Who has done this?
- James Clear ā¢ Atomic Habits is a book and a blog about habit formation
- AJ ā¢ Carrd is a no-code editor for building one-page websites
- Paula Pant ā¢ Afford Anything teaches how to invest in real estate
- Ben Thompson ā¢ Stratechery writes about business, strategy and tech
- Jack Butcher ā¢ Visualize Value teaches product design, development, marketing and branding
- Mike Carson ā¢ Park.io automates domain backordering
- Hal Elrod ā¢ The Miracle Morning is a book on productivity daily morning rituals
What types of businesses are the most common? What types of businesses do these people tend to run?
- Software – B2B SaaS
- Consulting business – high-ticket consulting and coaching services
- Physical businesses – manufacturing, dropshipping, selling proprietary products
- Content businesses – blogs, podcasts, online courses, paid newsletters, YouTube channels
- Productized services – standardized offers served on a recurring basis – web design and development, graphic design, copywriting
What type of skills do these people tend to have? Programming, design marketing, sales, copywriting, etc? What are examples of people who possess each?
- Allen Walton is experienced in e-commerce. He grew SpyGuy to 7 figures.
- Michelle Tascoe is experienced in finance. She made $1,200,000 from 1-on-1 financial coaching and is on track to $500,000 ARR.
- Adrian Wood is experienced in music production. He grew Modern Producers to $120,000 MRR.
- Stacy Berman is experienced in fitness. She grew her year-round outdoor fitness Bootcamp to $1,000,000 ARR.
- Xue Zhaofeng is experienced in economics. He launched a course on economics that brought $8,000,000+ in sales.
- Kendall Summerhawk is experienced in growing businesses. She won 9 StevieĀ® Awards for her business-coaching certification firm for women. Which grew to $2,000,000.
- Mike Carson is an experienced developer. He grew Park.io to $1,500,000 ARR.
- Nathan Latka is experienced in venture capital and fundraising. He founded Heyo which raised $2,500,000. He shares his learning on running a SaaS business on his podcast that generated $1,000,000+ in sponsorships.
- Ana Gavia is an experienced apparel designer. She grew PINKCOLADA to $1,000,000+ ARR.
- Brian Dean is experienced in writing and SEO. He runs Backlinko which is one of the most authoritative SEO blogs on the internet.
- Adam Wathan is an experienced full-stack developer. He made $2,500,000 selling books and courses on web development.
- Ben Thompson is an experienced business, technology, and media analyst. He grew Stratechery to ~$3,200,000 ARR. Where he writes about the strategy and business side of technology and media.
What does one-million mean? One million in revenue? Profit? Something else?
- One million dollars in revenue. Which is the top 1% of one-person businesses.
What does it mean to be a million-dollar, one-person business in terms of team composition? Is it still a one-person business if you work with contractors?
- One-person businesses are run by one person only when it is feasible. Many early-stage, one-person businesses outsource accounting, engineering, manufacturing, logistics and customer support. While founders take care of product design, development, marketing and sales.
- Elaine Pofeldt says the most successful businesses outsource web design, invoicing, fulfillment, paperwork and other back-office functions. Uku TƤht started Plausible as a solo founder. Which had no traction for ~1.5 years until Marko Saric joined Uku to help with marketing.
- Most million-dollar, one-person businesses get help.
On average, how much time do they spend working per week or month?
- You donāt need to work long hours to grow to $1,000,000. Ed Gandia works 30 hours a week and is on track to $1,000,000 ARR. Justin Welsh plans to work 3 days a week while making $3,000,000 ARR in 2023. Brett Williams scaled down to less than 8 hours per day and hit $1,000,000 ARR.
- Donāt forget that building a million-dollar business is hard. Taking on too much pressure may lead to burnout. Brett Williams grew Designjoy to $1,920,000 ARR and burned out. Jayson Gaignard didnāt anticipate the overhead of scaling āTicketsCanadaā to $7,000,000 ARR. He decided to scale it down to zero and close it. Laszlo Nadler avoided scaling Tools4Wisdom too much to spend more time with his family.
How often are these internet businesses versus brick-and-mortar businesses?
- The majority of known million-dollar, one-person businesses are internet businesses. They use the internetās reach to build brand awareness and get more customers. They use the internetās accessibility to grow and scale quicker and easier.
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