Thought of the Day: Do-it-yourself

Soon after founding our new company, Red42, Silke and I received a visitor at our brand-new studio in Wiesbaden. A colleague from North America spent two days with us. We spoke about his and our business models and about the now-published LearningCircles by Red42 social technology, which was then still under development. Silke and I also told our guest that we were aspiring to build a pretty wide product range for our online store. "We sell quite a few books already," I told him "and I kind of enjoy mailing out our stuff, as it gives me an odd sense of accomplishment. Why don′t you do the same?" "I am not a post office!" he replied, briskly. And I felt pretty dumb myself for a little moment.

I like to think of myself as a leading expert within my field. There are more than two dozens of ways in which I like to describe my roles - post office not being one of them, of course. And "mail boy" clearly is a rather mundane role, not considered fancy by any popular standard. But whenever I look back at that conversation at our studio, I think it illustrates well that there are two different ways of approaching our existence as "solo entrepreneurs". For now, I suggest calling one of these ways Do-it-yourself, and the other Outsource everything.

The bible for the Outsource everything school of solo entrepreneurship may be a bestseller from a couple of years ago, Timothy Ferriss′ book The 4-Hour Work Week. When this book was published, back in 2011, I remember that many people in my network jumped to read it and thought of it as brilliant. I hated that book. My guts hated it. But those colleagues and friends who had read it enthusiastically immediately proceeded to outsource repetitive or tiresome work or hard to India. And overall mused about the mundaneness of most tasks, and that they wanted to get to working three or four days per week. "Max", of course.

I felt a tiny bit stupid listening to them.

All that enthusiasm for outsourcing everything to India has long faded away, for sure. But the toxic ideas of The 4-Hour Work Week stuck, and linger on among solopreneurs. I firmly believe that there have been few books in recent history that have been as destructive as Ferriss′ book. It matches the destructiveness of a business book from the 1990s, called Who moved my Cheese?, Through that book, author Spencer Johnson, planted the divisive and prejudiced idea of the "comfort zone" into people′s imagination, and the firm belief that "some people are just too lazy to make an effort". The anti-democratic spirit of the Cheese book has been matched recently by Ray Dalio′s utterly evil Principles book. But I am drifting here. Back to Outsourcing everything.

The Outsourcing everything school is strong today among solopreneurs. And that is a huge problem. Because members of this school not only waste money and decent business opportunities. They also waste learning opportunities and erode their own confidence. Why? Because, if you try to get rid of all activities that others might perform better or cheaper (in China or India, for example), then why bother trying most things at all? You will not even get to start practicing - which, by the way, is the only way to achieve true mastery. In other words: If you outsource a lot, you tend to immediately limit your learning opportunities, and you will likely get stuck in your career very quickly.

"Do not restrain yourself from the beauty and the pleasures of mundane, but essential tasks that are intimately related to your business. Appreciate the learning opportunities that are in the detail, in making the small stuff great!"

You might have guessed it already: I belong to the Do-it-yourself school of solopreneurship. Not the most popular now, maybe. But I cannot help it! Some of you guys who know me a little might be aware that I have been designing our books, brochures, posters, learning bundles and also packaging materials, alone, or with help, for at least five years now. I designed my own logos since 2003, and that of Red42 and the BetaCodex Network, too. I even enjoy loading up our stuff to the different online printers websites. Our books get delivered to the publisher print-ready. Not even the printing companies that Vahlen, our German publisher, contracts, can meddle with our stuff. And if you remember: I somewhat cherish mailing out the stuff!

You may conclude from all of that that I am a terrible control freak. Not so, I would respond to you! Instead, my role models for this are artists and chefs. Because here′s the thing: If you have not mastered all the details of a craft, then how will you be inventive and attempt to take that craft to another level? I firmly believe that we must all constantly broaden and deepen our skills, and master all the bits and bites of our businesses, if we want to distinguish ourselves, and maybe, some day, achieve excellence of sorts. Silke and I could never have published four brochures, two books, over a dozen of posters, and developed dozens of products in just 18 months of Red42, if we were not capable of doing so many things ourselves.

That does not mean that it is smart to do everything yourself. I am not arguing here that you must do all your accounting yourself. Even though I enjoy crafting my own invoices, most of the time. The larger ones at least. I am not saying either that you must design your stuff in InDesign, the way I am doing it. Even though the craft of desk-top publishing has given me a plethora of ideas and inspirations for my career. But I recommend this: Do not restrain yourself from the beauty and the pleasures of mundane, but essential tasks that are intimately related to your business. Appreciate the learning opportunities that are in the detail, in "making the small stuff great"!

And now, will you please excuse me? I have to dispatch an order of 10 books to Turkey, by mail. Cheerio!

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This text was first published within the "Thought of the Day" column by Niels on the #BetaCodex Network slack group.