You can design your business as you want
You can design your business as you want
As tiny Internet solopreneurs, we can design our business as we want.
This isn't the case for the vast majority of people working in traditional jobs. You can't design your job as an employee as you want. Unfortunately, the job was designed by someone else, and you have to fit in.
If you don't, you only have one option: leave.
This is the thing I love the most about solopreneurship: it can be designed around you.
Perhaps you really like talking to people. A "creator" business built around a podcast looks like what you want in your life. You can go out and meet people in real life and record videos and create a great product for your listeners.
You can be a travel blogger and travel the world while building a solo business with advertising revenue. I follow many people that do that.
Maybe you are the opposite, and there are tons of things you can do on your own that let you stay quiet in your room and produce something valuable. Software, for example. Or books, or videos that you create on your own and publish.
I personally followed the "passive income" route for 10 years trying to find the right thing. I didn't get a massive hit, maybe also because I explicitly avoided doing things I didn't want to do. I didn't want to go into niches I wasn't passionate about, for example.
I eventually found something else I was good at, teaching Web Development, online.
This particular niche is crowded and you can do a lot of different stuff. People make videos on YouTube - I tried but I didn't like that.
I tried blogging and I really liked it, so I built my business around blogging.
I find shorts on TikTok and YouTube a waste of time and energy-draining, despite their success in recent times. So I stick to tweeting.
That's to say, you can do whatever you want.
You can design your business as you want.
You don't have to compromise.
You don't have to do what everyone else is doing if you don't want.
Eventually, you'll find your way.
And the best thing is you can change your mind whenever you want. You don't have structure and obligations. You are agile. You are free. Spot an opportunity? Jump right in.
As I'm doing now, myself.
I've always wanted to talk about this topic I'm super passionate about, but I was super focused on growing my programming teaching business to also do this.
I finally had a successful project on my hands, and I couldn't split my efforts into multiple endeavors.
But now I found the inspiration and drive to also do this new venture, alongside the business that's already working great.
I don’t have to ask anyone for permission.
So I just do it.
And while doing so, I continue to design my business as I want.
I envision that in not so far future the world of business will be mostly solopreneurship. Minimal to zero employment (probably not in the next hundred years then).
Big solutions will just be like Microservices - a collaboration among solopreneurs or mini-companies (perhaps 3-5 "preneurs").
Instead of employees, each business will hire the services of freelancers (also solopreneurs) for certain aspects OR automate tasks through tools built by other solopreneurs.
May sound like utopian but how much better our world will be if there wasn't any exploitation of labor (as you said employees don't have a say how to do their job), wealth is really based on value created and not on interest rate manipulation (that causes severe imbalance on wealth distribution).
"Capitalism/capitalists" will be considered a word used in ancient times. The word "entrepreneur/enterpreneurship/enterpreneurial" will mean what it should mean.
Agree wholeheartedly, Flavio.
One of my favorite things about being a Solopreneur is the ability to say "No, thank you." It is a small but powerful sentence. Certainly, as with every decision we make, there are consequences. But I love that I can use that option at my own discretion, without losing/leaving my job.
One thing you said especially resonated: "...you can change your mind whenever you want."
This has been *so* important during my solo journey. Over time, my goals have changed and evolved. I'm not the same person today that I was when I started out. I've been able take new paths, gradually reshape my career, while balancing risk vs. reward. Yet without having to perform a complete "reboot" of my job and career.
Solopreneur is not for everyone. But for me, it feels right. Early in my tech career, I had 5 different employers in just 7 years. In each case, I decided to leave and go elsewhere. I've now been self-employed for 12 years continuously, and still going...