Fred Wilson is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, a venture capital firm. He writes the popular “A VC” blog (“musing of a VC in NYC”), and has invested in numerous game-changing tech companies, including Twitter, del.icio.us, Etsy, and FeedBurner.
I’ve been reading his blog off and on for years, but have never seen him speak. Thanks to The 99 Percent, part of the Behance Network, we can now hear his thoughts on the all the various ways to run your own show.
Wilson describes various types of organizations that entrepreneurs run.
- the sole proprietorship
- the partnership
- marriage partners as business partners
- the boutique
- the federation
- the project
- the tour bus
- the startup
- the breakout
- the company
I feel like my new company, Bonehook LLC, borrows freely from several of the examples above, namely the sole proprietorship, the partnership, the boutique, the federation and the project. I’m the sole owner of Bonehook, but I have a partner in AdPulp. In the creative services arena, small firms are often called boutiques, and I have no problem with that. The federation model that Wilson describes is perfectly resonant, as the work Bonehook does is totally dependent on my network of collaborators who step forward on a project basis to help solve client’s marcom problems.
I also like the examples Wilson gives for each model: Matt Drudge; Openshop Studios; DailyLit; Union Square Ventures; Allen & Co; Avatar; Hype Machine; Red Stamp; Foursquare; and Twitter.