Solo entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly common as the Internet matures, software as a service (SaaS) is more reliable, outsourcing becomes more commonplace, and customers and user communities begin to shoulder more of the work of keeping operations going. Such companies get big results by thinking small -- from an organizational perspective, that is. From a revenue perspective, these enterprises are quite ambitious.

"We're seeing them everywhere -- they almost don't feel like businesses, because there's no there there -- these are people working from anywhere and in any time zone, and who are grossing from $250,000 up to $5 million or $6 million," said Paul Kedrosky, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.

"The no-employee business springs from the notion that there are two spheres: a manager/contributor sphere and a passion sphere," said Terri Loier, founder of WorkingSolo.com. There are many people who love to live in their passion sphere. They really don't want to build a big business by hiring lots of other people -- although that doesn't necessarily mean they don't think big in terms of dollars."

Solo entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly common as the Internet matures, software as a service (SaaS) is more reliable, outsourcing becomes more commonplace, and customers and user communities begin to shoulder more of the work of keeping operations going. Such companies get big results by thinking small -- from an organizational perspective, that is. From a revenue perspective, these enterprises are quite ambitious.

"We're seeing them everywhere -- they almost don't feel like businesses, because there's no there there -- these are people working from anywhere and in any time zone, and who are grossing from $250,000 up to $5 million or $6 million," said Paul Kedrosky, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.

"The no-employee business springs from the notion that there are two spheres: a manager/contributor sphere and a passion sphere," said Terri Loier, founder of WorkingSolo.com. There are many people who love to live in their passion sphere. They really don't want to build a big business by hiring lots of other people -- although that doesn't necessarily mean they don't think big in terms of dollars."