HubSpot Solopreneur Ebook

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 29

Scaling Your

Solopreneur
Business
Plus, a business growth checklist
for your small but mighty biz.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 1


INTRODUCTION

What does it take to be a successful solopreneur?


A solopreneur is the only employee in a single-person entity.

That’s a tidy definition for a multifaceted role that’s filled with

1 in 10
responsibilities, requires a range of skills, and demands a strong work
ethic and an even stronger belief in yourself.

The solopreneur journey will show you strengths you never knew you Solopreneurs in the U.S.
earn over $1M.
had, and expose your weak points through challenge after challenge.
But, somehow, you will persevere as you never have before — U.S. Census Bureau

because you’re finally running your own ship.

Entrepreneurs do extraordinary things to bring a product to market.


And solopreneurs have to dig extra deep to connect with their ambition,
hold onto their confidence, and maintain momentum while building a
business as a core team of one.

Solopreneurs show up every day as every role in the businessthe head


of marketing, sales, and accounting. Some days, you’re also the creative
director, customer service rep, digital marketer, and graphic designer.
The things you’re great at become a chore on your to-do list, and your
creativity can get zapped by toiling away at administrative tasks.

As a solopreneur, you get to set your own hours and workflow. You will
build confidence in your knowledge and develop a resilient mindset.
You get to celebrate your wins, learn from your losses, and find new
people and communities. And most solopreneurs learn to run a
business by doing it. And they’re doing something right.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 2


Solopreneurship is a journey of constant learning:
The skills that help you develop a winning idea and build a business
plan won’t be the same as the skills you’ll need to actually run a
business. You’ll need to figure out how to set up business operations,
use accounting software, master your CRM as you grow, and get very
familiar with everything from CAC to ROI.

HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah describes successful business


operators as people who are:

Humble

Open to learning

Obsessed with their customers, not the competition

Focused on activities that move the company forward

All four of these traits make for a great start to a business —


and can make for a great leader of a team down the line.

The life of a solopreneur can be challenging — the schedule is erratic,


and the to-do list is never done — but it’s incredibly rewarding, too. In this
guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about running and scaling
a business on your own. Grab the growth checklist and use this guide to
set goals and get your business momentum going, we’re here to help!

SUSIE IPPOLITO
Brand Content Strategist,
Trends Writer, and Entrepreneur

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 3


Table of Contents

01 Introduction

02 Getting Into the Solopreneur Mindset

03 Building Partnerships + Processes

04 The Most Important Solopreneur Skills

05 Finances for Solopreneurs

06 Marketing for Solopreneurs

07 Solopreneur Business Growth Checklist + Examples

08 Final Thoughts + Key Takeaways for Solopreneurs

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 4


Stay in the Loop with the Hustle —
a Daily Business + Tech Newsletter
Join 2.5M+ professionals who get their business news from
The Hustle — a five minute newsletter with a personality (we promise).
We dig up the most interesting business stories and happenings in the tech world
and deliver them to you daily, along with some hot takes from our team.

Subscribe

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 5


SECTION 1

Getting Into the Solopreneur Mindset


To be a Successful Solopreneur, Your Mindset Matters

When you’re putting your heart, soul, and savings into The first few years in business will place you in uncomfortable
your business, it’s important to maintain a growth situations that bring out your insecurities and fears — but
mindset. It’s easy to see a failure as a loss, but successful cultivating a positive mindset enables you to push through
solopreneurs see failures as opportunities for learning. as you build your confidence.
And though it’s important to celebrate every win,
You will start some days feeling unstoppable, and end those
solopreneurs know that each win is a stepping stone.
days wondering why you’re doing this at all. Along the way, you
might feel lonely, alienated, and like nobody understands why this

Over 50%
matters so much.

of solopreneurs fund their


businesses with their own savings. Keep going. To get through the tough times,
learn how to shift from stress to solutions.
The Business of Creators Report, 2022

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 6


Common Solopreneur Stressors How to Shift from Stressed Solution

Lack of community Find communities that align with your goals and values and actively
participate in them. Attend events and webinars, and join educational
cohorts to grow your skills.

