45. Pros and Cons of Solopreneur Life

Once upon a time, we were all solopreneurs. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of solopreneur life.

You might also enjoy last week's business book club episode on a similar topic: https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/staying-solo-business-book-review-business-book-club/

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Transcript

[00:00:26] Welcome back to your win-win teacher business. Once upon a time, we were all solopreneurs. Let's talk about the pros and cons of solopreneur life.

[00:00:37] If today's topic caught your eye, make sure you don't miss last week's business book club episode, because that book covers this topic so beautifully right out of the gates in the first section. Staying solo talks about the pressure to scale and hire and grow, and where that noise comes from and how that message creeps into our brain to have us slowly second guess the solopreneur life where we started. The book beautifully handles the motivation behind that message and why we often hear that message more loudly than the message of the PROS of solopreneur life and staying in that lane.

[00:01:27] I can't say it enough on this show, but this is your business. You get to decide if you want to hire a team, if you want to manage a team. I'm not a cookie cutter framework kind of support provider.

[00:01:41] I really want to be your thought partner as you get curious about what you want you business to look like.

[00:01:49] I'm going to take a wild guess that when your business started, this was a solo venture. You learned about digital products, passive income, or some other entry point into the wonderful world of online business.

[00:02:02] You got curious about what that door could make possible for you if you opened it, how it could change your life, how it could impact the mark you leave on the world while you're here. You couldn't shake the curiosity. You felt a surge of bravery and you took that first step to start your teacher business.

[00:02:23] Just you, solo, working during early mornings, after putting kids to bed, in the carpool pickup line, as a naptime hustle or in any pocket of time you could find. As we walk down memory lane today, what did you like about that life? What felt thrilling and exciting? Speaking about my own experience, I loved not knowing what I didn't know.

[00:02:52] I loved how laser-focused I was on the one bright idea that I had at a time. The overwhelm of information and ideas from others hadn't entered the chat yet. The products that I created as a solopreneur were high quality because I was able to create them in a peaceful space, and those first blog posts continued to be my top performers year after year.

[00:03:16] Early on in my journey, I knew very few people doing what I was doing. There was very little second guessing and imposter syndrome. It was fun to just see what was possible and ride the wave of creativity all by myself. And for the sake of balanced reporting, you likely also have some memories about that solopreneur time period that aren't as positive.

[00:03:43] What didn't you like about that chapter of life? What felt harder than you expected? What felt frustrating, heavy, or sticky? Turning again to my own experience, I now know that I wasted a lot of time that I'll never get back. I spent time on tasks that just plain weren't needle movers. I didn't know, and there was no one around to tell me.

[00:04:06] I followed gurus who didn't end up being the right voices to have in my ears from time to time.

[00:04:13] I didn't know better and there was no one around to tell me. I spent time researching answers to things that were zipped up into easy button resources like courses and PDF guides, but there was no one around to tell me they even existed. I hadn't yet learned how to build a content spiderweb where everything worked harmoniously from one pillar and platform to the next.

[00:04:37] Most of my regrets about that chapter of life boil down to time in some way, shape, or form as time is our most valuable resource. I also felt like no one believed in my dream. No one understood why I was bothering building this business, and I wished there was someone to share in my celebration milestones as I noticed them along the way.

[00:05:01] If you love a good old fashioned pros and cons list like I do, you're gonna love today's episode because I've grabbed 10 pros and 10 cons of choosing the solopreneur path.

[00:05:15] Let's start with the pros. Number one, you make the rules about everything. You design the business to be exactly what you want and need. If it stops working, you get to change it right away. You're never waiting for permission or arbitrary timelines from others. Number two, retirement. You can still be in control of contributing to retirement.

[00:05:39] You don't need to play by the rules of a chart that tells you when you can retire, and how much will be contributed yearly on your behalf. You get to take the reins on that one and decide what age you'll be retiring, and build a plan to get yourself there. Relocation. That's up to you.

[00:05:59] Work from a coffee shop, be a digital nomad, move to a lower cost of living area, be nimble when a family member needs care. You and your laptop likely can go where life's opportunities take you. When I think of relocation, I also think of my physical space. There were years where I needed to work on the couch or from bed.

[00:06:20] There were other years where I needed to be at my desk with two large monitors and dim cozy lighting. There are times when I need coworking and community and other times when silence is the only path for me.

[00:06:34] Number four is salary. There will be times when making more feels important, and you're willing to spend more time or take more risk to make that happen. There will be times when having more time or less risk feels more important than chasing a monetary goal. When you're the boss

[00:06:55] you have the final say on what's most important for the business at any given time. You don't need to go job hunting when your wishes and needs don't align with the direction of the company.

[00:07:06] Pro number five is the who of your business. Who will your business serve? That's your choice.

[00:07:13] You can't solve every problem for every person, but you do get to choose who you solve problems for in your business. Number six is the how. You get to decide how you will help that person. Will you make a lot of content?

