HubSpot Solopreneur Ebook
HubSpot Solopreneur Ebook
HubSpot Solopreneur Ebook
Solopreneur
Business
Plus, a business growth checklist
for your small but mighty biz.
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
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.
Humble
Open to learning
SUSIE IPPOLITO
Brand Content Strategist,
Trends Writer, and Entrepreneur
01 Introduction
Subscribe
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.
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.
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.
63%
of entrepreneurs have experienced burnout,
or are currently experiencing burnout symptoms.
Over 50%
of solopreneurs want to grow
their business to support a team.
The Business of Creators Report, 2022
A few key partners and a focus on the right things will set
you up for success and support you on your journey.
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.
• Price
• Reviews
• Integrations
• Ease of use
Sign Up
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.
30%
of SBA microloans were issued
to startups in 2020.
HubSpot’s Startup Financing Guide
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)
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.