Hello and welcome to the first day of Michael Lehman's Independent Innovation blog and podcast.



In the 1970's Richard Nelson Bolles wrote an enormously popular career advice book entitled "What Color is Your Parachute?" 



In the 21st century, I think the new question is "What Color are Your Bits?".  You can now start a one or two person company without all the infrastructure of the modern corporation because four things have changed since then:

o   Intellectual property can now be digitized and packaged for individual download/sale.

o   The market available on the Internet is a billion people – and growing.

o   Low cost hosting for websites and downloads cut the cost of production to effectively zero.

o   Customers are comfortable using services like PayPal and iTunes to pay for the bits they want, when they want them.



Given this fundamental changes and the opportunities they present, more and more people are opting-out of the hierarchal corporate structure to start their own ventures selling everything from needlepoint patterns to electronic books to music and, of course, software.



Many of these new companies also are driven by the desire on the part of the founders to create a company which is in concert with a live-anywhere, sustainable lifestyle.  This new breed of entrepreneur is the "Independent Innovator". 



In the world of venture capital funded startups "growth", quarter over quarter, is an obsession.  Chasing that growth can be both a recipe for burn-out and failure.  Many Independent Innovators want to call their own shots and build a business that achieves success as they define it; success that allows them to make smart decisions for themselves and their families.



On this blog and podcast I plan to explore this exciting new world by highlighting successful Independent Innovators, interviewing companies and consultants who are helping Independent Innovators to take advantage of the wave of opportunity and regularly talk about the nuts-and-bolts of how to do this yourself.



One final note, this blog is a conversation so please leave comments or email me via the link at the top of the page and let me know your opinions, recommendations and most importantly your own stories of Independent Innovation.