Big week ahead as we continue to barrel forward in the entrepreneurial sense. As we forge onward, it’s important to take a look at solopreneur business opportunities that successful businesses frequently pursue.
On my end, there will be three key focuses:
1) Admin/operations
Since we – at Visto – are still an early stage tech company, it means most of us have to wear many hats. As a fellow business owner, this is likely a challenge you can relate to.
And since we’re getting more users and clients, it means we also have more admin work and little things to make sure the wheels are spinning.
I take care of most of it, because most of the rest of our team is in engineering, and we want them focusing on building out our platform asap.
So the bookkeeping, invoicing, bill paying, email writing, marketing, etc. – falls to me.
2) Sales
Time to start our outbound sales effort, which as you can imagine, also falls to me.
Considering our target market and product, I will probably lean heavily on LinkedIn – especially to find the right people to reach out to – then use their messaging as well as some email/phone to try and get more companies signed up. LinkedIn is a valuable gateway for solopreneur business opportunities, and it can take on the legwork of much of your research and networking.
3) Research
We’re curious about another target market that could be interesting for our platform. Before we spend too much time adapting our tech to service that market, we want to evaluate it first.
Is it a big market? Will those clients pay for our product? If so, how much?
I know that was pretty vague, but I’ll shed some more light on it as I get into the process of researching it.
Breaking Down the Pursuit of Solopreneur Business Opportunities
Step 1 will probably be to just reach out to that market and try to get on a call with 10-20 of those kinds of companies.
But again, I’ll fill you in on more details as I go through with it.
It’s also time for my monthly Visto company update email so I’ll be sending that as well.
What’s that email list all about (not to be mistaken with my daily business email you can join here)?
A few years ago when I started fundraising (the first time) for Visto, someone gave me some great advice:
Start an email list for your tech company, because many (most) people you talk to won’t end up investing (now), but you want to stay in touch, keep them in the loop with your progress, and build a relationship with them so that maybe they’ll invest at a later time.
It’s great advice, and I’m glad I took it. Starting a business doesn’t happen overnight, so patience is a virtue.
Leveraging Email as a Business Opportunity
So every month I send an email to Visto investors, and also to people I’ve talked to over the years who expressed interest in following along on our journey. I keep the lists separate – one for investors and one for everyone else.
It’s nothing fancy, mostly a summary of the major updates from the last month, the key focuses for next month, and any requests I have from them (I usually go into more detail, especially with financials, to investors than I do to the rest).
The beautiful part of this is that not only am I building a relationship with the list, but you’d be surprised at how many are more than willing to help – if you ask for it, which you should (politely) in your email.
I should clarify – I’ve only done this (so far) with my tech company, mainly because we have fundraised before and may do it again in the future. And building relationships with potential investors is very important.
But it can probably work for non-tech companies too.
Again, all it takes is:
- Ask people who you talk to if they want to be kept up-to-date on your business, and if so, add them to a list.
- Send 1 email per month, covering recent updates/progress and focuses for next month (this usually takes me all of 15 minutes, partially because I’ve written a LOT of emails by now).
- End with a short and polite ask (eg. if you know anyone looking for help with XYZ, I’m always open to introductions, etc.).
Highly recommended for any tech founders, and for non-tech too – let me know if you give it a try!
Have a great week, keep grinding and don’t miss out on my daily business emails here.
