If you wish to be your individual boss, set your individual work hours, and by no means handle a single worker, solopreneurship is the automobile that may show you how to obtain that aim.
Whereas it’d sound too good to be true, we’ll offer you a practical overview of what it’s wish to be a solopreneur (trace: it nonetheless requires onerous work) and supply a confirmed step-by-step course of that can assist you change into a profitable solopreneur.
We’ll additionally break down the important thing variations between a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, and a freelancer, and supply a listing of profitable solopreneurs you possibly can comply with for inspiration.
What’s a Solopreneur?
A solopreneur is a enterprise proprietor that doesn’t commerce their time for cash and has zero staff.
Some frequent examples of solopreneurs embrace course creators, content material creators, product house owners, and affiliate entrepreneurs.
Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur vs Freelancer
The principle distinction between a solopreneur and an entrepreneur is that an entrepreneur could have staff working for them, whereas a solopreneur has no staff.
Nevertheless, neither solopreneurs nor entrepreneurs commerce their time for cash.
That is the principle distinction between a solopreneur and a freelancer.
Whereas each solopreneurs and freelancers function with zero staff, a freelancer trades their time for cash, whereas a solopreneur can promote a deliverable (course, advertisements, product, and many others.) that’s not tied to their time.
Consequently, a solopreneur can scale their enterprise infinitely by promoting extra of the product, whereas a freelancer should increase their hourly charge to scale. So regardless that each are self-employed, the solopreneur can ultimately create a enterprise that generates passive earnings, whereas a freelancer will all the time need to work to generate earnings.
That mentioned, some solopreneurship enterprise fashions (like content material creators and affiliate web site house owners) require a number of upfront funding earlier than seeing a greenback. In distinction, freelancers can instantly become profitable after touchdown a brand new shopper.
Nonetheless, if you wish to personal a enterprise that may ultimately make passive earnings with out managing staff, solopreneurship is the important thing to attaining that aim.
Solopreneur Enterprise Concepts
Listed below are just a few of the most well-liked solopreneur enterprise fashions you possibly can steal.
Affiliate Advertising
Beginning an affiliate web site is a superb enterprise mannequin for those who’re a digital marketer or internet designer.
Primarily, you construct an viewers after which promote different manufacturers’ services and products to your viewers.
When somebody out of your viewers buys that services or products, you obtain a fee.
The great thing about this enterprise mannequin is that you just by no means need to work together with the shoppers. You simply ship results in the enterprise, they usually robotically pay you a fee of all of the gross sales generated out of your viewers.
There are two principal strategies of internet online affiliate marketing:
- You run advertisements to a touchdown web page after which ship these results in your associates. The draw back is that it’s a must to spend your cash to amass these leads, so you actually need to be wonderful at profitably buying leads.
- You construct an internet site utilizing search engine optimisation and drive natural visitors to your associates. Whilst you don’t need to pay something to amass these leads, the draw back is that it might probably take months to construct an viewers by way of natural search engine optimisation.
Listed below are just a few examples of affiliate web sites:
Whereas the web sites above are companies with staff, you possibly can run a smaller operation as a solopreneur utilizing the identical enterprise mannequin. Or, you can even select to scale the web site right into a extra established enterprise with full-time staff.
Course Creator
The course creator enterprise mannequin is fairly easy – you report some movies educating a talent you could have after which promote it to individuals who wish to purchase that talent.
Course creation is a superb enterprise as a result of it requires little upfront funding, and you may promote it infinitely. The tough facet of this enterprise mannequin is that clients sometimes solely purchase programs from individuals they think about consultants.
So for those who don’t have a private model and credibility in that area of interest, promoting your course gained’t be simple. For instance, it’s possible you’ll must go on podcasts, construct a social media following, and collaborate with different influencers to construct credibility.
The excellent news is that after you have that credibility and an viewers, you may make cash nearly immediately promoting programs.
Listed below are just a few examples of solopreneur course creators:
Product Proprietor
In case you’re a coder or developer, you possibly can construct and promote your individual product. The profit is that after the product is constructed, you sometimes simply need to preserve it updated. It’s also possible to construct out extra options and cost extra because it improves.
The draw back is that this enterprise mannequin could require substantial upfront funding for those who don’t know the right way to code.
Whereas some individuals have efficiently employed builders to create merchandise for them, you’ll need to know who to rent and always work with that individual to enhance the product.
In case you don’t have coding abilities, you’ll probably construct a group or deliver on a co-founder, and it might change into extra of a startup than a solopreneur enterprise mannequin.
