The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business - Elaine Pofeldt

(one-man show)

Partial excerpts (antilibrary)

Copyright

2018

2: What Makes Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses Work

Laszlo Nadler, the entrepreneur who started the planner business Tools4Wisdom, took an economic leap bigger than many people can imagine taking. He went from working in a steady, though not especially high-paying, job in project management to selling daily planners he developed.

When Nadler started, he had no idea how to run a business. And he had no desire to be an e-commerce entrepreneur—one of those six potential routes to creating a million-dollar business. His goal was to create a side income by creating a truly automated business that would give him the freedom to choose to work—or not—on any given day. An online store, he realized, was the quickest and easiest route to doing that. “The 4-Hour Workweek got me started,”

SUCCESS FACTORS

When Nadler looked for the right business idea, he searched for clues in his daily life and concluded that his near-obsessive fascination with daily planning tools would be a good place to start. The more Nadler improved his own productivity in his project management career, the more content he established for his business idea.

Uncovering an idea that you will enjoy thinking about every day—whether that is when you are writing copy for your website or answering a customer’s question about it—is the secret

Of course, you need to do your market research to make sure there are other people interested in buying what you plan to sell

DITCH THE DIY

There’s nothing inherently wrong with being hands-on if you love the work you’re doing, but that approach won’t get you to $1 million in revenue. What will help you break into the seven figures is to expand your capacity beyond what one person can do. The only ways to do that, without hiring employees, are by hiring contractors to help you, outsourcing, and automating some of your work. Most high-revenue, nonemployer business owners use some combination of all three strategies