My dad was working as a consultant (environmental consultant, basically handling the creation of reports needed for a company's legal compliance with emissions

My dad was working as a consultant (environmental consultant, basically handling the creation of reports needed for a company's legal compliance with emissions standards, etc.) for an industrial trade org. They had a rule not to compete with member companies, so when a consultancy joined the org, they shut down his division, even though the new member only offered services that were tangentially related. He ended up working for himself (one man shop) for the last 13 years of his career before retiring, doing exactly the same thing he'd always done. He's not a sales person by any means, and striking out on his own definitely seemed outside his comfort zone at first. But he was able to base his business on the relationships with customers that he'd already established, and since he's got such a specialized skill set and works so diligently, his customers kept coming back and recommended him to others. So I just wanted to give an example that this sort of thing is possible (assuming there's no non-compete clause to undermine the whole thing - in my dad's case he did it with the blessing of his former employer - sometimes they'd even send him leads when they had to turn away a customer)