Being accountable Get an accountability buddy or join virtual coworking sessions. Share your goals
only to yourself with a trusted friend and ask them to hold you accountable. Get a mentor or a
coach to help you choose the right goals and create a plan to achieve them.

Staying motivated End each day on a high note with an “I did” list, and be proud of the tasks you
tackled. And celebrate every tough task you accomplish.

Not sure where to start? Here are 70 solopreneur business ideas.

Identifying The line between wants and needs is often blurred for solopreneurs. Make
wants vs. needs strategic choices about the things your business buys and make sure all expenses
contribute to potential revenue, including the expense of your time. If a want is
going to take away from the bottom line without adding to it, you don’t need it.

Developing the While it’s possible a solopreneur is good at one or two of these major tasks,
business, the brand, it’s unlikely they are good at all three. Network with people who have the skills
and the product you lack and be humble enough to ask for help.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 7


To Stay Resilient in Business, Build up Healthy Habits
Solopreneurs cannot underestimate the Here are a few ways to prevent burnout before it happens.
importance of self care while building a business.
The hours can be long and arduous, and the work Embrace Movement and Physical Fitness
1
can take a toll on your body and mind. Physical fitness is different for everyone, but moving your
body regularly, in whatever way you enjoy, can help build
Burnout is Real
confidence in what you can accomplish. The endorphins can
Job-related burnout is defined by cynicism, help you reduce stress and withstand long hours. Trying out
ineffectiveness, and exhaustion, and many a new fitness challenge can also help you practice embracing
entrepreneurs and small business owners new things that feel uncomfortable, which is an essential skill
experience burnout. for solopreneurs.

In The Hustle’s survey of 300+ entrepreneurs, Prioritize Your Mental Health


63% shared they’ve dealt with burnout, or are 2
currently dealing with it. Financial concerns (22%), Mental health is an important consideration for any business
work-life balance (15%), and day-to-day stress (15%) owner — life can be hard, and some phases of life are harder
all contribute to burnout, but it’s preventable. to deal with than others. And since starting a business can be
exceedingly stressful, and having a therapist or counselor that
you like can help.

63%
of entrepreneurs have experienced burnout,
or are currently experiencing burnout symptoms.

The Hustle Research, 2022

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 8


Look Back on Past Accomplishments Maintain Work-Life Balance
3 4
During Challenging Times
Take regular breaks, stop work at a reasonable time, make
On hard days, stop yourself from spiraling by time for family and friends, and get outside during the day.
looking into your professional past in a positive And because you make your own schedule, work-life balance
light. Susie Ippolito teaches solopreneurs to can even mean a nap at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday.
look back at their work history through a critical
Prioritize Self Care
lens. To start, think through these questions 5
— In your professional journey, what have you Solopreneurship is hard, so it’s important to be kind and
learned? What have you overcome? gracious with yourself. Take care of yourself, whatever that
Walk through your professional looks like: some solopreneurs feel best working in cozy
journey and reflect. clothes, while others harness the real science behind the
power of dopamine dressing. If you work from home, do
STEP 1 what feels best in terms of caring for yourself — it impacts
Write down every job you’ve ever had your energy and outlook.
STEP 2
Find Your Business Community
Write down everything you learned and every 6
skill you gained from each job Community is a solopreneur non-negotiable. Recent
Trends research even found that some psychologists believe
STEP 3 that “social fitness” or “the ability to engage in productive
Write down all of your perceived failures, relationships and positively interact with networks” is the
then make connections to how they provided biggest predictor of a happy life.
opportunities for growth
Find a local business organization, attend meetups, go to
STEP 4 networking events, keep your friends and family in the loop
Take the time to appreciate everything you — and if you want to do some online connecting, try our
have accomplished and learned webinars or cohort learning opportunities like those offered
by Trends.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 9


SECTION 2

Building Partnerships + Processes


When HubSpot surveyed solopreneurs, only 15% of respondents were
earning enough to support multiple people like subcontractors or virtual
assistants (VAs). But more than half wanted to grow their business to
support a small or larger team.

