If you wish to be your personal boss, set your personal work hours, and by no means handle a single worker, solopreneurship is the car that may make it easier to obtain that aim.
Whereas it would sound too good to be true, we’ll provide you with a practical overview of what it’s wish to be a solopreneur (trace: it nonetheless requires arduous work) and supply a confirmed step-by-step course of that can assist you turn out to be 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 may observe 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 embody course creators, content material creators, product homeowners, and affiliate entrepreneurs.
Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur vs Freelancer
The primary distinction between a solopreneur and an entrepreneur is that an entrepreneur could have staff working for them, whereas a solopreneur has no staff.
Nonetheless, neither solopreneurs nor entrepreneurs commerce their time for cash.
That is the primary 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.
Because of this, a solopreneur can scale their enterprise infinitely by promoting extra of the product, whereas a freelancer should elevate their hourly fee to scale. So regardless that each are self-employed, the solopreneur can finally create a enterprise that generates passive earnings, whereas a freelancer will all the time should work to generate earnings.
That stated, some solopreneurship enterprise fashions (like content material creators and affiliate web site homeowners) require quite a lot of upfront funding earlier than seeing a greenback. In distinction, freelancers can instantly generate income after touchdown a brand new consumer.
Nonetheless, if you wish to personal a enterprise that may finally make passive earnings with out managing staff, solopreneurship is the important thing to attaining that aim.
Solopreneur Enterprise Concepts
Listed below are a couple of of the preferred solopreneur enterprise fashions you may steal.
Affiliate Advertising and marketing
Beginning an affiliate web site is a wonderful enterprise mannequin in case you’re a digital marketer or net designer.
Basically, you construct an viewers after which promote different manufacturers’ services to your viewers.
When somebody out of your viewers buys that services or products, you obtain a fee.
The fantastic thing about this enterprise mannequin is that you simply by no means should work together with the purchasers. You simply ship results in the enterprise, they usually routinely pay you a fee of all of the gross sales generated out of your viewers.
There are two predominant strategies of affiliate internet 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 accumulate these leads, so you actually should be wonderful at profitably buying leads.
- You construct a web site utilizing website positioning and drive natural site visitors to your associates. Whilst you don’t should pay something to accumulate these leads, the draw back is that it might probably take months to construct an viewers by way of natural website positioning.
Listed below are a couple of examples of affiliate web sites:
Whereas the web sites above are companies with staff, you may run a smaller operation as a solopreneur utilizing the identical enterprise mannequin. Or, you may also 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 instructing a talent you have got after which promote it to individuals who wish to purchase that talent.
Course creation is a wonderful enterprise as a result of it requires little upfront funding, and you’ll promote it infinitely. The difficult facet of this enterprise mannequin is that clients usually solely purchase programs from folks they contemplate specialists.
So in case you don’t have a private model and credibility in that area of interest, promoting your course received’t be simple. For instance, you could must go on podcasts, construct a social media following, and collaborate with different influencers to construct credibility.
The excellent news is that after getting that credibility and an viewers, you may make cash virtually immediately promoting programs.
Listed below are a couple of examples of solopreneur course creators:
Product Proprietor
If you happen to’re a coder or developer, you may construct and promote your personal product. The profit is that after the product is constructed, you usually simply should hold it updated. You may also construct out extra options and cost extra because it improves.
The draw back is that this enterprise mannequin could require substantial upfront funding in case you don’t know how you can code.
Whereas some folks have efficiently employed builders to create merchandise for them, you’ll should know who to rent and always work with that individual to enhance the product.
If you happen to don’t have coding abilities, you’ll doubtless construct a staff or deliver on a co-founder, and it could turn out to be extra of a startup than a solopreneur enterprise mannequin.
Listed below are a couple of examples of multi-million greenback companies created by solopreneur product homeowners:
Ecommerce Proprietor
There are additionally loads of completely different ecommerce solopreneurs that personal way of life companies.
With an ecommerce enterprise, you publish bodily merchandise on a web site, and folks can buy them.
You’ll be able to create, retailer, and ship the merchandise your self, or you may 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 if in case you have 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.
Nonetheless, it may be an awesome way of life enterprise, and loads of teams, like Dropship Way of life, can help you collaborate with different dropshippers.
Right here’s an instance of a solopreneur ecommerce retailer proprietor:
How To Be a Profitable Solopreneur
Changing into a profitable solopreneur is comparatively easy, nevertheless it isn’t essentially simple. The excellent news is that in case you follow the recommendation beneath and put within the work, you’ll finally have a worthwhile enterprise.
Step 1: Select a Area of interest And Construct An Viewers
Selecting a distinct segment is arguably a very powerful facet of the method.
Ideally, the perfect area of interest to pick out is:
- One thing you’re obsessed with
- One thing you have got a novel talent set/experience in
- A market with low issue (there aren’t many creators within the house)
- A market with robust demand and excessive worth (lots of people have this drawback/curiosity and can pay some huge cash to unravel it/study extra)
That can assist you choose the perfect area of interest, contemplate ranking every area of interest on a scale of 1-10. I might 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 proposal.
