PART 1
My journey started back in November 2023.
I was scrolling through Twitter and YouTube and saw a word that I had never come across before. Solopreneur.
The word caught my eye. Mainly because I was pretty sure I knew what it meant even though it's not a word you'll find in the dictionary. I liked what it was describing. A solo entrepreneur. A one man business.
It completely resonated with me. As a software engineer by trade I'm used to working alone, especially since the pandemic hit and we were forced to work remotely.
See, I always wanted to ditch the 9-5 thing but thought that was too big and too scary for a single person to do. Surely you would need a lot of money to get started, right? Surely you would need investors? The whole concept seemed impossible to me.
That was until I found all the success stories. I became obsessed with the concept of solopreneurship. As I went further down the rabbit hole I found people like Justin Welsh, Kieran Drew and Marc Louvion to name a few. All of whom have one person businesses making huge money every year. So I thought, if they can do it, why can't I?
People like this have cleared the pathway for those looking to escape the 9-5 grind.
I decided 2024 would be the year I try this out. My main goal for the year? Build a one man business, earn my first $ online and learn a sh*t ton along the way. My main goal in general? Build my business to $100K per year, quit my 9-5 and live with freedom.
From December 2023 to February 2024 I began brainstorming ideas. I was like a lost puppy looking for his ball. How on earth did people find good ideas? I began writing everything and anything that came to mind down in my notes app on my phone.
By February I would have approximately 70 ideas. Each as weird and whacky as the other.
I was skeptical though. If I went through all the trouble of building a product for one of these ideas how would I know if anyone would even be interested in using it?
I got scared and took a break for a week. All these ideas seemed too big and the chance that they would take off into the atmosphere was slim (in my mind anyways).
I was learning more and more about solopreneurship as the weeks went on so I decided to build a product centered around everything I was learning about. The idea was simple. Enter a business idea and use AI to give the user details about how to market it, who their target customers were, what to write on their landing page, etc. All for a measly $27 per use.
I quickly built it and launched on March 3rd 2024.
I posted about it on Indie Hackers, Reddit and Hacker News. I was so excited about the prospect of earning my first internet $! Surely everyone wanted to use my product! Nope...all I got was crickets.
I was quickly brought back down to earth.
PART 2 BELOW
That was until 5 days later. I looked at my phone and had a new Stripe notification! Cha-ching! My first internet $. What a feeling!
That was goal number 1 complete.
It would be another 6 days before I would get my second sale...and then another 15 days to get my third. It was an emotional rollercoaster. I went from feeling like quitting the 9-5 was actually possible to thinking that maybe the ups and downs aren't worth it.
On one hand I had made my first internet dollar so I should my ecstatic, and don't get me wrong, I was but I wanted more. More validation that I could do this long term.
By May I was starting to give up on the product. I had learned so much in the past few months about marketing, SEO, building an audience, etc. and I wanted to build something that I thought could have more success so I focused on one critical thing that I had learned about.
What was it?
Building a product that had SEO potential.
A product that I knew hundreds of people were looking for.
See this was my thinking - If I could find a keyword that people were searching for on Google hundreds/thousands of times every month and it was easy to rank high on search engines then I would go all in (in SEO land this equates to a Keyword that has a Keyword Difficulty of <= 29 and an Average Search Volume of >= 500).
I began researching and found that the keyword "micro saas ideas" was being searched for around 600 times each month. Micro Saas was something that really interested me. It was perfect for solopreneurs. Small software products that 1 person could build. What's not to like if you're in the game of software and solopreneurship?
Researching keywords like this became like a game for me. I was hooked. I was doing it every day, finding gems that were being searched for hundreds and thousands of times every month that still had potential. That's when I came up with my next product idea.
I decided to create a database of Micro Saas Ideas all with this sort of SEO potential.
See if you can build a product that you know people are looking for then that's all the validation you need.
So I put this theory to the test. I created a database of Micro Saas Ideas with SEO Potential and launched it in June 2024.
This time it was different. I made $700 in the first week of launching. A large contrast to my previous failed attempt at becoming the worlds greatest solopreneur.
Since launch I have grown the product to $3K and I couldn't be happier.
I know what you're saying, $3K isn't a lot. But it's validation. It's validation that I can earn $ online. Validation that I can grow a business and it gives me hope that one day I'll be able to quit that 9-5 grind.
My plan is to keep growing the business. I expect there to be a few challenges up ahead but I'll tackle them as I go and learn from the failures and successes.
I have a newsletter where I share Micro Saas Ideas with SEO potential every week if you're interested in this type of thing (https://www.findmicrosaasideas.com/subscribe). Feel free to come along for the ride. If not I hope this post brings you some value
If you're thinking about starting as a solopreneur, stop thinking and start doing, you won't regret it.