Over 50%
of solopreneurs want to grow
their business to support a team.
The Business of Creators Report, 2022

Solopreneurs may initially take on most of the


responsibilities of running a business — but that doesn’t
mean you should go it completely alone.

A few key partners and a focus on the right things will set
you up for success and support you on your journey.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 10


Important Partners for Solopreneurs
Business Attorney Mentor
A business attorney isn’t just for A mentor doesn’t need to be a
setting up your corporation or LLC. formal relationship or one that you
A great attorney helps you make pay for. They should be someone
decisions all throughout your who is ahead of you in business and
journey. They can become a trusted has overcome the struggles you will
ally as you grow, providing valuable, face as a solopreneur. Tap into your
experienced counsel when you have network and ask around to find one
to make tough decisions with experience in your field.

Accountant Hole-Pokers
Your accountant will keep you on Trusted hole-pokers are an often
track with your filings and payments, overlooked key partner. These
but tax time isn’t the only reason to are people in your life who you
stay in contact with your accountant. trust to poke holes in your story,
Make sure they’re aware of the question your decisions, and provide
financial decisions you make for constructive criticism about your
your business — they can often business. Look to people who are
provide helpful insight that sets you successful and can examine your
up for success. Along with a great plans from a different perspective.
accountant, set yourself up with a
simple bookkeeping tool like Wave
that integrates with your CRM.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 11


Document to Automate + Take Things
Document Your Processes Off Your Plate: Systems for Solopreneurs
Maybe you want to stay a solopreneur forever, or Be sure to document, leverage templates,
perhaps you want to incorporate a co-founder, a social and use automation for business processes such as:
media manager, or a virtual assistant down the line. • Client outreach
Solopreneurs are accustomed to running the ship, which
• Client inquiries
can make it challenging to hand over responsibilities even
to qualified professionals. • Onboarding

Even if you’re planning to stay a solo operator, documenting • Project management


your processes will reveal opportunities to streamline, • Offboarding
consolidate, and even automate some of your workload.
While you’re documenting, look for:
• Gaps that exist and need to be filled
• Redundancies that can be eliminated entirely
• Tasks can be easily offloaded to a virtual assistant
• Areas of each process can be automated

Here are a few ways you can document your


processes, stay organized, and share your
documentation with others:
• A library of self-recorded videos or voice recordings

• A project management tool like Trello, Notion,


or HubSpot’s Projects tool
• A shared notes app

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 12


Solopreneur Tools + Solutions
Automating your business processes and using templates for
your most repeated business tasks is one of the first steps
towards scaling as a solopreneur. If you’re spending hours
manually creating every new client proposal, potential client
outreach, and new customer follow up from scratch, you’re losing
time that could be spent building your business.

Solopreneurs need to find trusted tools and solutions to help them


grow their business — and don’t have unlimited budgets to get
everything. The most important software platforms you’ll use as
a solopreneur are your website (CMS), your customer relationship
management platform (CRM), and your project management
software — all of which you can find low cost or free options for.

As you look through the options, consider:

• Price

• Reviews

• Scalability (Can this tool grow with you,


or will you have to migrate if you get bigger?)

• Integrations

• Ease of use

• End user experience

• Customer support (From initial onboarding/setup


through troubleshooting and ongoing support needs)

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 13


Try the Free
CRM for Solopreneurs
Organize your business, keep track of your contacts, and email your
audience all in one place — and for free — with the HubSpot CRM.
As your business grows, tap into our ecosystem of 1,000+ app
integrations and our strong community of entrepreneurs like you.

