The New Definition of Lean Entrepreneurship
I've always struggled with the question, 'what do you do?'
You know, the one you get when meeting other adults for the first time. After mutual commentary on the weather of course.
I dislike the pressure of introducing myself on video calls to strangers, as I feel a bit like a chameleon.
To date, my main business income has derived from my recruitment business, but over time I've leaned into other business ventures and have diversified my income.
I also grew a team, then scaled it back, replacing team members with tech.
So, am I a solopreneur now, or a multipreneur? Or both?
I often talk about being lean as a positive. I've already written about running a lean recruitment business.
To pigeonhole what I do and find likeminded people, I'm opting for leanpreneur. Let's jump into my thoughts on Leanpreneurism.
Where We're Up To
When I started digging around lean entrepreneurship, a few bits came up. Let's cover off what is out there already.
Lean Startup
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a groundbreaking book about entrepreneurship and product development. The core idea is to treat a startup as an experiment, not a smaller version of a large company.
The principles centre around eliminating wasteful practices and increasing value production during the product development phase (lean thinking). It talks about creating Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to test a market and then listening to customer feedback to iterate.
Leanpreneurs will take ideas from this, but in essence it's a related, but separate concept.
Solopreneurs
Solopreneurism has boomed recently, with famous solopreneurs like Pieter Levels, Justin Welsh and Dan Go.
They eschew the traditional entrepreneurism route, shunning funding to become a one person army.
HubSpot defines Solopreneurs as the following:
- They're both founders and employees
- They don't hire a team
- They have a single business focus
- They are not building a business to scale
- Different financial/business structures
- They have minimal workplace requirements
Solopreneurism is getting much closer, but there are a few key differences.
Multipreneurs
A term recently coined by Greg Isenberg, he defines it as:
Someone who creates multiple products per year, with the aim of creating a company that creates companies.
This has grown from his experience and expertise in community building. I like the thought of a micro-holding company.
Leanpreneurs
So, I've settled on describing myself as a leanpreneur.
Leanpreneurs are:
- Lean — They optimise for efficiency and margin over growth at all costs
- Multi-skilled — They can operate across disciplines (sales, marketing, product, ops)
- Tech-enabled — They leverage automation and AI to punch above their weight
- Diversified — They have multiple income streams, but bounded focus
- Independent — They value autonomy over scale
It's not about being a one-person army forever. It's about being deliberate about what you build, how you build it, and what you optimise for.
Image attribution: Photo by Derek Owens on Unsplash