Running A Solo Business: Can You Really Do It All Alone?

As many of you enter the latter stages of your thirties, you wonder if there’s more to life than banging away at a conventional job. You’ve only been in the workplace for a couple of decades at the absolute most, yet it’s already weighing heavily on you. There’s no way you can deal with another 30 years of this, so you decide to break free and start a solo business.

It’s your best idea come to life: a business that you’re in charge of, with no one else to answer to. More and more people in the 30+ age bracket are starting businesses because of the terrible job market and the lack of genuine opportunities in modern workplaces. However, the big trend here is that you want to set up and run these businesses alone. You don’t have the funds to hire a team of employees – it’s a business idea that revolves around minimum expenditure and an overreliance on yourself.

The question is, can you really run a business alone?

Yes – but there are several caveats and challenges to be aware of. Today’s post will discuss some of these challenges while also providing a few useful tips to help you run a solo business.

Some Solopreneurships are More Feasible than Others

The largest barrier between your business idea and going completely solo is the idea itself. What business are you trying to start? There are countless examples of successful one-person businesses, such as:

- A freelance writing business
- A door-to-door home cleaning business
- A tutoring business
- A graphic design business

All of these ideas share a common theme: they revolve around you providing a very specific service. You lean into your talents and start selling your skills to others – be it online or in person. There’s no need for anyone else because you’re in charge of offering the services directly.

Similarly, you can think of loads of business ideas that aren’t feasible to carry out alone. An immediate example that springs to mind is a coffee shop business – you literally need employees to help run the shop and serve customers with you. Any business that involves multiple things going on at once will normally only work if you have employees.

If you want to start a solopreneurship, then you need to consider the feasibility of your business idea. Can you go at it alone, or will you run into barriers because you need a team around you? Try to find different business ideas that can be done solo, even if this means tweaking your original plans. For instance, you want to start a marketing agency, but this is impossible to do on your own. Instead, you can set up a freelance business focusing on one or two specific marketing areas – like SEO or content creation. It’s easier for you to manage a business like this because your scope of services is smaller.

Scaling a Solo Business Can Be A Big Challenge

Theoretically, any business can begin as a solopreneurship. Hardly anyone starts with a full team of employees and a massive office. In fact, you’ve probably heard endless success stories from huge companies talking about how they started with just one person in their bedroom.

Gymshark is one of the most obvious examples of this. It’s one of the biggest fitness brands in the world, but it started with a guy drop shipping health supplements and sewing his clothing from his home. Initially, you can say this was a solopreneurship, as nobody else was involved. As time went by, Gymshark gained more notoriety, and the demand increased. It meant the company had to expand from a small home business into a warehouse with numerous employees. It’s kept growing and growing to the point where it’s now a huge billion-dollar company!

That’s one example of many, yet it shows the key point here: scaling a solo business can be a monumental challenge. There may come a point where you have no choice but to hire employees to scale your business idea and meet demand. If you want to do that, then go ahead! But, if you only ever want to run a solo business, you need to have a big internal talk about scaling.

You may need to make a sacrifice at one stage where you can’t keep up with the demand for your services. This will mean you’re never able to maximize earnings – though there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re working hard and earning enough money to be happy, then good for you! Don’t take the jump and attempt to scale your solo business into something with more employees and responsibilities. You’re content with the work you’re doing, so you need to be at peace with losing out on customers because you can’t meet the demand.

Let AI Do Some of the Lifting for You

Artificial intelligence is marketed as a life-changing thing for everyday people. In reality, it feels like it should be aimed towards solo entrepreneurs over anyone else. AI technology and software are perfect for people running a business alone. You can use this tech to do some of the heavy lifting for you, taking the stress out of your job and making it genuinely possible to run a functional business alone.

It doesn’t take much to find chatbot software transforming internet interactions with AI technology. ChatGPT and Gemini are great examples, and they empower you to run a better business. You can use them as your personal assistants or brainstorming teams – and that’s before we look at other apps focusing on specific business tasks with artificial intelligence.

Things like SurferSEO or Frase are AI-powered applications that help you create high-quality content to rank in search engines. It’s extremely possible to run and manage your entire marketing strategy with the help of AI rather than getting a dedicated marketing team to take over for you.

Going back to the topic of chatbots, you can use them for customer service as well. Install chatbots on your website for people to talk to if they have questions about your business. You may even be able to use AI-powered email messaging systems that read and respond to emails for you. It’s like having a team of dozens, but it’s just you and some software. Also, it’s no surprise that the number of solopreneurships has increased as the development of AI technology comes on leaps and bounds.

Don’t Forget About Outsourcing

A lot of solo businesses fail, and part of this is because solopreneurs don’t understand outsourcing. Well, let’s rephrase that. You may understand outsourcing, but you ignore it because you think it goes against the concept of a solo business.

Don’t fall into this trap!!

Outsourcing is a perfectly legitimate tactic for a solopreneur, and it still means you’re running your business alone. You aren’t hiring full-time employees; you’re simply outsourcing a few services here or there to make life easier. The people you outsource don’t work for you – and they probably work with loads of other businesses, as well.

It’s also far more affordable to outsource, as you don’t have to set up employee benefits or pay them a constant wage. You just pay for the services as and when you need them. That’s also a key point: you only outsource when you need to. If you’re ever burning out or in need of a little boost somewhere in your business, then it’s super smart to outsource – if only for a specific job or a small amount of time.

Keep a Close Eye on Burnout

We just touched upon it, but burning out is very common in a lot of solo businesses. It’s only natural when you attempt to do everything yourself. This is another reason why many fail, so you need to keep a close eye on burnout to manage your physical and mental efforts.

The nature of a solopreneurship means you don many hats and take care of numerous tasks. Nevertheless, you should listen to your body and take breaks when you need to. That’s why outsourcing and using AI are both phenomenally beneficial. They take the weight off your shoulders and can stop you from burning out.

Know your limits, or it will be impossible to run a solo business before running yourself into the ground. Don’t ignore the signs of burnout when you spot them – it’s okay to take a week or two off; after all, you’re the boss!

Looking at this topic from a fresh perspective, you can take a few key things away from this post.

For one, it is possible to run a solo business all by yourself. You can establish a successful company without any employees (and with minimal expenses). The trick is learning what types of businesses suit the solopreneurship business model – and finding ways of getting help without needing employees.

If you manage all of this, then there’s no reason you can’t start and run a very successful solo business. The world’s your oyster, so maybe it’s time for a dramatic career change in your thirties and beyond.