Sign Up

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 14


SECTION 3

The Most Important Solopreneur Skills


To successfully run a business, solopreneurs need a whole
Always be Ready to Learn
host of both soft skills and hard skills — and acquiring
the soft skills early on in your solopreneur journey makes Solopreneurs have a lot to learn, so many find it’s helpful to set
tackling the hard skills a lot easier. learning goals using the SMART goal method.

SMART goals are:


Soft Skills Hard Skills where you are vs.where you want to be
SPECIFIC

Time management Expertise in your niche


MEASURABLE an exact goal to achieve

Self-discipline Technical skills


ATTAINABLE make it realistic
Resilience Digital marketing
RELEVANT the bigger reason why this goal is important
Focus Basic accounting
TIME-BOUND set a deadline and track your
Communication Budgeting progress along the way

Networking Data analysis


HubSpot writer Lucy Alexander shared that without SMART
goals, “it would've been easy for me to make excuses.
Customer service Sales
It wasn't clear how I'd measure my progress or keep
myself on track toward my goal."
Decision making Copywriting
Start setting SMART goals with HubSpot’s
Balance and self-care Project management SMART Goal Template.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 15


It can be helpful to lay out a long-term learning
plan, too, because learning new skills for your
business shouldn’t feel like an all-night cram
session before a big test. However, you may need
to learn some skills quickly, especially early on, in
order to bring your business plan into action.

Here’s how to learn new things quickly:

1
Figure out the most essential aspects
to learn and prioritize them. Business Growth Tip:
Only learn from true experts and trusted,
Create Landing Pages to Explore Ideas
2
authoritative sources. Trends Editor Kristin Egan designs a landing page whenever
inspiration hits, “Every time I have a business idea, I build a
3 Learn from a variety of mediums quick landing page. It helps me get to the point very quickly.”
(books, podcasts, video tutorials, etc.)
This method will help you
4 Spend more time practicing than you
• Think about your idea from the customer’s point of view
do learning.
• Consider the most important produce features and benefits
5 Get feedback whenever you can.
• Articulate the problem you are solving for your customer
6 Create and stick to your learning deadlines.
A landing page lets you work on the exciting, visual aspects
of your brand, test out some language, and open up a way to
There are lots of high-quality free educational get feedback on what you’re building. It also helps hone your
resources to support your business growth, web building and copywriting skills.
and loads of free tools to practice on.
If you’re thinking, what even is a landing page?
Here’s a refresher — check out
The Ultimate Guide to Landing Pages.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 16


SECTION 4

Finances for Solopreneurs


Finances aren’t necessarily the most exciting part of being a solopreneur, until the numbers are through the roof, that is.
From the very beginning, make sure you keep track of all your incoming and outgoing funds — and then no matter what,
when tax season rolls around, you’ll be prepared.

Keep Track of the Money — Always


Staying on top of your finances will ensure you don’t fall into debt, that your
taxes remain compliant, that you have enough to stay comfortable as you
grow, and that your business is able to continue operating. Always consult with
a certified accountant and/or a fiduciary wealth manager to make the right
financial decisions for your business.

Separate your Business and Personal Finances


Get that business bank account. It’s an extremely important step in keeping
your finances compliant with local and federal tax laws. And when you’re
purchasing a business expense, always keep your receipts.

Find, and Learn, a Great Accounting System


There are dozens of great small business accounting systems to choose
from. Ask your community of entrepreneurs which ones they prefer, get some
demos, and choose one. Train yourself to use it, because you’re going to be in
it all the time, and it will likely be able to generate reports that your accountant
will need to use at tax time.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 17


Apply for a Business Credit Card
There are many benefits for business owners available through
business credit cards — talk to your local bank to find out how a
business credit card could benefit your solopreneur journey.

Find Funding to Keep You Going


Whether it’s an investor, a VC firm, a startup accelerator, a
crowdfunding campaign, or a traditional loan, you may need to
build up funding to support ongoing operations.

