutions in our society are still structured in such a way that W2 employees are considered the norm, and it is hard for even well-off people who are self employed to, for instance, get a mortgage without intense paperwork hassles.
It was refreshing to read that. Even for an apartment it's almost foreign to most building managers when you say you are self-employed (they might even have an unwritten rule that this means unemployed lol). Even after showing a good transaction history your chances are still pretty slim, it's almost as if they have never heard about anything other than W2 and pay stubs.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#6It's interesting that technology businesses didn't appear in any of the top grossing slots. I suspect this could be because they get lumped into professional / scientific.
Yeah, the only reason I even clicked on the link is because I just assumed the majority would be tech businesses, eg mobile app developers. Guess im guilty of living in a bit of a bubble.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#7In our industry, it's pretty safe to count the one-person cases as outliers (hit app, etc), however I can attest to a number of people consistently pulling down 7-figure NET incomes from privately-owned small businesses without ever involving VC's or other investors.
If it's a sustainable pace and you don't become so visible as to be a patent or other legal target you can quietly live very well on that or half that, etc.
Bottom line, there are an infinite number of places to end up between being nobody and being a Zuckerberg/Gates/Jobs and really, most of them can provide a good quality of life.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#8Interesting breakdown, though the title is a bit misleading. The numbers do show a 5% annual increase in single person companies making $1MM+ in 2011, but it's difficult to know whether that reflects a true rise without comparing against historical data.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#9>I’m not sure that these are all truly one-person businesses. In my reporting, I often come across firms with a regular team of 7 or 10 people, but only one or two classified as W2 employees and the rest working as contractors. I have to agree, since I find it mind boggling that one-man construction firms are making millions.
These are businesses with sales in the low 7 figures. A 1-person contracting firm netting 1MM/yr would be impressive.
Most small construction firms are staffed with 1099s.
Re: The Rise Of The Million Dollar, One-Person Business
#10It's interesting that technology businesses didn't appear in any of the top grossing slots. I suspect this could be because they get lumped into professional / scientific.
Yeah there were a lot of broad categories that I really wish gave more specifics on the types of companies within them.