Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship has increased in desirability in the last 20 years, with the increasing use of the internet and cell phones. People want the freedom to own businesses, and I can’t blame them. It’s a wonderfully freeing experience.
Since the pandemic in 2019, the desire to be your boss has increased even more. Forbes reports that 98% of workers want to work from home at least part of the time.
Although working from home for a company will give you many benefits of entrepreneurship, it won’t give you the same amount of freedom Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur.
For even more freedom, there’s this idea of solopreneurship, where you are in business independently. Solopreneurship does vary in a few critical aspects from entrepreneurship.
In this post, you will learn the critical differences between the two, the traits necessary for successful solopreneurs, how solopreneurship will offer sought-after flexibility, and examples of what business to start.
What is a Solopreneur?
Solopreneurship is defined as doing everything independently where you are the sole employee. You are the brain and the workforce; you handle every aspect of the business and, therefore, have more control over what you produce.
Here are the key characteristics of a solopreneur:
Independence
Solopreneurs are lone wolves who enjoy working alone. Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur They want complete control over their business operations and don’t want to ask others for permission. They want to make their own decisions.
Sole Responsibility
Everything that happens in the business, good or bad, falls on the shoulders of the solopreneur. There’s no co-founder to help shoulder the responsibilities or any additional employees.
Hands-on Approach
Because solopreneurs are solo in their business, they must have their hands in every step of production. Having a single business focus and creating a brand identity is best.
Flexibility
Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur: Any business has many moving parts, so one must be flexible to be a successful solopreneur. As your business expands, you’ll need to be adaptable and have a systematic approach to getting things done to keep up with the increased volume of work.
Direct Profits
Solopreneurship has little overhead, which means more direct profits for the business owner.
Personal Branding
Because a solopreneur goes it alone, their brand is a big part of their business. The way to stand out in an enormous sea of people is to be yourself and build a brand around you.
Resourceful
A solopreneur must be resourceful since they don’t hire employees. It helps to systemize day-to-day tasks and delegate tasks to freelancers or virtual assistants whenever possible.
You should hire independent workers, self-employed individuals, and other businesses to delegate responsibilities to.
Multi-skilled
Solopreneurs typically have a vast array of skills. However, a solopreneur’s business plan may be simpler than that of a more conventional enterprise; Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur, a full spectrum of tasks must be accomplished.
This will include startup, web development, social media management, production, sales, accounts payable and accounts receivable, bookkeeping, and customer service. It’s all on the solopreneur to get everything done.
How is a Solopreneur Different From an Entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurship is the traditional way of doing business, involving teams of people to have a successful business.
The significant difference between solopreneurs and entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs build teams and hire employees. Entrepreneurs focus on the following:
Build and rely on a team
The most significant difference between entrepreneurs and solopreneurs is that most entrepreneurs start a business to develop a team and rely on them to complete work.
They recruit team members who can rally around their goals and make progress a reality. The entrepreneur delegates several tasks to the team and monitors their progress.
Scale operations
Having a team helps the entrepreneur to scale the business. The purpose of the team is for the business owners to be able to handle increased volume, greater efficiency, market expansion, and greater profitability within their business.
Manage complex operations
Because there’s a team that scales the business, this means the entrepreneur has to manage more complex workplace requirements.
Many projects are taking place at once, and many people are working on many different activities. To effectively oversee the workers in charge and guarantee quality results, an entrepreneur must thoroughly understand all of these factors.
Take on a leadership role.
Entrepreneurs are leaders and must be a person who others want to follow. It’s been proven that people will quit on a bad boss, and leadership is the key to having productive employees.
Delegate
Delegation is an entrepreneur’s primary skill to master to have a successful business. The team is hired to take a portion of the workload off of the entrepreneur.
Delegation is a significant topic on its own. Here is a great article to learn more about delegation.
Higher financial risk
In all businesses, financial literacy is extremely important for success. However, the financial risk of an entrepreneur is much greater than a solopreneur’s. There is typically a lot more capital on the line, more lives are reliant on the business, and the entrepreneur has less control over every aspect of the business.
The Solopreneur Business Model
For the sake of this article, we will focus on solopreneurs who run online businesses and are tech-savvy. There are many career opportunities for solopreneurs in the trade industry. However, I believe the future of solopreneurship is online.