Most individuals create a proposal (product, course, and many others.) and then attempt to construct an viewers to buy their provide.
Because of this, they usually spend some huge cash on advertising and turn out to be discouraged after solely a handful of individuals buy the provide.
So construct your viewers first after which create a proposal you understand they need.
Now we have a complete information on the subject of constructing an viewers, so I received’t go into an excessive amount of element right here, however contemplate these questions:
- How will I create content material distinctive from what at present exists? Individuals most likely received’t observe you in case you 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 brief reply is to pick out the one you take pleasure in probably the most, as publishing frequency and consistency are probably the most important facets of constructing a model.
- Do you wish to create a private model or an organization model? Private manufacturers are likely to develop sooner, however it can additionally make eradicating your self from the corporate more durable.
When you reply these three questions, create a publishing cadence. Publishing consistency is arguably a very powerful think about constructing an viewers, so set a practical aim you could follow for a number of months.
If you happen to’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 Provide
Now that you’ve got an viewers, it’s time to create a proposal.
First, establish an issue your viewers at present faces to make sure you create a proposal that individuals need.
So survey your viewers and ask them about their challenges and what merchandise/companies they purchase.
Then, determine the way you wish to remedy it. It is likely to be providing a bodily product, a course, a partnership/affiliate deal, or an app/digital product.
Over time, you may have a number of income streams, however for now, begin with only one.
If you happen to’re undecided which income stream to start out with, contemplate 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 enable the enterprise to run with out your help.
How do you do that?
Begin by auditing your time. This train basically has you report what you do each quarter-hour of your day as a way to work out what duties you’re spending time on.
Right here’s a time audit template that you should utilize to audit your day. Then, undergo every job 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 could find his templates within the workbook. Ideally, you wish to take away as many duties as potential that drain your power and duties which are low worth.
As soon as you determine which duties it is advisable offload, ask your self these two questions:
- Is there software program I can buy to automate this course of?
- Can I rent a VA or part-time worker to execute this for me?
For instance, in case you spend 20% of your time managing funds, can you buy a software like QuickBooks to automate the method?
Or, in case you spend 50% of your time answering consumer help questions, rent a VA to do that for you.
The important thing to creating the enterprise scalable is to create SOPs (customary working procedures) for every job. SOPs make it simple to present the duty to any VA, and they’ll persistently obtain the identical end result.
To create an SOP, write down precisely the way you execute the job your self.
For instance, in case you’re outsourcing buyer help, write down the solutions to consumer FAQs, how you can deal with sure conditions, mandatory logins, and another 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 manner, anybody can do the job. So even when one VA quits, you may simply assign the identical job to a different VA with out spending time retraining them.
As soon as your corporation 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 may take pleasure in hanging out on the seashore or use your new free time to take your corporation to the following degree.
As a solopreneur, your aim most likely isn’t to rent full-time staff, however there are two different strategies to scale your corporation’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.
Rising your content material publishing quantity is arguably one of the simplest ways to construct your viewers.
Nonetheless, you don’t essentially must create extra content material to extend publishing quantity.
As a substitute, begin by repurposing your content material.
For instance, in case you’re at present creating video content material, you may repurpose it as a podcast. You may also 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.
You may also repurpose the weblog publish into a number of social media posts.
As you may see, repurposing permits you to scale content material output with out truly creating any new content material.
Nonetheless, optimize each bit of content material for the platform you propose to publish it on. For instance, in case you’re republishing a video to TikTok, remember to add captions, related hashtags, and edit it within the model of TikTok content material.
To automate this course of, you should utilize a software like Repurpose. There are additionally loads of advertising businesses that now provide content material repurposing.
One other strategy to develop your viewers rapidly is to do content material collaborations with different influencers.
For instance, you can do a podcast interview with one other content material creator in your discipline.
Alex Hormozi is a superb 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 staff 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 in case you don’t have time to optimize it, contemplate hiring a VA to do that for you.
It’s additionally price noting that you simply don’t must develop 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 simply’re maximizing your content material output, you may also add different income streams. Your new income stream might be both the identical enterprise mannequin (e.g., in case you’re already promoting a course, you may promote one other course) or a brand new one (e.g., in case you’re promoting a course, you can additionally provide 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 provide.
You may also construct out your provide with upsells. For instance, in case you at present provide a course, you can provide a mastermind as an upsell to go together with the course.
Amy Porterfield has a wonderful instance of this in her course:
Start Your Journey To Solopreneurship Immediately
Most individuals flip to entrepreneurship for monetary freedom, however managing folks is usually tougher than working for folks. On the flip facet, turning into a freelancer could imply you by no means should 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 depart instantly.
So if you wish to run your personal enterprise in your phrases and even simply have a facet hustle that makes some passive earnings, contemplate solopreneurship.
If you wish to join with different solopreneurs beginning their very own companies, contemplate becoming a member of the Copyblogger Academy. It’s a neighborhood of solopreneurs and freelancers creating their very own monetary freedom by constructing profitable companies that may function with no staff of staff.
You additionally get direct entry to me and may attend workshops and Q&As with different creators. You’ll be able to join in the present day to make your new enterprise thought a actuality.
