For a company to reach its full potential, three primary roles must be filled. 

Most companies have one of them covered. Good companies have two of them covered. Great companies have people in each of the three roles.

They are the Innovator, the Strategist and the Operator.

Innovators create opportunities, strategists optimize opportunities and operators execute on opportunities.

Innovator 

Curiosity, discovery & risk-taking. They find the opportunity that others have overlooked. Their curiosity & confidence in uncertainty help them find something new & push through.

Strategist

Big picture thinker, analytical & a good decision maker. They’re focused on optimizing the potential of each opportunity & product as well as the overall potential of the business. 

Operator

Practical, hands-on and focused on creating results. They create structure, systems and processes to ensure the company runs smoothly and can scale.

When starting as a solopreneur you have to spend time playing a part in each of these roles. You can’t get a business off the ground unless you do some aspect of each throughout the work week.

As the company grows you can add team members to take on these roles. The reality is that most small business owners need to be proficient in each of these roles to get their company to a place where they can begin to hire people to take over the roles from them.

A good place to start is to create a job description for each of the roles. In the sage wisdom of G.I. Joe - knowing is half the battle.

With a job description for each role, solopreneurs and small business owners can be more effective when switching contexts between the roles in the workweek. As they become more effective and grow revenue the right people can be hired to manage each of the roles.

These roles scale up as companies grow and single positions turn into teams which turn into business units. Pick any successful company and you’ll find these three categories working together to drive the company.