What You’ll Learn: Learn exactly what it means to be a solopreneur and how to decide if it’s the right path for. In addition, get business ideas and tips.
A solopreneur is someone who runs their business independently. Common areas of solopreneurship include digital marketing, affiliate marketing, online tutoring, course creation and e-commerce. This lifestyle offers freedom and many benefits. Yet it also requires discipline, networking and self-motivation.
You’re ready to start your own business and you’ve heard of people achieving success as solopreneurs, but maybe you’re not sure exactly what is involved. Some of the most important factors are knowing what a solopreneur is (so you can figure out whether it is the right path for you) and how to succeed as a solopreneur. Let’s begin with the question: What is a solopreneur?
What Is a Solopreneur?
A solopreneur is someone who works alone on their own entrepreneurial venture. Unlike many entrepreneurs, a solopreneur doesn’t have any employees. If you want to be a solopreneur, you have to be ready to take care of all aspects of your business without any help.
Solopreneur vs. Entrepreneur: What’s the Difference?
A solopreneur is a type of entrepreneur, but they work alone. As a solopreneur, there is a limit to how much you can scale your business. You won’t hire anyone or be able to delegate tasks.
While entrepreneurship has always been a well-known way of working, solopreneurship has become more prevalent with the advent of new digital tools. Also, the need for advertising is significantly reduced by social media.
What Aspiring Solopreneurs Should Know
There are significant differences between being a solopreneur and traditional 9-to-5 employment. You should know these before you embark on your new career journey, so that you’re prepared for any challenges that arise.
You Might Feel Isolated
Some new solopreneurs feel lonely because they’re by themselves all day or miss the feeling of being part of a team and having other people to bounce ideas around with. But if you enjoy being by yourself or think you can get used to it, you may find that you can be more productive than you were in a traditional office.
When you’re working by yourself, you don’t have anyone there to give you reminders or keep you on track. That’s why, if you have any weaknesses when it comes to time management or organization, you should take some time now to improve on those and find some new techniques.
There Is Flexibility
Many solopreneurs love the flexibility that comes with this type of career. If you want, you can work in sprints, and you might discover that you’re more productive without having to deal with the endless meetings of many traditional corporate jobs. Your work time can be much more concentrated now. This means that you can fit much more productivity into fewer hours.
In an office environment, you might feel obligated to physically be there for a certain number of hours, even if you don’t have anything to do or already feel mentally burned out for the day. In many cases, this is just a waste of time.
Being able to work out of your home or preferred setting as a solopreneur means that “sprint scheduling” is feasible. Plus, it provides side benefits, such as being able to wear comfy clothes most of the time and eat lunch from your own kitchen.
The flexibility of being a solopreneur makes it an appealing option for many parents of young children and teenagers as well.
You Can Ask for Help
It’s amazing how far you can get by simply asking—asking for the introduction, asking for help, asking for information, asking to meet, asking for the business. As the expression goes, “The worst they can say is no,” and you might be amazed by how often people will say yes. Most people genuinely want to help, especially those who are starting out or starting over.
Quick Tip: Listen to this episode of Unscripted with Amy Somerville. It shares behind-the-scenes lessons of solopreneurship.
You Should Stay Connected
You’ll need to make special efforts to stay current and fresh in your field of expertise and continue your professional development. Find out if there are local events that you can mention, or perhaps you could attend professional conferences. They’ll give you a boost of creative energy and inspiration, as well as technical and specialized learning.
Look for ways to nurture your informal expert network: people you can use as sounding boards, subject matter experts and mentors. This list could include previous bosses and colleagues, friends from college and even family members who are in a similar field.
You should also cultivate your professional network—the collection of all your previous peers, team members and managers.
There Is Stress (But Also Control)
Being a solopreneur can be stressful, so be ready to use stress management techniques like mindfulness to keep yourself in a healthy mental state. But while there is a lot of stress in being a solopreneur, you also get a lot more control than you do as a traditional employee.
There are also advantages of being a solopreneur instead of an entrepreneur employing other people. You don’t have the pressure of being responsible for other people’s livelihoods. However, if you don’t bring in the business, you don’t get paid. That is quite a different feeling from getting a regular paycheck from a corporate employer.
That said, many solopreneurs enjoy the absolute direct link between their efforts and rewards. In many cases, you’ll find that if you’re willing to take on more work, you can make more money. That sense of control can make long or odd hours worth it, because it’s your choice and decision.
Solopreneur Business Ideas to Get Started
There are hundreds of ideas for a solopreneur business, but some of these require high startup costs and other barriers to entry. That’s why we’ve put together this list of practical and accessible solopreneur business ideas.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a popular solopreneur path. You can use and expand on your existing digital marketing skills (including copywriting, content marketing, content strategy and more) to provide consulting and content creation services to clients.
Do you have strong social media skills? You could be a social media marketer. There are plenty of affordable learning options out there that you can use to expand your skill set.
Affiliate Marketing
When it comes to solopreneur ideas, affiliate marketing is another option. If you have a blog, YouTube channel or some other platform and followers, you can sign up for affiliate marketing programs. As an affiliate marketer, you will sell products and services from other businesses through your content. For example, if you sign up as an affiliate for a clothing brand, you may make videos about the clothes.
Online Tutoring
Do you have expertise in a subject that has a customer base for tutoring? Examples could be music, math or a language. ESL tutors are always in high demand online, so if you have any expertise or interest in that, you could set up an ESL tutoring business.
Online Course Creation
If you have valuable knowledge or skills that you think people would pay to learn, you can set up a solopreneur business as an online course creator. There are platforms available that make the process of course creation and administration seamless and easy.
E-Commerce
Being an e-commerce solopreneur means selling products online. You could make your own products, source products from a manufacturer directly and/or try dropshipping. You would work with a dropshipping company that sends out the products that your customers order.
Other potential solopreneur ideas include:
- AI-based businesses
- Finance or accounting
- Coaching, consulting or other professional services
- Virtual assisting or other personal services
- Home or yard services
- Marketing or advertising
- Social media management
- Photography, graphic design or other creative services
- Many others
Is Solopreneurship Right for You?
Now you know what it means to be a solopreneur, and how solopreneurship differs from entrepreneurship. We also outlined what you should know about being a solopreneur, so you’re ready for some of the challenges of this exciting career path.
There are plenty of pros and cons to consider, but if you decide it’s right for you, SUCCESS has many more resources to help you on your journey. Join SUCCESS Labs to connect with others and get insight toward meeting your goals. Sign up for SUCCESS+ to get access to transformative articles, books, downloadables and more. Or, get started with our helpful e-books like Rock Remote Work and Set and Achieve Goals.
Photo by Srdjan Randjelovic/Shutterstock
