Where do I start my solopreneur journey? Part 1   

The days of going to school, getting good grades, and landing a corporate job for job security and financial stability are long gone. People want out of the corporate rat race—a trend intensified by the global pandemic. Building their businesses around their passions, people have started to work flexibly and autonomously. Approximately 51 million U.S. citizens now work independently—up 34% from 2020, according to MBO Partner’s 2021 report.

An increasing number of millennials and Gen Z, which comprise about two-thirds of the U.S. workforce, are willing to take risks and be innovative, leading to a dramatic increase in solopreneurs. A significant contributing reason for this rise is that people re-evaluate their relationships with their jobs and personal lives. Shorter commutes, being in charge of one's job and time, earning a fair salary, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are some of the criteria these two generations want to meet.

But let's clarify a few things before you start your path to solopreneurship. What matters most to you as a solopreneur? You have passion, perseverance, and resilience in meeting long-term business goals more than simply relishing the freedom and flexibility of working alone. If you want to be a solopreneur, you first must decide what you're good at; it should be something that you love enough to make it your job.

In this article, we’ll go over the aspects that a solopreneur should think about before starting down that path.

Chart your course  

Congratulations on deciding to live your life as a solopreneur. It takes a substantial amount of courage to step out of your comfort zone and pursue your passion.

The first thing you’ll need to do is create a business strategy. This will include finding your niche, identifying your target market, setting goals, creating your vision and mission statements, and writing a business model and financial plan. You'll create personal branding and, hopefully, choose at least one mentor.

We can discuss each of these components in detail as we help you devise a strategy to make your dreams a reality. But before all of that, you’ll need to decide whether you want to be an entrepreneur or a solopreneur. They might sound similar, but there are key differences in daily tasks, the mission and vision, and attitude.

A solopreneur will have a singular focus on their service offering, developing their talents in a specific domain or niche. They might collaborate, if needed, with freelancers and other solopreneurs to deliver their services rather than hiring their own staff.

Being an entrepreneur, on the other hand, is to act more broadly. Thinking globally, they’ll diversify their service offerings, spend more time and money on marketing and promotion, recruit specialists, and eventually establish an empire.

Whether you want to be a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you’ll need to have a realistic business plan in place and be able to identify the steps you need to take to meet your goals.

Consider taking a road trip as a metaphor for strategic planning. When organizing the trip, you’ll have to consider questions such as where you want to go, what the intention of the trip is, how you’re traveling, and who, if anyone, should join you. The plan will also include a budget, travel schedule, hotel reservations, and a contingency plan for unforeseen situations.

In your solopreneurship journey, your business plan is your roadmap and your goals are your destination. Your business plan keeps you on track for growth and helps you find your way when you’re lost. This journey is about learning, acting, unlearning, and relearning. Let’s get started.  

Know thyself   

You’ve gained skills during your years of attending school or working in the corporate environment. So, your initial step is to review those skills and list which ones might be potential business opportunities.

Make a list of all the interpersonal and career-related talents you believe you thrive in. Collect all of the ideas that you’re passionate about and have been previously successful with. Be as thorough as possible when you create this list because this initial stage can make or break your new business's journey. Seek professional feedback with people you trust to confirm if your list of business ideas matches your skill set.

Making this list is a critically important step because it allows you to assess your own strengths and weaknesses, so don’t skip over it. Even if you discover that you lack some of the more specialized skills that you’ll need to start your business, don't panic. Becoming a solopreneur doesn’t mean that you’ll have to do everything on your own all the time. You’ll still need to collaborate with other people from time to time, especially in the beginning.

When you’re done listing the skills you can offer as services, the next step is to determine whether you can deliver these offerings on your own or as part of a team. With the help of planning tools, you can organize yourself, categorize your activities, and create a plan that will help you manage your new business more efficiently.

Carve out a niche   

You’ve made your list, and you’re ready for the next step—determining if there’s a market that fits your interests and capabilities.

To do this, research the issues that your target market is experiencing. All businesses and companies operating today share one main thing in common: They’re in business to fill a need, resolve an issue, correct a problem, or enrich the current system. You must know the particulars of your chosen industry and search for opportunities to contribute.

Try walking a mile in your customers' shoes, as the saying goes. Research what your potential customers are worried about, talking about, and looking up online so you can decide how you can help them using your skill sets. You can gather this information using a variety of methods, including surveys, online forums, and interviews. You may find hundreds of ideas, but only choose the ones that will grow your business.

Should you experience a lack of ideas, an easy way to come up with one is to solve a problem that you’ve personally come across. Think about Netflix, a company that began as a way to solve the problem of paying exorbitant fees for returning a DVD late. Finding market gaps is a great way to generate ideas for new businesses. You’ll not only carve out a niche for yourself, you’ll create a unique identity and keep out any potential rivals.

Underpromise and over-deliver   

Now it’s time to develop a semi-fictional avatar of your ideal client or customer. Visualize who will seek your services. If you’ve decided that you can serve a variety of markets, create identities for each one. To do this, you must be able to identify customer traits, such as demographics, psychographics, web usage trends, and behavioral data, for each market segment you’re targeting.

This identification process will help you craft a more compelling story about your offerings to draw interest, elicit strong feelings, and foster connections. Once these personas are developed, you can package your services and use tailored marketing messages for better reach. You can also use your buyer's template to standardize your brand, maintain consistency across projects, and save time.

Consider a real estate salesperson who is developing a customer’s buyer profile. There are many kinds of people who purchase real estate, including homebuyers, landlords, commercial investors, lease-to-buy investors, house flippers, and more. The agent must fully understand each type of buyer's motivations for purchasing a property.

For the sake of this exercise, we’ll focus only on homebuyers.

This group, arguably the largest segment of customers an agent will deal with, selects a property based on their own personal needs. Many of these buyers will be middle-class families looking for a cozy, yet spacious, home with at least two bedrooms and bathrooms plus additional spaces to accommodate a growing family and entertain guests.

These customers want lots of space for gardening and for their children to play. They want their agent to show them new homes with a close-to-completion date or older homes that have been extensively remodeled and are close to the supermarket, schools, hospitals, and public transportation. The agent must be aware of their customers’ most important goals to be able to offer the best solutions and complete legal agreements swiftly.

Likewise, no matter what business niche you choose, you should make sure you’re always in the right place at the right time by being aware of your target customer's preferences and purchasing habits. The early prospects who become your clients eventually will serve as your company's brand ambassadors because they’ll recommend your business to their family and friends.

What's next?   

So you've determined your niche and target market, as well as created a profile of your ideal client. Now, what are the other aspects of your solopreneurship journey that you must consider? You'll get to know everything in the second part of this blog series.