Research local government programs for small businesses that


might be able to help — only 3 in 10 microbusiness owners know
about these kinds of support programs in their area, and of those
who do, only 46% use them.

30%
of SBA microloans were issued
to startups in 2020.
HubSpot’s Startup Financing Guide

Startup Financing Options to Explore


• Small business grants

• Small business grants for underrepresented founders

• Public and private small business funding options

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 18


How to Keep Tabs on Your Finances
There are three primary pillars to managing solopreneur finances —
we’ll explain them and provide a helpful template to follow for each.

Document of your expenses Creatie (and stick to) a budget Pay attention to profit and loss

Solopreneurs should get Your budget works as the guiding light Your P&L statements give you a
into the habit of looking at for your business and should cover the realistic picture of the financial
their income and expenses following: health of your business. It helps
on a weekly basis to you keep track of:
• Annual sales goals, broken
maintain a clear picture of
out by quarter • Revenue
the health of their business.
• Overhead costs, including • Cost of goods sold
subscriptions and memberships
• Operating expenses
• A marketing budget based on your
• Gross profit (or loss)
marketing plan
• Operating profit (or loss)
• Production budget, detailing the products
or services you will launch for the year • Net profit (or loss)

Expense Report Template Budget Templates Financial Planning Templates,


Including a P&L Template

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 19


SECTION 5

Marketing for Solopreneurs


There’s a lot to learn about marketing your business — just
check out the HubSpot Academy library for hundreds of
courses to choose from. Taking the time, early on, to learn
the fundamentals of marketing can help you sell now and
as you scale.

“Marketing should be 90% about the


customer and 10% about you.”
WES KAO
Co-founder of cohort-based learning
platforms AltMBA and Maven

As HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah puts it, brands should


aim to “add value before you extract value.” In other words,
seek out ways to be of service to your customer before you
think about asking them to pay you. That’s the foundation
of the Inbound Methodology, which you can learn more
about in HubSpot Academy’s course on the topic.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 20


Build a Marketing Strategy
Since solopreneurs are always doing a little
bit of everything at once, your marketing
strategy and plan need to be simple, partially
automated, and grounded in research. One
thoughtful campaign will create more value
for your brand than a bunch of social media
posts without a strategy behind them.

1 Conduct Market Research 2


Conduct Competitive Research
Kicking off your marketing efforts with market This stage reveals the competition’s vulnerabilities
research makes it a lot easier to execute your and shows you where and how your brand can
strategy in an authentic way that attracts an compete. Dig deep into your competitors’ social media
audience that wants to stick around. This step can comments, testimonials, and reviews. Keep in mind
be overwhelming but the data will give you an edge that your competition isn’t just a similar product or
over your competitors. service — it’s anything that can replace what you do.

Research the industry you’re getting into so you have For example, a graphic designer’s competition is other
a clear understanding of where you fit in. Scope out graphic designers, but it’s also Canva, which makes
the competition and research trends in your niche. graphic design tools accessible to all. A small business
Uncover facts to build your strategy on, rather than may be willing to forego design quality in favor of
stressing and guessing about what to do next. financial savings, so a solopreneur designer needs to
figure out how to compete with (or work with) Canva.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 21


Here are a few ways to approach competitive research:

The Competition’s Data Points How to Use the Data

Marketing platforms they’re active on Carefully consider each platform and your capacity to compete on each one.

Their pain points Make notes on how you can solve, articulate, and visually represent the
solutions better than they do.

The audience they're speaking to Notice what’s grabbing the audience’s attention, posts that have
gone viral, and posts that have a high number of comments or likes.

Their visual presence Ensure that your brand’s visual identity is unique and stands out from the
competition, and make note of what’s working and what the audience is
responding to.

Their paid ad strategies Look for engagement, style, and the frequency of their ads for hints
about their strategy.

Their audience comments Are they positive or negative? Do they talk about features and benefits?
Do they ask questions about the product? Use comments to develop
content that preempts customer concerns and questions on your own feed.

