What if I told you that today’s digital economy allows anyone with a laptop to earn more than a fortune 500 CEO, while:
✅ Having zero employees,
✅ Working only 4 hours a day,
✅ Having an open and a flexible schedule,
✅ And working from anywhere?
Here's what I mean:
On the left - Is the income of Bob Jordan, the CEO of Southwest Airlines
On the right - Is the income of Justin Welsh, an internet solopreneur
I like to call it “The One-Person Business Model”.
It’s a modern approach to entrepreneurship that allows you to create and manage your own online businesses, while:
✅ using minimal resources
❌ and without the traditional hassles of a physical office, hiring employees, or investing a lot of money.
In fact, you can get started with less than $100 🤯
Noah Kagan — who built the $100 Million dollar business ‘AppSumo’, summarizes it beautifully:
With this model —
you’ll essentially be building your entire business using only your laptop 💻,
and by leveraging your skills and passions to generate income.
All of it -while operating in your spare time.
Sadly...
most people find it hard to wrap their heads around starting their own business, and feel held back by not having enough:
❌ Clarity - about what is actually important
❌ Vision - when it comes to what they truly want
❌ An effective strategy - to make it all come together.
So to help you out, here are 5 steps you can follow to bring your own one-person business to life this year:
🟣 Step 1: Pick your niche
The secret sauce to your online business's success is finding the right niche.
☝️ Niche = the specific area or market in which the business operates and focuses on.
To make your business work,
you'll want to choose a niche that aligns with:
✅ Your interests,
✅ Your skills,
✅ and market demand.
To make sure you're on the right path, ask yourself these three questions:
- Am I genuinely curious or interested in this topic?
- Am I good at it, or am I willing to invest time in learning more?
- Is there a market for this niche, as evidenced by other successful businesses in this space?
🟣 Step 2: Grow an audience
Now that you picked your niche, it's time to start building an audience.
This is the most crucial step of the process.
Once you have an audience - monetizing will become effortless.
To build an audience -
You'll need to develop an interesting and consistent content strategy that will get your potential audience to want to follow you.
To figure out what kind of content you should create, ask yourself:
"What is the media format I most enjoy making?"
- 🤳 Shooting videos/reels?
- 🎙️ Recording podcasts?
- ✒️ Or writing captivating text posts?
Whatever it is, dive headfirst into it and really commit...
so you can begin developing a unique voice and messaging.
It's like fine-tuning a radio signal 📻
When you hit that perfect frequency, it'll be like a dog whistle to your target audience – they just won't be able to resist.
Remember, consistency is key.
It will be hard at first as you start from zero, but don't give up.
Your future depends on it.
🟣 Step 3: Choose a business model
As your online presence grows, it's time to start thinking how you’re going to monetize your online business.
Here are my top 5 business models, especially effective for the one-person business model:
- Selling services: This is where you do something for someone else and essentially:
- Save them time on simple tasks they don’t want to do
- or give them better results through a skillset you’ve developed.
- Sell coaching/consulting: This is where you become a trusted guide, sharing your expertise and support clients in achieving a specific result.
Best if you can do this in the fields of: their business, their career, their finance, their health or their relationship. - Selling information products: "Productize" your knowledge and experience by packaging your expertise into sellable digital products you can deliver automatically.
There are a ton of digital products your can create in a weekend, including: ebooks, digital courses, templates, checklists, SOPs, audio programs and more. - Affiliate marketing: As an affiliate, you’ll be promoting other people's products to the audience you’ve built, while earning a commission (a percentage of the sale price) for each sales you bring.
Affiliate marketing is one of the best business models for beginners, as it allows you to earn a high income without having to create, sell and deliver products.
Brand deals and sponsorships: In this model, you partner with companies that align with your niche and values, and they compensate you for advertising their offerings to your audience. This can be in the form of monetary payment, free products, discounts, or other perks.
🟣 Step 4: Build authority
As you get better at what that you do and help more people, it's time to build a strong authority and a reputation.
You do this by collecting:
💬 Reviews,
💬 Testimonials,
💬 and case studies
...that prove your expertise and the fact you know what you're talking about.
This social proof is crucial to your long term success, because it'll boost your credibility and help you attract even more clients and customers.
🟣 Step 5: Automate your business
Now comes the exciting part, where you work towards earning more and working less. 🙌
This is where all of your hard work pays off and you get to finally live that "laptop lifestyle" I keep ranting about.
In this stage in your journey — you might find yourself juggling multiple tasks and wearing many hats.
This can get overwhelming and limit your growth potential.
Thank god for the internet.
To make the most of this opportunity, follow these steps:
Identify tasks that can be automated or outsourced - like email marketing, social media posting and customer support.
Set up tools to help automate tasks - like email autoresponders and scheduling tools for social media.
Consider hiring a small remote team or freelancers - to handle repetitive tasks or areas outside your expertise, like virtual assistants, content creators and website developers.
Streamline your processes - to minimize manual work and boost productivity. This can looks like creating templates for your content, setting up an onboarding system for clients and more.
And there you have it!
5 steps for building your own one-person business model.
Incredibly simple, yes... but not easy.
That's why most people don't do it, and stay trapped in an unsatisfying job.
Don't let that be you.
With 12 consistent months of focused execution on these steps -
you should be able to have much more, if not complete control over:
✅Your schedule
✅ Your income
✅ Your work location
✅ And your lifestyle.
☝️ Did you learn something new?
Reply, and let me know. I read everything.
See you next Saturday!
- Nataliya
