Examples of successful solopreneurs

InstantNoodles · Dec 13, 2014

Does anyone know any examples of entrepreneurs who essentially work on their own? While they might deal with contractors, freelancers etc, they do not have any co-founders or employees.

This will put a limit on how much money you can make, but it might be a great lifestyle choice.

Deon · Dec 13, 2014

InstantNoodles said:
Does anyone know any examples of entrepreneurs who essentially work on their own? While they might deal with contractors, freelancers etc, they do not have any co-founders or employees.

This will put a limit on how much money you can make, but it might be a great lifestyle choice.

I think you might get more interesting answers if you remove the "no employees" condition... No employees and No cofounders are two very different things.

InstantNoodles · Dec 13, 2014

Deon - True. But dealing with a cofounder can bring up a whole host of issues. You have to meet the right person and convince them to go on board. Differences in vision. What if he/she stops pulling their weight? (plenty examples of that I'm sure). What if they F- you over (PLENTY of examples of that as well!).

Solopreneur = much truer form of true freedom

Deon · Dec 14, 2014

InstantNoodles said:
Deon - True. But dealing with a cofounder can bring up a whole host of issues. You have to meet the right person and convince them to go on board. Differences in vision. What if he/she stops pulling their weight? (plenty examples of that I'm sure). What if they F- you over (PLENTY of examples of that as well!).

Solopreneur = much truer form of true freedom

Yes, that's what i was saying! It would be interesting to know about solopreneurs, meaning no co-founders.

But you said no employees either, and those are harder to find.

I don't think any entrepreneurs who has made a big enough impact has ever had 0 employees.

InstantNoodles · Dec 14, 2014

Ideas of the top of my head:
Big authors - Deal with agent, publicist, but they are the captains of their own ship.
Investors - Billionaires like Carl Icahn and Warren Buffet started alone.

1step · Dec 14, 2014

I guess the first thing you would have to define is "success." Your definition of success and mine are likely not the same as I can come up with quite a few successful solopreneurs.

tafy · Dec 14, 2014

I'm going to be a solopreneur, but I think I will need to hire some employees in the future to man the phone.

biophase · Dec 14, 2014

I know a ton of people doing very well by themselves. Why do you say contractors are ok and employees are not? Have you ever even hired an employee?

Digamma · Dec 14, 2014

biophase said:
I know a ton of people doing very well by themselves. Why do you say contractors are ok and employees are not? Have you ever even hired an employee?

I think what he means is that when you hire an employee you are not "solo" anymore, even if you are the boss.
Sounds a pretty dumb thing to me.

theag · Dec 14, 2014

tafy said:
need to hire some employees in the future to man the phone

Just get a secretary service.

I get about 10 calls a day at my 24h free hotline, one of my secretaries picks up in my company name, takes detailed notes and I email the customers the response and call back in very rare cases. Works perfectly and costs me way less then a full-time employee, makes the company seem bigger than it is (because multiple people are picking up the phone), etc..

InstantNoodles · Dec 14, 2014

I have never hired an employee.

Why does it sound dumb? I think the reason why vending business / laundromats are so popular is that you do not have to hire people. No need to manage them. You don't have to worry about hiring another one if they leave.

biophase · Dec 14, 2014

InstantNoodles said:
I have never hired an employee.

Why does it sound dumb? I think the reason why vending business / laundromats are so popular is that you do not have to hire people. No need to manage them. You don't have to worry about hiring another one if they leave.

It's dumb because you think that a successful entrepreneur would rather sit at a laundromat all day just because he doesn't want to deal with an employee.

Or that he would like to drive around to collect money from vending machines instead of being on a beach.

Maxjohan · Dec 14, 2014

I think a lot of affiliate marketers are probably one man bands. PewdiePie made $3 million in profit last year. He has one employee. He has probably made like $10 million this year.

Just a guess.

oldkevx · Dec 14, 2014

Seth Godin...great author, thought leader, speaker and investor/project guy. He has one of the best blogs to subscribe to if you want to learn about marketing and mindset.

Bila · Dec 14, 2014

theag said:
Just get a secretary service.

I get about 10 calls a day at my 24h free hotline, one of my secretaries picks up in my company name, takes detailed notes and I email the customers the response and call back in very rare cases. Works perfectly and costs me way less then a full-time employee, makes the company seem bigger than it is (because multiple people are picking up the phone), etc..

Do you pay a fixed rate or depends of the volume ?

tafy · Dec 15, 2014

oldkevx said:
Seth Godin...great author, thought leader, speaker and investor/project guy. He has one of the best blogs to subscribe to if you want to learn about marketing and mindset.

I am the biggest fan of Seth Godin, love his stuff!

theag · Dec 15, 2014

Bila said:
Do you pay a fixed rate or depends of the volume ?

Both. Fixed base rate (around 100-150€/month) and then 0,5€ per call and 0,5€ per minute on top of it, plus another 0,25€ per minute if its outside of 9-5 timeframe. Currently costing me about 1k+/month.

Could easily deactivate the toll free 24h service hotline on my site and profit 1k+/month more, but I feel like the extra service goes a long way..

floppyrisk · Dec 15, 2014

how doe

Maxjohan said:
I think a lot of affiliate marketers are probably one man bands. PewdiePie made $3 million in profit last year. He has one employee. He has probably made like $10 million this year.

