I ran into an old friend at a party a few weeks ago. I told her I started a company. She asked:

This question can be interpreted in many ways. Funding? Revenue? Impact?

But I know better. To ‘normal’ people, this question usually means: 

It’s nice to tell friends that I have a few employees (so I don’t sound like a complete shlub), however “number of employees” is not something I think about.

My goal is to actually keep that number as low as possible. I have a small team and I will keep it that way.

With fewer people, you can move faster because you can all stay in sync faster. Less meetings and more actual work.

If you have a team of 10, or 20, or 100+, imagine how much more time you’d spend to make sure everyone is on the same page?

With fewer people, you spend less. When COVID hit earlier this year, I didn’t have to fire people or change the business. We were able to keep our heads down and just keep doing our work. We weathered the “March & April storm” and came out of it bigger than before.

With fewer people, you are forced to leverage technology. Tech should always be the focus of the business. We automate everything we can. We focus on user-generated content. We focus on SEO.

But you know what beats all of this? Leadership and vision. With great leadership, you can have 1 employee or 1,000 employees and both see amazing results.

Why? Because a leader learns how to grow from 1 employee to 1,000 in the best way for the company. A leader learns when to hire and when not to. A leader learns how to delegate their work and challenge & motivate their employees. A leader learns company morale.

It’s not about having a huge team, or one employee. It’s about having just the right amount.