I am a spare room tycoon.
I use a staircase to commute to my second-floor office from my third-floor bedroom or my first-floor kitchen. My company, Asia Marketing and Management, has global ambitions but consists largely of me and the intelligence, experience, contacts, and personality I bring to my clients' tasks.
I enjoy what I do, and I do it well. My work engages and surprises me. I'm still learning about my business, just as I am learning new things about myself. Although my experience tells me what is likely to work in my business, I still feel free to experiment. It is, after all, my business.
My work is an act of imagination. I have created it as I have gone along. It is not surprising, then, that it fits me very well. I'm in business for myself so that I can be myself.
Recently, at the supermarket, I encountered someone I met when I was first starting out. After he marveled that I had survived all these years, he remarked, "You must be really rich." When I told him I wasn't, at least not by his Wharton School standards, he became almost contemptuous. "The only reason to be in business for yourself is to make lots and lots of money," he said, pushing his cart rapidly toward the fancy crackers. I was left standing where I was, scrutinizing both the broccoli and the way I have lived my life.
No, I'm no software billionaire. I may never be listed in the Forbes 400. But I have a career that is far more interesting and satisfying than any I can imagine as an employee. Though there have been some rocky times since I went into business on my own more than 17 years ago, I am happy with the path I have taken.
How can I call myself a tycoon, you may wonder, if I'm not fabulously wealthy? In fact, the word tycoon comes, as I do, from China. It refers to one who rules, a sovereign. The word came into English, by way of Japanese, at a time when business was becoming bigger and bigger, and it referred to a powerful executive, a captain of industry. I'm actually a captain of industry myself, though my craft is more like a rowboat than an ocean liner. My empire is small, but I do rule it. And I'd rather be captain of my dinghy than a junior officer on the Titanic.
The globalization of business seems to be producing a handful of transnational behemoths in every industry. But it is also giving individuals access to vast quantities of information and to communication technologies that allow a home office to be as well connected to the world as is a downtown office tower. It's therefore no surprise that many people with imagination and nerve feel that they can make a bigger impact as individuals than as functionaries in vast, anonymous organizations.
Many of those contemplating independence are people who have worked for large corporations and either fear that they are going to be displaced or find that this is actually happening to them. Others are younger people who appear to be on a career fast track, but who understand that every organization is unstable, and loyalty is largely irrelevant. People just out of school are likewise seeking ways to invent themselves so that they can prosper amid tumult and retain a sense of personal integrity. Parents are looking for ways to find the time to be part of their children’s lives while they invent a business of their own. All sorts of people -- women and men, old and young -- are looking for ways to live while keeping soul and body together.
Some have dreams of making lots and lots of money -- and none of them would mind if it happened. A few have dreams of creating large new companies, but many more don't share the common assumption that one must grow large or die. The great majority of people I meet would be happy to be mildly prosperous. Their main payoff comes in personal satisfaction, in autonomy, in deliverance from office politics, in the freedom to make their own mistakes instead of being forced to execute the misjudgments of others. Living by your wits can be risky, but it also makes you feel more fully alive.
Excerpt from Spare Room Tycoon, pages 1 to 4.
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