Before you get out your pitchforks, tar, and feathers, maybe hear me out:
A few years ago, I joined the paid membership of a business coach.
I won’t say the guy’s name, but he’s well established in the DR world, he’s been in business for decades, and he’s somebody I’ve mentioned in this newsletter on a few occasions. (Though if you think you know who it is, you probably don’t.)
My first day in the membership, I was scrolling through some of the posts. In one of them, another member was getting advice on a new business he was setting up.
The business coach asked who the target audience was.
The member replied it was solopreneurs.
To which the biz coach replied:
“Solopreneurs suck.”
I felt a bit hurt this, being a solopreneur myself for 12+ years now, and generally determined not to hire.
The business coach gave his explanation, that solopreneurs make for bad customers, and that it’s much better to go after people who have a small team of two or maybe three people.
There was truth to it. I forget exactly what the coach’s arguments was, but as a solopreneur myself, I can tell you that solopreneurs…
1. Are too tightly controlling
2. Are paradoxically willing to accept lower quality on many things in their business (design, copy, marketing, customer service) as long as they do it themselves
3. Are slow to implement big and important changes thoroughly
4. Are fickle, and will change direction and follow new whims and ideas, but since they have no ballast, will often change direction too quickly, and then change again
Put all these things together and you find that solopreneurs have serious limits to income, limits to growth, limits to the value can get out of anything you sell to them, and therefore the money they can pay you.
On top of which, the fact that solopreneurs have no employees makes it easier for them to simply up and leave from one day to the next, particularly in today’s world, where most solopreneurs’ tangible assets consist of a Macbook and maybe a Nespresso machine.
I’m just putting this idea out there.
Like I said, I myself am a solopreneur.
I don’t know if that will change.
Maybe it will. (I’ve convinced myself with my own emails before.)
Maybe it won’t. (Even with all the arguments above, I find myself resistant going back to point 1 above.)
In any case, I will tell you something I have figured out as a stepping stone out of the solopreneur swamp.
It’s the idea of partnering with the right people, rather than hiring.
I’ve done it already with one major project.
I’m very likely do more partnerships as I spin up my new “advertorial agency.”
If partnering with people resonates with you, and you want to find people to partner with, and you want more advice on how to do it right, both from an “inner game” and an “outer game” perspective, then I have a recommendation for you.
It’s Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin community.
Travis’s Royalty Ronin is made up of a bunch of people who have the solopreneur mindset, who want the simplicity and freedom of solopreneursip, but who at the same time have realized that you can only do so much and go so far by doing every damn thing alone, and that there are real costs to solopreneurship, in terms of both income and free time.
(Btw, Travis is not the biz coach I talked about at the start of this email.)
If you wanna find out more about Ronin, there’s a free 7-day trial here:
P.S. If you do make it past free trial and stay inside Ronin, write me an email and let me know. I have some bonuses with your name on them.