Flying solo

•

Updated: June 8th, 2022

This is an archive of the Starter Story newsletter, which is read by 247K people every week.

In each issue, we share the biggest business ideas that are working today, along with case studies of founders who are making millions every month. Sign up today ➜

Flying solo

Some years ago, everybody would raise their eyebrows at a business with a solo founder. But that was often more of an investors’ belief than really a determining factor.

Today, though, solo founder success stories are piling up - Jeff Bezos was one!

Those who start a business today have cutting edge technology to build a business available at a very low cost. And hiring contractors who help occasionally is easier than ever.

One of the greatest things about internet businesses is that you can start a business that generates a lot of revenue without co-founders or full-time employees.

For example, this solo founder pockets $192K with his Substack newsletter. Something unthinkable a few years ago, when media companies had to have an editorial team, a sales team and a tech team.

Here are more examples of great businesses built by solo founders:

Ready to start a business on your own? Here are 100 amazing one-person profitable business ideas.

By the numbers:

51M -> people are independent workers
238 -> solo founder startups became unicorns
600 -> Alex newsletter subscribers

Our take:

Being a solo founder definitely has its pros and cons.

The cons, like the lack of different points of view, can be overcome.

And the pros, they’re amazing:

#1. You can move faster. No need to consult every decision.

#2. Owning 100% of the business. Hard not to love this one.

#3. Zero co-founder drama. One of the most common reasons why startups fail.

Learn how to build a successful business

Would you learn to play the guitar by composing your own songs? And how to cook by creating your own recipes?

No, you wouldn't. You'd copy the techniques of the best to learn how they think.

Starting a business is much the same. And you don't need to figure out absolutely everything on your own when you can learn how others did it successfully before you.

There is no secret to building a profitable business. All of the information can be learned.

Join Starter Story to access the Internet's biggest business knowledge database and see the exact timelines of how founders built their businesses to thousands of customers.

Get real answers to questions like:

How do people find great business opportunities?
What did they do to get their 10 first clients?
What challenges do they face at every stage and how to overcome them?

Join Starter Story Premium for $2.58/week. A no-brainer investment for your business.

Quick hitters

(1) This crypto app raised $300K. Even when the crypto world seems to be constantly crashing lately, new projects keep launching in this space.

If you are not likely to be at heart this is one of those industries with high risk but high rewards. See some of these wildly successful projects: a platform trades that $12B worth of crypto per day, a crypto wallet that raised $20M, a $100K crypto tax calculator.

(2) This founder turned his hobby into a $540K/year business. Making a living out of a hobby is something that many dream of. That’s why I love featuring stories like this, I feel like they have something extra that comes from that passion.

It’s not an unusual story, many founders pursue the same dream, and many succeed: like this guy who turned his whiskey tasting hobby into a $200K business, or this $12M/year disc golf business.

A message from Semrush

Grow organic traffic faster than ever

At Starter Story, we've used Semrush tools and reports to grow our traffic to 1.4M monthly readers.

Semrush lets you access 50+ in-depth tools and powerful reporting to help grow your online visibility. You can do SEO, content marketing, competitor research, PPC, and SMM from just one platform.

Overall, this tool can make a huge impact on your content marketing from strategy, to research, to optimization, and beyond.

Exclusive Starter Story Offer Try Semrush Free For 14 days

The great wave of changing career paths

Since the pandemic, 50% of workers want to make a career change and 20% have already made that change. The reasons? More flexibility, working from home and higher wages.

This is a great trend because (1) it shows that a change is always possible, you’re not stuck in that cubicle forever, and (2) has led to an increase in the demand for online training of all kinds

Capitalizing on it, this founder makes $660K/year with her online training on how to make a living managing Pinterest accounts.

Online education is a huge wave and many are already riding it:

Thanks for reading!

Add Text Section Add Story Add Idea Add Business Add Tool

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

See full profile