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Perspective 12
Where is the Solitary Entrepreneur?
You are not alone anymore.
For years, entrepreneurship has been held up as the great pathway to business success. The idea was simple: an individual comes up with a business idea, tests it, risks everything, and if they succeed, they create a profitable business. It was built on individual initiative, personal drive, and commercial ambition. Entrepreneurs were celebrated as risk-takers, innovators and wealth creators.
But that model no longer fits the world we are now entering.
In the Work It Out Way, we are watching the old concept of entrepreneurship quietly give way to something entirely different. It’s something far more collaborative, more joyful, and more meaningful. We are stepping into a world where businesses are not built by individuals sitting alone, learning the latest money-making craze or hoping to find a winning idea. We are now building businesses together. We are collaborating, learning together and have a reason. We are trying to make an impact, address something we care about or support those who need our help.
Traditional entrepreneurship was built around self-interest. It was designed to reward individuals who could spot opportunities and take advantage of them before others did. Even social entrepreneurship, while more focused on solving social problems, still largely operated within the same structure: an individual or small team launches a business to tackle a specific issue and builds a model to sustain it commercially.
But what we are now seeing emerge is something very different. In this new model, we are no longer building businesses on our own. We are inviting others to join us from the very beginning. We are working collaboratively with people who share our mission, who bring their own skills, insights and passions into the work. We are not simply building our own idea for we are co-creating something richer, deeper and far more resilient.
AI plays a remarkable role in enabling this shift. It allows us to harvest collective knowledge, explore directions we may never have considered, and leverage insights far beyond our own expertise. AI doesn’t give us all the answers, but it can help to ask us the right questions. It opens possibilities, presents options, and helps us see patterns that invite deeper collaboration. It doesn’t replace our creativity. It helps to expands it.
In this new model, we no longer carry the full weight of entrepreneurship on our own shoulders. We are not simply gambling on our single idea and hoping it works. Instead, we are surrounding ourselves with others who bring complementary experience, who have walked different paths, and who see things we cannot see. And together, we are building work that serves real needs and creates real value.
This new form of collaborative creation is not driven by the question, “What business can I build to make money?” It begins with a very different question: “How can we make a difference? Who can we help? What impact can we create together?” The business grows from that foundation, and the money follows naturally as the work delivers genuine value.
It is not labour in the old sense. It is not exhausting, lonely work. It is not driven by fear of failure or the pressure to outcompete others. Instead, it is filled with joy, excitement, shared achievement, and collective creativity. The work itself becomes energising, because we are no longer doing it alone. We are building together.
In this model, we are not lonely entrepreneurs. We are builders of contribution. We are creators of meaning. We are partners in service. We are part of living networks that continually grow, adapt and invite others to participate. The work belongs to all of us, because all of us are shaping it as we go.
This is why the Work It Out Way feels so natural. It releases us from the pressure of individual entrepreneurship and opens the door to collective impact. It is not about building businesses to serve ourselves. It is about building work that serves others and allows us to grow together in the process.
We may need a new word entirely to describe this. It is not entrepreneurship as we’ve known it.
It is not social entrepreneurship in the traditional sense. It is about Collaborative Creation, a way of working with each other that quickly generates layers of value. For when we work with other people, it not only shapes what we do together, it changes and expands who we are.
For years, entrepreneurship has been held up as the great pathway to business success. The idea was simple: an individual comes up with a business idea, tests it, risks everything, and if they succeed, they create a profitable business. It was built on individual initiative, personal drive, and commercial ambition. Entrepreneurs were celebrated as risk-takers, innovators and wealth creators.
But that model no longer fits the world we are now entering.
In the Work It Out Way, we are watching the old concept of entrepreneurship quietly give way to something entirely different. It’s something far more collaborative, more joyful, and more meaningful. We are stepping into a world where businesses are not built by individuals sitting alone, learning the latest money-making craze or hoping to find a winning idea. We are now building businesses together. We are collaborating, learning together and have a reason. We are trying to make an impact, address something we care about or support those who need our help.
Traditional entrepreneurship was built around self-interest. It was designed to reward individuals who could spot opportunities and take advantage of them before others did. Even social entrepreneurship, while more focused on solving social problems, still largely operated within the same structure: an individual or small team launches a business to tackle a specific issue and builds a model to sustain it commercially.
But what we are now seeing emerge is something very different. In this new model, we are no longer building businesses on our own. We are inviting others to join us from the very beginning. We are working collaboratively with people who share our mission, who bring their own skills, insights and passions into the work. We are not simply building our own idea for we are co-creating something richer, deeper and far more resilient.
AI plays a remarkable role in enabling this shift. It allows us to harvest collective knowledge, explore directions we may never have considered, and leverage insights far beyond our own expertise. AI doesn’t give us all the answers, but it can help to ask us the right questions. It opens possibilities, presents options, and helps us see patterns that invite deeper collaboration. It doesn’t replace our creativity. It helps to expands it.
In this new model, we no longer carry the full weight of entrepreneurship on our own shoulders. We are not simply gambling on our single idea and hoping it works. Instead, we are surrounding ourselves with others who bring complementary experience, who have walked different paths, and who see things we cannot see. And together, we are building work that serves real needs and creates real value.
This new form of collaborative creation is not driven by the question, “What business can I build to make money?” It begins with a very different question: “How can we make a difference? Who can we help? What impact can we create together?” The business grows from that foundation, and the money follows naturally as the work delivers genuine value.
It is not labour in the old sense. It is not exhausting, lonely work. It is not driven by fear of failure or the pressure to outcompete others. Instead, it is filled with joy, excitement, shared achievement, and collective creativity. The work itself becomes energising, because we are no longer doing it alone. We are building together.
In this model, we are not lonely entrepreneurs. We are builders of contribution. We are creators of meaning. We are partners in service. We are part of living networks that continually grow, adapt and invite others to participate. The work belongs to all of us, because all of us are shaping it as we go.
This is why the Work It Out Way feels so natural. It releases us from the pressure of individual entrepreneurship and opens the door to collective impact. It is not about building businesses to serve ourselves. It is about building work that serves others and allows us to grow together in the process.
We may need a new word entirely to describe this. It is not entrepreneurship as we’ve known it.
It is not social entrepreneurship in the traditional sense. It is about Collaborative Creation, a way of working with each other that quickly generates layers of value. For when we work with other people, it not only shapes what we do together, it changes and expands who we are.
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Copyright © Diversiton 2003-2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Copyright © Diversiton 2003-2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.