"The man who has his health has a thousand wishes. The man without his health but one."
The same could be said of those who have the freedom to spend their time as they desire. Looking at the want-to/have-to ratio of activities that make up a typical day is one measure of progress toward true time freedom.
A growing number of individuals in the U.S. are choosing home-based businesses as their means to improve that ratio, and thus achieve their time freedom goals.1
According to a 2004 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 5 million self-employed "worked at home in a home-based business—that is, a business run from their home and no other location." And, "Nearly half of self-employed persons with a home-based business worked at least 8 hours per week at home, and almost 22 percent put in 35 hours or more at home. On average, self-employed persons with a home-based business worked 25 hours per week at home."2
The finite amount of time the entrepreneur has to invest - whether at the casual part-time level or at a full-tilt occupation level - is one of the most significant limitations on how large, and how rapidly, the entrepreneur can grow his or her business. The challenge becomes how to intelligently leverage the efforts of other people and services to supply critical resources to the business in a timely and profitable manner.
Community-styled internet marketing co-ops are one example of a strategy that allows solo home-business entrepreneurs to leverage the combined efforts of a team of like-minded individuals, without the challenges of traditional group structures involving employees, contractors, or formal partners. The community concept leverages cooperative team realtionships to help members achieve their home-based business goals, while each member remains an individual business owner. The community typically uses the contributions of members in their areas of interest or strength to conduct online marketing, sales, new member mentoring, and ongoing support. And the members share the results of the group marketing and development activities to grow their individual businesses.
Another leverage strategy that the home-based business owner can consider is a portfolio approach. Although this requires careful evaluation and planning to be effective, a portfolio of multiple businesses can reduce the risk of having all your eggs in one basket with a single business. And depending on the kind of relationship the owner has with his target market, a well-selected combination of multiple businesses can provide better overall impact with that market, such as leveraging the reputation of one of the portfolio's products or services to increase the acceptance of another.3
