Summary

An entrepreneur reflects on the lessons learned from starting a solo business, emphasizing the importance of preparedness for the emotional challenges and strategic decisions that come with the territory.

Abstract

The article delves into the personal journey of an individual who left the corporate world to start a one-person business. While acknowledging the potential pitfalls and the high rate of those returning to traditional employment, the author highlights the rewards for those who persevere. Key challenges include the solitude of solo entrepreneurship, the necessity of strategic comparison with competitors, the emotional difficulty of abandoning unsuccessful projects, and the shift from traditional advertising to more effective marketing strategies as advised by thought leaders like Seth Godin. The author underscores the need for discipline, emotional resilience, and a balanced approach to responsibility, advocating for a "responsibly selfish" mindset in creating a successful business.

Opinions

The transition from a corporate job to solo entrepreneurship can be emotionally challenging, with a stark shift from a social workplace to isolation.
Regular social interaction should be intentionally scheduled and prioritized to mitigate feelings of loneliness.
Competitive analysis is crucial for business growth, but it should be approached objectively to avoid negative emotional impacts such as self-doubt and jealousy.
Entrepreneurs must be prepared to let go of projects or ideas that are not yielding results, despite emotional attachments, to avoid being held back.
Traditional advertising is less effective than targeted marketing strategies that focus on understanding and engaging a specific audience, as emphasized by marketing expert Seth Godin.
Success in a one-person business often hinges on the ability to manage emotions and make disciplined decisions, balancing personal passion with practical business sense.
The author suggests that a "responsibly selfish" approach can be more effective than adhering strictly to conventional advice about never giving up.

I Wish Someone Told Me This Before I Started a One-Person Business

For the record, it’s not “Stay in your 9–5”

Decisions have lessons. /Photo: Pietra Schwarzler

I’m one of those people.

I walked into my boss’s office one fine corporate afternoon, threw in the towel, and drove into the sunset without a plan.

We get bashed a lot for it these days.

And I get it — this isn’t for everyone. Many people who leave their jobs return to being employed within the first year. It’s a decision that should be anything but taken lightly.

I wasn’t entirely reckless either — I had about 18 months’ worth of backup money when I left.

But aren’t we forgetting someone here?

There’s a whole other part to that statistic: The people whose grass has indeed been greener on the other side.

People who make their business work without the backup of a 9–5, love it, and never look back.

That of course doesn’t mean it’s all one huge portion of rainbow cake.

You have to be willing to go through with the pain you’ve chosen.

If you've been feeling caged by your job...

Yet everyone is telling you to be responsible

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And I’m fine with that. However, there are things I wish I was more prepared for, then perhaps they wouldn’t hit me as hard.

If I had a mentor when I started, this is what I wish they told me:

“You’ll be alone a lot”

I’m quite good at being alone. So at first, I took immense pleasure in breaking away from office politics.

But I went from limitless social time to zero too fast, and the comedown was brutal.

Suddenly you’re the only one sunbathing alone in the park while people picnic together and drink Pimms, catching frisbees all around you — but you’re so invisible not even their dogs would stray towards your little patch of grass.

You might end up having to find the nearest pub to hide and cry in the toilet (yep..)

So, even if you generally like working alone, even if you have friends that aren’t from the office, you need a plan.

Include social time into your weekly schedule. Make it a top priority task you need to have ticked off by Sunday. And actually action it.

“Compare yourself to others”

In your personal life, avoid doing this at all costs.

But when running a business, it’s a top necessity.

The catch is — it can trigger toxic feelings.

Self-doubt, inadequacy, jealousy, fear, all of them will be eager to show their face. For the most part, I try to work as hard as I can to ignore them.

Because knowing what other people in your niche are doing, is learning material. The data it gives you is priceless:

What your ideal audience is interested in
What type of content or product they consume most actively
Which niche problems is your competition solving effectively
Which niche problems is your competition solving badly
How can you take both and design your solution to be even better
What new trends are causing either rave or rage

Technically, it’s research, and you’ll benefit from it especially at the start when you’re designing and building, and don’t yet have much feedback from your own audience.

But always remember:

Turn up, take the information you need, and leave. That’s it.

Don’t compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter twenty.

“Learn to give up on your babies”

The bottom line is, you will get emotionally attached to most of your offspring.

Your projects, your products, how amazing you think they are, and the incredible results you think they’ll generate… if only you give them yet another month or two?

But the truth is —

No matter how good you are, some of them won’t work.

And there will come a time when you’ll have to give up on them or they’ll drag you down. Letting go is hard. But if something is failing, you have to learn to admit it.

Quit your babies.

“Quitting is so far from being for losers. In fact, knowing when to quit for the win is probably the most important skill an entrepreneur can ever learn.” -DOAC

Mainstream advice says the opposite. Do not give up. The danger is, before you know it you’ve used up your best years not giving up on something that doesn’t work.

“Forget about advertising. Instead, read Seth Godin”

If you think advertising alone works like it used to, think again.

I made some huge advertising mistakes that cost me more money than I can count (well, I can, but I really don’t want to).

If you’re serious about your business, read anything and everything Seth Godin has to say about marketing. Of course, throw in other authors too, for wholeness of opinion and knowledge.

But for me, there’s something about Seth. His approach to advertising vs. marketing has done a lot for my numbers.

So far his advice doubled traffic to one of my books which I’m marketing on Tiktok. It also increased the clickthrough rate of my Amazon ads, after I changed the ad creatives based on what I learned.

In a nutshell:

Understand as much as you can about what’s driving your audience’s behaviors.
Talk to a core, small group of people who know the specifics you’re talking about like the back of their hand.
Market only to people who give you consent. Really, don’t embarrass your business by pushing in front of everyone and shouting random one-liners they didn’t ask to hear.
Run smooth introductions. Once wanted, give people a relatable story.
Give generosity. Give connection. Give a reason and a way to change.

I’m noticing a pattern here…

The struggle is mostly about two things, regardless of which side you’re on:

Pain and emotions.

So you have to choose your pain.

Discipline will help you push through.

And if running a one-person business is for you, the vivid memories of how you used to scream inside for years will push you through as well.

Being responsible and a realist is crucial when making your decisions. But drink too much of the responsible cocktail, and it will make you sick anyway.

So maybe creating something responsibly selfish is a better idea.

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