Stay at Home Dads – The Deadly, Invisible Entrepreneurs

A guest post by Dennis Yu     

Two of my friends that are stay at home dads have sold their companies for over $100 million in the last year.  One runs a weight loss community and another runs an advertising company.  This is not an anomaly and we’ll discuss why you’ll see more of this happening in the next few years.  Maybe you won’t be selling your business for that amount, but certainly a nice side income doing something you enjoy isn’t a bad outcome. And no, you don’t have to Send Out Cards, peddle Tupperware, or any of that get rich quick nonsense.  Ok, ready?    

Stay at home dads are in touch with reality: It’s hard to write about baby products if you’re in a corporate high rise, sequestered from the world. Who’s more knowledge about race cars– the guy watching NASCAR on TV or the mechanic working in the pit?  Consider the special expertise you have that regular office workers don’t have.  Turn that into a dad blog, product idea, or consulting service you offer.  But be specific, so you can win in your niche.    

The death of traditional MLM: You see those late night infomercials where a huckster stands in front of luxury cars and houses while telling you “you can get rich too, just like me, without actually trying”?  Those guys are a dying breed.  But, why?  You can now verify who they are on LinkedIn and Facebook– then take their address and phone and zoom in on the satellite image of their house in Google Maps.  You can look behind the curtain to see how popular someone actually is.  People will make decisions based on true reputation– as if your eBay stars and ratings were extended into the real world.  Stay at home dads, not confined to a static office environment, stand to gain the most in the exposure of reputation.    

Big brother is watching you: People are running around tagging you in photos, commenting on your wall, and trying to become the “mayor” at your favorite hangouts.  And in 2011 they won’t be doing it on their desktops, but on their Smartphones.  Nobody spends more time interacting in their communities– the shops of Main Street America — than stay at home parents.   The concept of the “office” is going away because of flexible working arrangements, mobile computing, outsourcing, and the general trend of small, nimble businesses dominating the lumbering giants.  The swarm of bees is stinging the hyena to death — except the stay at home parents get to reuse their stingers.    

Local is the next marketplace: Technology has reduced the barriers to entry such that anyone can buy national TV ads for $200 or put up a retail store for $10 a month.  The Walmarts of the world will still have their place, but the little merchants will have their revenge.  Whatever service or product you provide, you can now market nationwide and locally.  Look at the trend of local farming and keeping commerce within the community.  Stay at home dads, not executives in faraway lands, will lead the charge in their own neighborhoods.    

It’s gone full circle: Bread used to be made by the local baker.  Then it was more efficient to have it baked in large factories to be trucked in.  But now it can be baked in your own home by a $59 bread-making machine.  The same is true with water, vegetables, music, and most other products and services.  Local media is the biggest upcoming shift.  Local citizen-journalists are reporting breaking news from their twitter and blog accounts, while CNN is struggling to fly down a reporter to find out what just happened.  The traditional yellow pages companies are bleeding to death, while local consultants are now handling the marketing in their communities.  Centralized control seems so Soviet-era now, doesn’t it?    

You — the independent business owner: The stay at home dad doesn’t need 10 other people to run the office anymore.  No need for the secretary anymore (you have Gmail), the IT support (you have WordPress), the copyboy (you have a home printer), the bookkeeper (you have QuickBooks), the janitor (you are at home), and all the other support people.  You truly are an army of one, though you can clearly partner up with others, too.    

The only thing stopping you is your subject-matter expertise and your willingness to try.  Don’t sell someone else’s product or their MLM scheme– and don’t work for “the man” in his office unless you want to.  One of the slogans we used to help Quiznos market their franchise program was “Be your own boss.”  However, the reality, for the first couple years as a new franchisee, is that you end up working 80 hours a week for about minimum wage. You have no control over your time and a heck of a bank loan to repay, for the $400k that you have to borrow just to open the store.  Your marketing programs, menu items and suppliers are not under your control either.    

The next 36 months are going to be the rise of the Stay at Home Dad entrepreneur!  What are you going to do about that?