[00:07:31] Will you make a lot of products? Will you spend a lot of time coaching and mentoring within a community? You likely have preferences of how you like to spend your time and what work tasks light you up. Business owners are looking for the overlap in what they enjoy doing, what the market needs, and how to find win-win pricing that allows everyone to meet their goals.

[00:07:55] Number seven, you get to walk away without worrying what other people think or how they will be affected. As a solopreneur, you are free to pivot quietly and you have no one to answer to but yourself when you're craving a change. Number eight, you have the opportunity to run a mean lean business with simple expenses.

[00:08:19] You can quietly turn off subscriptions that are no longer serving you. You can quietly turn off almost any expense without worrying about its effect and disruption on the livelihood of others.

[00:08:34] Number nine, your goals are your goals. The tasks on your desk don't originate from whatever's noisiest in the online world or currently trending. They come from within. They come from your heart. You are working on what lights you up and what you are excited to do next.

[00:08:55] And if we get those goals right, you'll be really excited to sit down at your desk each and every day. Number 10 is alignment. There's a lot of talk right now about different businesses and corporations and CEOs and what their vision is and what their mission is, and what their impact is on the world, and whether we want to use our dollar bills to amplify that mission and provide further support in that direction.

[00:09:23] As a solopreneur, you get to decide what the vision and mission and impact will be for your company, and you're always excited about that path because you and you alone were the stakeholder in that decision.

[00:09:38] These 10 pros of solopreneur life were in no particular order, and I am sure I missed some, but I think it's a great list to start a conversation. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this list. Leave a review for the podcast. Let me know what I missed. DM me on Instagram, reply in the comment section on YouTube where this podcast episode lives.

[00:10:00] Reply to an email since I know if you're listening to this show, you've already grabbed my free hiring guide at cook family resources.com/hiring-guide. Your email inbox will always be where my best content lands.

[00:10:17] Okay, let's talk about 10 cons of staying solo. So the first one is that you were probably hearing some things on my pro list and realizing that they come with some cons too. You make the rules, but you also have to make each and every rule and decision, and that can be soul crushing for some, it can be paralyzing, and it can be just plain, not the way you wanted to spend your day.

[00:10:48] While you get to make a plan for retirement, you have to make a plan for retirement. Just showing up to work is not going to guarantee that you have a retirement account at the end of this working journey. Nobody's going to tell you that you have to set up your life insurance and your retirement and

[00:11:09] allocate some of the profits of your business in that important direction to make sure that you are taken care of when you no longer desire to be working later. That is on your shoulders. You probably don't have an HR department looking out for you.

[00:11:25] Relocation, how nimble and free you are falls on your shoulders too. You have to keep a working laptop if that's important to you. You have to figure out where you're going to have wifi access and how you're gonna stay connected if you plan to leverage that freedom that often comes with the solopreneur life.

[00:11:46] Nobody's going to put those in place for you, and you need to be planning and thinking about how to put those systems in place first before an emergency pops up. That makes you want to grab your laptop and run. Online business is so exciting because of the limitless salary potential, but there's also no minimum viable salary that's guaranteed. And if you rely on this income, like many solopreneurs do, you have to figure out how to make the cash flow steady through all 12 months of the year, just like your bills are, and you have to figure out how to be excited about the above and beyond growth potential, while also making sure that minimum salary number that you need each and every month is somehow in place.

[00:12:35] It is exciting to decide who your business will serve and how you're going to support them, but it often comes with a menu of zillions of choices that you're probably going to pick a handful of things from to take action. And it's really tricky to know if you're choosing the right options from the menu.

[00:12:55] It's wonderful that we have so many options. And also it's very difficult as a party of one to select from the huge menu of people we could serve and the ways we could help them.

[00:13:10] While you're free to pivot quickly and quietly, no one's going to tell you this is the direction we're going in, it's definitely time to pivot. No one's going to tell you when you've pivoted too often, how long you need to wait to get data before you can tell if something's working.

[00:13:28] No one's going to tell you if you're headed in the right direction or it's time to cut your losses. You're free to pivot, but you're also responsible for the decision to do so and the decision to know where you're headed next.

[00:13:42] You have the opportunity to run a mean, lean, simple business in terms of expenses, but you also have the opportunity to swipe for a lot of purchases that you don't actually need and dig yourself into a hole that can be really stressful. There's no one approving your expenditures when you're a solopreneur.

[00:14:02] Your goals are your goals, but you don't actually control what the market needs and what the market's asking for. So you have a responsibility to come up with goals that make your heart happy and help you meet your revenue goals, and also are informed by what the market you chose to serve actually needs and wants at this time.

[00:14:22] You can't spend time creating products and solutions that nobody asked for and nobody will buy.

[00:14:28] And while it's exciting that you get to align your business to the vision and mission that matters most to you, it takes a lot of internal work to figure out what that vision and mission will be. There are many things that you probably feel called to contribute in a positive way towards, and you also have to realize the limitations of a solopreneur business and realize that you can probably only help in one or two areas at a time.

