The Worst Business Model in the World: A New Kind of Guide for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. The question is, what kind of entrepreneur will you be?If your sole purpose in life is amassing money, you may want to try a different book.If you crave the flexibility to be passionate, original, and unabashedly enthusiastic about what you do, create work that could excite you on a daily basis, and still earn you enough money to not have to worry about money, The Worst Business Model in the World may be calling your name. It’s about doing what you’re passionate about and good at, and taking the strategic steps to create a business around that passion. It’s about leaving a 9-5 job behind not knowing if you’ll match your income level but confident that you’ll exceed your happiness level.Backed by interviews with more than 100 entrepreneurs in a wide range of industries, The Worst Business Model in the World provides strategic advice for the real problems entrepreneurs face, whether you’re a veteran entrepreneur or on your way to becoming one. Author Danny Schuman lays out a roadmap to help you stay stubbornly and blissfully independent, so you can spend more time doing what you love and less time doing what you hate. Featuring 24 insights, each with an actionable tool, this book will help fill your wallet, feed your heart, and lift you up to the place you really want to be, so you can do all the things you’re good at with less pain, enough profits, and more joy.

If you're an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur whose sole purpose in life is amassing money, this book is not for you.

If you're an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur craving the flexibility to be passionate, original, and unabashedly enthusiastic about what you do, set aside the time and space to look at life through the prism of What Could Be, and do work that excites you on a daily basis, while--importantly--still making enough money to not have to worry about money, The Worst Business Model in the World may be calling your name.

If you wake up every day hoping to create something that could benefit you, the people you love, or even people you don't know and may never meet, while maintaining the ability to think strategically about your business so you can stay in business--I'm so glad this book found you. Please read on.

Some entrepreneurs toil and sweat and stress so they can create the next Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat and cash out. I don't begrudge them but I also don't share that philosophy. I don't want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. I just want to be the first me.

I want to be happy doing what I'm good at on a daily basis and still be financially secure. I'd like to live soulfully and also profitably. Fill my wallet and feed my heart. For the past 10 years, I've been able to do this because--or despite--I have what I think might be the worst business model in the world.

So, I'm an entrepreneur, I suppose.

But more than that, I'm a UDOT. And if you're still reading, you're probably a UDOT too.

UDOT: Us Doing Our Thing. Pronounced "Yu-daht."

UDOTs work for ourselves instead of working for the (Wo)Man. We do what we're good at and are passionate about. However, we're pretty unenthusiastic about--and sometimes incompetent at--the more technical aspects of doing what we love, things like business development, finance, administration, and legal responsibilities.

We're programmers, musicians, lawyers, accountants, authors, designers, custom tailors, taco stand owners, dog walkers, psychiatrists, and multitudes of other professionals on our own who could use a little help with what doesn't come naturally: the part of having a business where we have to run a business.

Sometimes we make grand plans and don't fulfill them. Other times we set a clear vision but make no plans, feeling our way and hoping we get there. Once in a while we have no plan and no vision, but we have passion and determination, so we put one brain cell in front of the other and trust that something good will come of it.

It may be a terrible business model, but it's a wonderful existence.

Being an entrepreneur is more planned and financially based; being a UDOT is more about being in the moment. If the plan doesn't unfold exactly as you hoped, that's part of the beauty. We're here to make our souls happy and our bank accounts full enough to  continue doing what we love. For an entrepreneur, straying too far from the curvature of  Profit and Loss is a problem. For a UDOT, taking the path that's right in front of you is a glorious opportunity.

UDOTs embrace that freedom. We get bored easily. We crave new challenges that introduce us to different people and projects, because they create the potential for new and unexpected ideas. On the other hand, it often means more project-based work, which means more hustling and less security. It may not be such a good business model, but it enables us to come up with new ideas and solve new problems. That's exciting to us.

We get to experience what one UDOT called "the prosperity in there." The good stuff inherent to being on our own. The flexibility to set our own schedules and spend more time with our kids. The ability to pursue our passions. Having Yes or No be our choice, based on what's best for the people and the project, not politics. Instead of making our way from meeting to meeting, we have the time to think freely and create the next great thing.

We get to spend more time doing the things we love and less time doing the things we hate.

In our UDOT world, where challenges are seldom the same from day to day, how can we build a model or a process to help us succeed? Whatever it is has to have the flexibility to adapt in an always-changing world. We each need to have the ability to create our own best version of a Worst Business Model.