Case Study: Dominic

In my whole philosophy of getting independent from the corporate world, I think that Dominic is someone that stands out.

Dominic works in my enterprise.  He works in the telecoms department.  He is the sole specialist of some switches lists of translations for calls to get through... or something like that.  I won't get into any details here but understand that he is a guru in his field of expertise that is in high demand in any large company.

So right there Dominic has been able to ensure his employability to the company.  He has the knowledge that no other has in the company.  So he is indispensable in his department.  He is not un-expendable.  Working for corporation we learn to know that no one is.  But at least he knows that if the company wants to get rid of him, it will have to train someone else for a few weeks before he barely get to speed (not even get to Dominic's level).

This brings a second advantage.  Since no one else can do Dominic's work and that his work is in high demand in the industry, Dominic has an edge in his wage negotiation.

But Dominic was not happy with only that.

In his spare time he decided to start a home business.  He decided to rent portable hot tubs for people who wants to throw parties in their backyard.  He was not able to start that over night.  In the beginning he had a hard time.  He had to deal with the providers, get a place to store the tubs.  At one point in peak periods, he had to hire an employee.  He learned the hard way: his costs went sky rocketing.  So he managed to downsize and finds ways to cut cost, fine tune his processes and do some of the work himself.

It took him two years of trials and errors to get to the current business model he is at now.  And his business is so fine tuned that he can devote to it only a few hours a week and rake in the money.

He told me that at this rate, if revenues continue to grow, he will repay his house loan in about four years!  Not bad at all.

So if I summarize, Dominic has been able in two years to:

1. Become a valuable asset for the company so he is hard to fire
2. Has developed and launched a business that generates a revenue (that he don't need since he has a job)
3. The over and above revenue generated by his business is used to repay his house loan (which means by having no debt he will be even less vulnerable to the corporate world)

Dominic is an example to follow on the road of total freedom.