[00:14:55] So the first con of staying solo is just the acknowledgement that everything on that pros list also came with a little bit of a double-edged sword. That'll always be the case. CON number two is marketing. Word of mouth can be an uphill battle when you're a solopreneur because you're creating something incredible, but you're doing it in a private vacuum.

[00:15:16] There's fewer people to spread the word about you if they don't know what you're up to. It doesn't mean that you're going to fail in marketing, it just means marketing's going to be more of an uphill battle as a solopreneur. CON number three is energy management. Doing it all, even the types of tasks you don't like doing is part of what you've signed up for

[00:15:40] as a solopreneur. There is no one else to do the tasks that you're not good at, that you're slow at, and that, you know drain your battery. There's also no one to jump in in an emergency, so some days you're going to have to do things that you don't want to do. They're going to drain you, they're gonna suck your time, and they're gonna pull you away from other things that you feel are more important and more urgent.

[00:16:10] CON number four is accountability. There's no one to keep an eye on your purchases, no one to stop you from following a shiny object, no one to make you sit at your desk and bring that project to the finish line, and there's no one to tap you on the shoulder when you're taking an action that doesn't seem aligned to the goals and mission that you've declared.

[00:16:31] Accountability is all on your shoulders as a solopreneur. Con number five is celebration. There's no one to pick you up when you need a boost.

[00:16:41] No one to point out the milestones that you achieved but didn't even notice. There's no one to share your joy in a milestone that you've worked so hard for. And vacation and out of office time is really hard. Things will still go wrong inside your business when you're traveling, and if you are a solopreneur, you might have to stop and take care of them.

[00:17:05] Customers might have a snafu or a question while you're out of office, and you might have to be the person who cares for them. If you are running the solopreneur life, it's really tough to step away and take a breather.

[00:17:20] As we move through the con list, you need to expect to be derailed as a solopreneur because things will bubble up, and if you are the only person who can handle them, then your to-do list is going to need to be flexible and you're going to be shuffling around what you woke up excited to work on and what suddenly became more urgent because you are the only one to do these tasks and you can't slide them to anyone else's desk.

[00:17:48] That can be really frustrating as a business owner and as an adult, and as a person in general. So that nimbleness and that flexibility isn't for everyone, and you have to know your personality type and not be surprised when this comes with the solopreneur life. Also on the con list would be pressure.

[00:18:07] The success of this business is entirely reliant on the decisions that you make and the actions that you take daily. That's something you sign up for in the solopreneur life. It's exciting at times, and it can also be paralyzing in other times.

[00:18:26] Support is on my con list. It might not be right in front of your face like the days of walking in the main office in the morning. You might not have a team Slack channel lighting up with updates of work that team members were doing while you were sleeping. But you can and should still create a support network for your business as a business owner. That might mean bringing in a support provider from time to time to help with a one-time project, rather than shouldering the expense of ongoing support.

[00:18:54] It might mean finding an aligned membership community where you can get questions answered, have feedback on big decisions, and in general move through your life in community with others who understand and get it. Planning is on my con list. Planning can be very daunting as a solopreneur.

[00:19:12] That blinking cursor in a blank Google Doc. Not feeling confident that you're actually seeing what the data is trying to tell you. Separating your emotions and feelings from the cold hard facts. Planning is extremely difficult to do as a solopreneur. And then I'm gonna toss one bonus on this con list, and it's the what ifs that come with being a party of one.

[00:19:40] If your business is humming along, it's growing, everything's going great, launches are on schedule, product conversions are high, but an emergency happens with your health or your grieving or a natural disaster takes you off the grid, there are what ifs in life that you can't prevent and you can't predict.

[00:20:05] And as a solopreneur, you generally need to spend more time than other business owners putting together SOPs and plans and backing up all of the knowledge that only lives in your brain and figuring out how your business could continue at the minimum viable level if you had to step away unexpectedly.

[00:20:28] It's never something we hope for. It's never something we plan for, but the level of risk for what IFS is the largest for solopreneurs, so I have to add that to this con list.

[00:20:40] The goal of this episode is to give you a giant permission slip. If you think through the con list and you still overwhelmingly feel excited by what was on the pros list, if you want to run your business as a solopreneur, the entire lifespan of your business, you totally can. Don't listen to the voices that suggest you're playing small and you need to dream bigger.

[00:21:09] Really, you're making a strategic decision to be a solopreneur. And you've got a pros and cons list to confidently back up your decision. One of the stats you might recall from that business book club title staying solo that we talked about last week, is that 80% of businesses in the US are sole proprietors.

[00:21:30] Rest assured that you aren't alone if you're craving a solopreneur path. If you enjoy today's episode, I'd love for you to share it with a business bestie whose business has grown and evolved into something that no longer brings them joy. If you have a favorite Facebook group, or you feel there are others who could benefit from this message, I'd be so grateful for you to share this podcast episode in the group. And if you're feeling unclear, if your business is on the right path,

[00:21:57] and wonder if a thought partner could help you get unstuck, i'd love to see your name on my strategy call calendar. I'll leave that linked in the show notes.