Listed below are just a few examples of multi-million greenback companies created by solopreneur product house owners:
Ecommerce Proprietor
There are additionally loads of completely different ecommerce solopreneurs that personal life-style companies.
With an ecommerce enterprise, you publish bodily merchandise on an internet site, and other people should buy them.
You possibly can create, retailer, and ship the merchandise your self, or you possibly can undertake a dropshipping mannequin the place you’re employed with a producer who creates, ships, and shops the product for you. Then, you simply submit your product orders to the producer as they arrive in.
Whereas the dropshipping mannequin is superb when you’ve got a bit of money to fabricate a bodily product, you even have much less management over the product high quality and the delivery course of typically.
Nevertheless, it may be an awesome life-style enterprise, and loads of teams, like Dropship Life-style, assist you to collaborate with different dropshippers.
Right here’s an instance of a solopreneur ecommerce retailer proprietor:
How To Be a Profitable Solopreneur
Turning into a profitable solopreneur is comparatively simple, however it isn’t essentially simple. The excellent news is that for those who persist with the recommendation under and put within the work, you’ll ultimately have a worthwhile enterprise.
Step 1: Select a Area of interest And Construct An Viewers
Selecting a distinct segment is arguably an important facet of the method.
Ideally, the very best area of interest to pick out is:
- One thing you’re captivated with
- One thing you could have a novel talent set/experience in
- A market with low issue (there aren’t many creators within the area)
- A market with robust demand and excessive worth (lots of people have this drawback/curiosity and pays some huge cash to unravel it/study extra)
That can assist you choose the very best area of interest, think about score every area of interest on a scale of 1-10. I’d additionally weight area of interest issue and distinctive benefit extra closely than any of the opposite classes:
As soon as you choose a distinct segment, I like to recommend constructing an viewers earlier than creating a suggestion.
Most individuals create a suggestion (product, course, and many others.) and then attempt to construct an viewers to buy their supply.
Consequently, they sometimes spend some huge cash on advertising and change into discouraged after solely a handful of individuals buy the supply.
So construct your viewers first after which create a suggestion you realize they need.
We’ve a complete information on the subject of constructing an viewers, so I gained’t go into an excessive amount of element right here, however think about these questions:
- How will I create content material distinctive from what at present exists? Folks most likely gained’t comply with you for those who don’t have a novel angle or worth so as to add.
- Which medium (video, textual content, audio, and many others.) ought to I choose? The quick reply is to pick out the one you take pleasure in essentially the most, as publishing frequency and consistency are essentially the most important facets of constructing a model.
- Do you wish to create a private model or an organization model? Private manufacturers are inclined to develop quicker, however it should additionally make eradicating your self from the corporate tougher.
When you reply these three questions, create a publishing cadence. Publishing consistency is arguably an important think about constructing an viewers, so set a practical aim that you could persist with for a number of months.
In case you’re in search of audience-building inspiration, I like to recommend analyzing solopreneurs like Justin Welsh or Brett from Design Pleasure, as they’ve each constructed extremely profitable audiences that gasoline their companies.
Step 2: Create an Supply
Now that you’ve got an viewers, it’s time to create a suggestion.
First, establish an issue your viewers at present faces to make sure you create a suggestion that individuals need.
So survey your viewers and ask them about their challenges and what merchandise/providers they purchase.
Then, determine the way you wish to resolve it. It could be providing a bodily product, a course, a partnership/affiliate deal, or an app/digital product.
Over time, you possibly can have a number of income streams, however for now, begin with only one.
In case you’re unsure which income stream to begin with, think about the next chart:
Step 3: Create SOPs And Leverage Automation
Many individuals get into solopreneurship with the dream of attaining passive earnings, however many solopreneurs discover themselves working extra hours than once they labored full-time.
The important thing to eradicating your self from the enterprise is to create techniques and processes that permit the enterprise to run with out your help.
How do you do that?
Begin by auditing your time. This train primarily has you report what you do each quarter-hour of your day so to determine what duties you’re spending time on.
Right here’s a time audit template that you should use to audit your day. Then, undergo every process and mark each the worth of the duty and whether or not it gave you power or took power away from you.
It is a idea that Dan Martell makes use of, and you’ll find his templates within the workbook. Ideally, you wish to take away as many duties as attainable that drain your power and duties which might be low worth.
As soon as you determine which duties it’s good to offload, ask your self these two questions:
- Is there software program I should buy to automate this course of?
- Can I rent a VA or part-time worker to execute this for me?