Their community engagement How does the brand engage on the platform? Do they respond to every
comment? How do they handle negative comments? What do they do to
keep their audience tuned in?

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 22


Identify Your Target Audience
3
This is where you want to get very specific
about who your customers are. Trends
member and marketing expert Alvin Ding
recommends getting deep into your buyer
personas. Go beyond demographic data and
dig into psychographic data to discover their
beliefs and values. Behavioral data will tell
you about their shopping habits and daily
activities. When assembled, this data paints a
detailed picture of your ideal customers. Position Your Brand or Product
4
Learn more about finding your target market Positioning places your brand within the landscape of your
and building buyer personas. industry wherever it has the best shot at reaching its target
audience. To find your product and brand’s positioning, start
with the following items:

• List out your brand’s attributes along with product


features and benefits.

• Look at the same data for the competition and notice


gaps in their offerings and marketing efforts.

• Identify where your attributes, features, and benefits can


fill the gaps.

• Use your marketing to address those gaps, attract


your target audience, and craft content that satisfies
customers’ needs better than the competition.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 23


Build Your Brand
5
Before you start sharing all over social media, you
need to have your brand in order — that’s the look, feel,
and sound of your brand. A strong, clear brand helps
companies stand out and be recognized among the
noise. Try out HubSpot’s Brand Kit Generator to get
started.

And don’t forget about your personal brand. As a


solopreneur, your personal network can be far more
influential than your brand pages when you start out.
Develop a strong presence within your industry through
LinkedIn, speaking opportunities, guest blog posts, and
videos. The more your audience can get to know you,
the more they’ll trust your product or service.

Create or Optimize Your Website


6
and Social Media Pages
Every business needs a website, whether it’s an online
store for your products or just a few simple pages
outlining your services. Build it in accordance with your
brand guidelines, with the same colors, fonts, images,
and copy tone you chose for your business. Learn
about the fundamentals of optimizing your website for
search (SEO), or get the help of an expert, to make sure
your website starts ranking for important search terms
for your industry and product.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 24


Map Out a Marketing Plan Establish Clear Marketing Goals —
7 8
You can’t achieve your marketing goals without a
and Track Them Often
concrete plan in place. Spend time developing a The only way to know if your marketing is working
marketing plan that lays out your timeline, budget, is to set clear, achievable marketing goals for your
and the tactics you will use to reach your audience. campaigns. Your ROI (return on investment) can
Don’t stop at planning X number of posts per week come in the form of sales, a growing contact list,
or month — your marketing plan should dive into demo requests, increased brand awareness, positive
each action and its intended outcomes. engagement, or building your following. Setting SMART
goals for marketing campaigns goes a long way to
A marketing plan will include activities across
keeping you motivated and on track.
whichever channels and strategies make most
sense for your business, including any or all of Bring on Tools That Let you
the following: 9
Automate Connection
• Organic social media marketing: photos, short You have a lot on your plate. Make things easier on
videos, text posts, promos yourself by tracking your contacts and customers,
• Content marketing: blogs or articles, podcasts, automating administrative tasks, and sending bulk
longform videos email — all using the same tool. It’s easy to use, and
completely free.
• Email marketing: newsletters,
marketing emails Sign up for HubSpot’s Free CRM and automatically
capture every conversation with your audience.
• Paid advertising: PPC, social media ads,
influencer marketing, ambassador
marketing, PR

Use HubSpot’s Marketing Plan Template


to get started.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 25


SECTION 6

Solopreneur Business Growth Checklist + Examples


Need to think strategically to get your business to the next level?
Follow this checklist and get inspired by successful solopreneurs.

Checklist for Scaling Your Solopreneur Business

Conduct market research and competitor research Invest in easy-to-use tools with built-in analytics that
and develop buyer personas for your ideal customer. can grow with your business.