Solopreneurs most often operate the following types of businesses:
- E-commerce
This is where products or services are sold online. Examples include ebooks, courses, and drop shipping businesses.
- Subscription
where customers pay a recurring fee to access a product or service. This is a popular model with newsletters, online tools, and access to additional packaged services on a website.
- Service-based
This is when companies offer a specialized service to clients, such as consulting legal advice or becoming graphic designers.
Who Can Be a Successful Solopreneur?
Anyone can be a successful solopreneur with some effort and development of skills.
To have a business as a solopreneur, you must be self-motivated. Out of the skills you need, this is the one that is the most difficult to develop, so it should be a trait you already possess.
The rest of the skills, with self-motivation, can be developed:
Discipline
As a solopreneur, you don’t have a boss telling you what to do and when, so self-discipline is necessary.
You need to be able to assess your requirements, set reasonable priorities, and stick to those priorities without external motivation.
Time Management
As a solopreneur, time management is critical. Many things need to be done each day, and you will be the only person to complete it.
Spending too much time on one thing or many things that don’t matter is straightforward. It will be essential to choose what to work on, what to not work on, and how much time to spend.
Organization
Like any business, you may spend too much time on mundane administrative work if you aren’t well-organized.
Putting these ideas into writing and making a conscious effort to adhere to them would be helpful.
You will want systems to keep track of finances, customer information, and various operational tasks.
Problem-solving
Identifying problems, analyzing them, and developing solutions is critical to success as a solopreneur.
It’s easy to become mired in a rut, even for the most seasoned problem-solvers. For this reason, having a network of friends or associates with whom you can talk about problems is essential.
Financial Literacy
A big reason many entrepreneurs and solopreneurs fail at business is not having the proper financial literacy to continue operations year after year.
Making money is easy, but allocating financial resources so the business can thrive and grow for an extended period will take financial skill.
Check out my post on financial literacy here.
Goal Setting
Setting clear, achievable goals and regularly assessing progress will determine your success as a solopreneur.
Working without direction leads to boredom, financial difficulties, and stagnation.
Read this article about goal setting and achieving goals to learn how goal setting will lead you to the life you’ve always dreamed of.
What Are The Benefits of Becoming a Solopreneur?
The most significant benefit I’ve identified to becoming a solopreneur and having a self-led business is the freedom and flexibility you get to experience by having an online business and running it yourself.
As a solopreneur running an online business where all activity can be performed remotely, you can live anywhere in the world that you want to live, and you can still operate your business.
The second benefit I’ve identified is you are free from the pressures of managing employees. Anyone who’s driven an employee knows the headaches that come with it. Not only do you not have to work with people, but you don’t have the added pressure of knowing that other families rely on you for their livelihood.
The third largest benefit I’ve identified is the profits associated with low overhead, geographic freedom, and personal branding.
Because you can live anywhere, you can take advantage of tax benefits someone tied down to a geographic location can’t handle.
There is also very low overhead because you aren’t supporting an infrastructure that needs a physical location for employees to attend daily. You also don’t have to worry about the expenses of having employees.
If you create personal solid branding, you can pivot quickly to adapt to changing market conditions, demand, or just a change in your interests. People are buying you, so you can adjust however you want.
What is an excellent solopreneur business idea?
E-commerce
You can start an online store selling goods you make, resell, or drop ship. If you create your website, it could take years to grow your business, but many sites out there can get you started very quickly.
Look into Etsy, Shopify, eBay, or Amazon.
Affiliate Marketing
You can apply for affiliate marketing opportunities if you have an audience already. If not, then you will need to build your audience.
There are many social media platforms where you can build an audience or start your very own podcast or blog.
Education
If there’s a skill you are already an expert at, then you can create courses or do coaching and teach others.
Creating online content is using leverage to create one product and sell it to as many people as will buy it without putting additional effort into it.
Services
You can sell your service in the form of consulting or coaching to attract clients. People will pay great money for expertise.
Conclusion of Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur
It seems that the future is online businesses. Many people are now taking the leap of faith and starting side hustles that will hopefully lead them one day to quit their day jobs and go full-time as an entrepreneur or solopreneurs.
If you want to do this, keep learning and taking action. Follow me to make sure you never miss a post!