For instance, for those who spend 20% of your time managing funds, can you buy a software like QuickBooks to automate the method?
Or, for those who spend 50% of your time answering shopper assist questions, rent a VA to do that for you.
The important thing to creating the enterprise scalable is to create SOPs (commonplace working procedures) for every process. SOPs make it simple to offer the duty to any VA, and they’ll constantly obtain the identical end result.
To create an SOP, write down precisely the way you execute the job your self.
For instance, for those who’re outsourcing buyer assist, write down the solutions to shopper FAQs, the right way to deal with sure conditions, essential logins, and some other info required to do the job.
Then, if the VA asks you any follow-up questions, inform them to jot down the questions and your solutions within the SOP doc.
Need assistance? Right here’s a template in order for you steerage creating your first SOPs.
This fashion, anybody can do the job. So even when one VA quits, you possibly can simply assign the identical process to a different VA with out spending time retraining them.
As soon as your online business runs on autopilot, you’ll lastly have passive earnings.
Step 4: Scale Your Enterprise
Now that your time is free, because of your new passive earnings, you possibly can take pleasure in hanging out on the seashore or use your new free time to take your online business to the subsequent stage.
As a solopreneur, your aim most likely isn’t to rent full-time staff, however there are two different strategies to scale your online business’s profitability:
- Construct an even bigger viewers
- Add extra income streams
I like to recommend beginning by rising your viewers as a result of doing so will make any income stream you add extra worthwhile.
Growing your content material publishing quantity is arguably one of the simplest ways to construct your viewers.
Nevertheless, you don’t essentially must create extra content material to extend publishing quantity.
As a substitute, begin by repurposing your content material.
For instance, for those who’re at present creating video content material, you possibly can repurpose it as a podcast. It’s also possible to obtain the script from the video, put it into an AI writing software like Jasper and even ChatGPT, after which have the AI software create a weblog publish.
It’s also possible to repurpose the weblog publish into a number of social media posts.
As you possibly can see, repurposing lets you scale content material output with out truly creating any new content material.
Nevertheless, optimize each bit of content material for the platform you intend to publish it on. For instance, for those who’re republishing a video to TikTok, make sure to add captions, related hashtags, and edit it within the type of TikTok content material.
To automate this course of, you should use a software like Repurpose. There are additionally loads of advertising companies that now supply content material repurposing.
One other technique to develop your viewers shortly is to do content material collaborations with different influencers.
For instance, you may do a podcast interview with one other content material creator in your area.
Alex Hormozi is a good instance of a content material creator who has mastered the method of collaborating with different influencers and repurposing the content material on a number of platforms.
For instance, after showing on one other influencer’s podcast, his group republished the content material to his podcast, TikTok, LinkedIn, and a number of other different platforms.
You’ll additionally discover that the content material is all the time optimized for the precise platform. So even for those who don’t have time to optimize it, think about hiring a VA to do that for you.
It’s additionally price noting that you just don’t must broaden your content material technique to all main platforms. Begin by including only one platform to your publishing schedule after which add one other. Every platform attracts a novel viewers, so that you may need to regulate your content material barely as you study extra in regards to the nuance of your viewers on every platform.
Now that you just’re maximizing your content material output, you can even add different income streams. Your new income stream may be both the identical enterprise mannequin (e.g., for those who’re already promoting a course, you possibly can promote one other course) or a brand new one (e.g., for those who’re promoting a course, you may additionally supply a bodily product).
Once more, begin by including only one new income stream at a time and use the very same course of you utilized in step two to create your first supply.
It’s also possible to construct out your supply with upsells. For instance, for those who at present supply a course, you may supply a mastermind as an upsell to associate with the course.
Amy Porterfield has a superb instance of this in her course:
Start Your Journey To Solopreneurship At the moment
Most individuals flip to entrepreneurship for monetary freedom, however managing individuals is usually more difficult than working for individuals. On the flip facet, changing into a freelancer could imply you by no means need to handle a single individual, however you may additionally really feel that a number of bosses handle you.
Freelancers even have extra monetary threat as shoppers can go away immediately.
So if you wish to run your individual enterprise in your phrases and even simply have a facet hustle that makes some passive earnings, think about solopreneurship.
If you wish to join with different solopreneurs beginning their very own companies, think about becoming a member of the Copyblogger Academy. It’s a group of solopreneurs and freelancers creating their very own monetary freedom by constructing profitable companies that may function with out a group of staff.
You additionally get direct entry to me and may attend workshops and Q&As with different creators. You possibly can join right now to make your new enterprise concept a actuality.