Just a guess.

how does that website make money?
there are no ads in it
and the shop is not good enough to make that much money

Maxjohan · Dec 15, 2014

floppyrisk said:
how doe

how does that website make money?
there are no ads in it
and the shop is not good enough to make that much money

Oh, you went to his website? Nah, he makes probably 99% of his money from other means.

Deleted21704 · Dec 15, 2014

The founder of Pinboard is a one-man shop. And it seems he does fairly well:
https://pinboard.in/

I believe Instapaper was a one-man shop run by Marco Arment until he sold his majority stake.

Bila · Dec 15, 2014

theag said:
Both. Fixed base rate (around 100-150€/month) and then 0,5€ per call and 0,5€ per minute on top of it, plus another 0,25€ per minute if its outside of 9-5 timeframe. Currently costing me about 1k+/month.

Could easily deactivate the toll free 24h service hotline on my site and profit 1k+/month more, but I feel like the extra service goes a long way..

Would that be the equivalent to a pay for somebody that can do your admin and accountability as well ?

decaobr · Dec 15, 2014

Allen Wong, who wrote this book http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A3OGH1O/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20 and is here on the forum with the @regoapps name, is pretty awesome.

Ninjakid · Dec 16, 2014

decaobr said:
Allen Wong, who wrote this book http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A3OGH1O/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20 and is here on the forum with the @regoapps name, is pretty awesome.

He's the only successful solo-app-developer I can think of who's still making apps all on his own, when the market is dominated by large companies today.

cheksbry · Dec 16, 2014

great! i hope to see more names....

Get Right · Dec 16, 2014

I think it says something that it is so hard to dig up successful solopreneurs. As a lifestyle choice it probably means remaining somewhat anonymous. I think it must also drastically reduce your chances for success.

OP - are you opposed to employees? I love employees because they give me scale and lifestyle.

GuestUser140 · Dec 16, 2014

theag said:
Just get a secretary service.

I get about 10 calls a day at my 24h free hotline, one of my secretaries picks up in my company name, takes detailed notes and I email the customers the response and call back in very rare cases. Works perfectly and costs me way less then a full-time employee, makes the company seem bigger than it is (because multiple people are picking up the phone), etc..

Can you PM me details? Phone's making me crazy...

decaobr · Dec 16, 2014

Ninjakid said:
He's the only successful solo-app-developer I can think of who's still making apps all on his own, when the market is dominated by large companies today.

I don't know if you saw it, but he released a new app called "The Report Pro" last week, and the app become top 1 News app on both Paid and Free version, its really amazing that just one guy alone can do that.

Ninjakid · Dec 16, 2014

decaobr said:
I don't know if you saw it, but he released a new app called "The Report Pro" last week, and the app become top 1 News app on both Paid and Free version, its really amazing that just one guy alone can do that.

I did see it, actually. And yeah it's very impressive that he's still having No.1 apps, considering that no one on the app store really cares about who the developers are. Thing about Allen is that he works on apps tirelessly to get them to function and look nice. Yet if you look at most of the apps on the market, even ones by big companies, they always have some annoying issue with the UI, or the graphics just don't look right. The extra effort goes a long way.

theag · Dec 16, 2014

MichaelGrey said:
Can you PM me details? Phone's making me crazy...

There are no special details

. I'll just answer here, maybe it helps somebody else too.

I use http://www.ebuero.de (German company, but they also offer English and French speaking secretaries, which I'm not using right now). I use the standard (mid-level) pricing option with a few addons (toll free number, 24/7 service, additional number with different instruction that I use for my business partners). Maybe I'll change to the higher option soon, because I think with my volume it will be cheaper.

The setup is really a breeze. They give you a new phone number and pick up calls in your name at that number immediately. My main number is a VOIP number, so I just forwarded it to the new number and set it up in the backend so that they see that thats my other number.

You can set up basic instructions in the backend, like "never forward, I'll always call back. tell them I'm on the golf course" or "always forward after greeting, except from 2-4pm".

For more detailed instructions just call them and they can set up a lot for you. For example I have different instructions for day and night, and some FAQs that save me a lot of emails. Also for each request category I have a 2nd set of instructions, e.g. for technical problems they ask what exactly the problem is, which OS, which browser, etc or for order status requests they ask for the order number.

I'm constantly refining this, for example in the future I want to add an option in my order backend for the secretaries to check order statuses or make basic changes like order address corrections. So they can do some simple tasks of a virtual assistant too.

If you want to know something more specific feel free to PM me.

Bila · Dec 16, 2014

Get Right said:
I think it says something that it is so hard to dig up successful solopreneurs. As a lifestyle choice it probably means remaining somewhat anonymous. I think it must also drastically reduce your chances for success.

OP - are you opposed to employees? I love employees because they give me scale and lifestyle.

Same here, but mainly, i hire people who have skills i lack ( like being good with number s

, a certain type of personality that balances things out.... I am the people person, the face, the brand. Need employees who are well grounded, ( i do the creative part for a big vision ) ......etc

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