This is an impromptu monologue from me, Zach Servideo, creator/host of Boston Speaks Up, founder of Value Creation Labs, and managing partner at Unicorn Studios. And here's what I'm riffing about on in this emergency podcast --> “Workplace survival in the 2020s basically means becoming an entrepreneur.” <-- That line has been echoing in my head for years now. Every month, every CoFlo coworking session, every client conversation, it gets louder.
Here's a summary of topics I'm riffing on in this episode:
1. The Portfolio Economy, in Plain English
Economists have a sterile term for what’s happening: the portfolio economy.
I just call it reality.
We are shifting from a world where most people had one job and one employer to a world where people build portfolios of income streams — projects, gigs, advisory roles, side businesses, creative experiments.
If you run the math, independent work has grown at roughly double-digit compound annual rates over the last decade, while traditional W-2 employment has been basically flat by comparison.
We are very quickly heading toward a world where well under half of the workforce is full-time W-2 — and a majority of people have at least one independent income stream.
So if you’re still betting your entire life on one company, one boss, one paycheck…
you’re playing last decade’s game with this decade’s stakes.
2. From “Climb the Ladder” to “Build the Web”
The old script was simple:
Go to school → get a job → climb the ladder at one company.
The new script looks nothing like that.
It’s more like: Build the web.
You start stacking: client projects, short-term contracts, fractional roles, creative experiments, advisory work, side businesses…into a portfolio of income streams that makes you more resilient and more free than any single employer ever could.
This isn’t just a “freelancer thing” anymore. The data shows that a third to nearly half of working adults are already operating this way — whether they use the word “entrepreneur” or not.
3. Where I’m Seeing It Up Close: CoFlo
One place I see this shift most clearly is through CoFlo, the pop-up coworking community we host around New England.
If you’ve never heard me talk about CoFlo before, here’s the quick version:
We host monthly pop-up coworking days — in places like Beverly, Portsmouth, Weymouth.
People roll in with their laptops, their coffee, their chaos.
And something subtle but powerful happens.
Yes, people show up to get work done. But they also show up with ideas.
In one room, you’ll see: remote workers, creatives, founders, people between jobs, people with jobs they clearly don’t want forever.
You can almost watch the old model and the new model collide in real time.
Over time, CoFlo has organically become a kind of low-pressure incubator: a place where people can bring half-baked ideas, get honest feedback, meet collaborators, and feel that little jolt of:
“Oh wait… maybe I actually can build something.”
4. UnicornOS: An Operating System for Humans in This Shift
I’m not saying any of this from an academic distance. I’m in it.
Together with my partners at Unicorn Studios and Value Creation Labs, I’ve been building what we’re calling UnicornOS — an operating system for humans in this new world of work.
CoFlo is one of the ways we’re seeing this in the wild: real humans, real experiments, real proof that people want to build portfolio lives — even if they don’t have the vocabulary for it yet.
5. A Personal Invitation
You can reach me directly at: zach at unicorn dot love