Use your ideal customer persona and market Set up a monthly finance review — stay organized,
research to develop an overall business plan and document everything, and don’t get behind on
marketing plan using SMART goals. bookkeeping.

Seek out a mentor or business advisor with Ask every customer for a testimonial and create case
experience scaling a successful business. studies based on client success stories.

Automate tracking for your finances, contact Keep up with your mental and physical health and
management, and ongoing conversations with your practice self care. Put a meeting on your calendar every
audience. day at the time where you feel most uninspired and go
for a walk or move your body.
Build a library of templates to automate ongoing
business processes like outreach, follow up, and Get involved in a solopreneur or industry community
new customer onboarding. and actively participate at least once a week.

Work on your personal brand and your business Attend industry events and take courses or workshops.
brand and leverage your professional network to
build awareness.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 26


Inspirational Examples of Successful Solopreneurs

“Get yourself out there and “Being an influencer “Every person in


[tell] people who you are, is a real business. [It] their life has had a
what you’re working on. requires mental and million-dollar idea.”
Get that early feedback, so emotional intelligence. MasterClass

if something’s wrong with This occupation is not


SARA BLAKELY
your project or you need for everybody. Running a
Founder of Spanx
to fix or expand business as an influencer
something, you can get is not taught in school. • Youngest self-made
that support earlier.” It’s not easy beyond billionaire

any doubt!” • Developed Spanx herself and


HubSpot for Startups
CFDA did her own marketing

SEAN BOVELL
JACKIE AINA
Founder of Invidica
YouTuber +
Founder of FORVR Mood
• Went from college dropout
to raising $1M in funding as • Generated 45,000 pre-sale
a founder signups for the launch of her
business, FORVR Mood
• Built a brand with a top 1%
product on Amazon from • Built a career as a YouTuber with
his basement 3.5M+ subscribers and top-tier
brand partnerships

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 27


Final Thoughts + Key Takeaways for Solopreneurs
Being a solopreneur is a job that’s unlike any other, and much of the work is entirely unglamorous. But when you reach
your goals, build new ones, and accomplish things you never thought you could, you’ll be glad to be on this path.

Here are a few final takeaways to keep in mind along your solopreneur journey.

Embrace the work, knowing that even small, Invest in the marketing tactics that actually work.
tedious tasks add up to success.
Avoid overwhelm by tracking which marketing
Tasks like tracking expenses, ordering office strategies are working, and create a plan that
supplies, and vetting potential accountants focuses on those. Don’t try to do everything
are necessary, even if they take you away — research your industry and the competitive
from making sales, creating products, landscape to uncover the most valuable places to
engaging on social media, or doing big- market your products.
picture planning. It’s easy to resent these
Take care of yourself.
tasks and neglect them until they are
absolutely necessary — but that approach To stay in this for the long haul, you’ll need to take
will leave your business operating at half great care of yourself. Take breaks and time off, keep
capacity, making it even more challenging to yourself healthy, and spend lots of time with family
reach its full potential. and friends.

Never stop learning. Check on your finances all the time.

Take courses, join cohorts, read books, Create a quarterly budget and monthly P&L statements,
listen to podcasts — do whatever it takes to and keep them filled in and up-to-date. It’s the only way
keep growing your business-running skills. to truly know how healthy your business is, and where it
It’ll help you tackle challenges, grow your needs extra attention. This helps solopreneurs prioritize
confidence, and make strong decisions. their many tasks and focus on the right things.

Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 28


Dive Into the Latest Business
+ Tech News Your Way
Prefer podcasts? We’ve got you — there’s the daily Hustle
show, or My First Million. Are you a YouTube watcher? We’ve
got a channel. Rather scroll while you’re on the train? Try the
newsletter. However you like to stay connected, we’ve got
irreverent, offbeat takes on everything business.

Explore the Hustle

Report created in collaboration with CXD Studio.


www.cxd.studio • hello@cxd.studio
Scaling Your Solopreneur Business 29

You might also like