Tech Matters: Solopreneur Insights, Vol. 16

To join in the Industrial Revolution, you needed to open a factory; in the Internet revolution, you need to open a laptop.

- Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit

Technology has brought forth a Solopreneur Renaissance™.

Ironic, given that technology was the primary reason Solopreneurship fell into the shadows for over 100 years.

Here’s a quick history lesson that will set the stage for why technology is once again our secret weapon against the Mega-Corps that once locked commerce behind their gated communities.

Life Before Machines

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the concept of a massive corporation that employed thousands of people under one roof was completely foreign. New technologies enabled factories and office buildings to spring up in cities all over the globe, changing the way humans thought about their work forever. People flocked to the cities to take these new opportunities, leaving countless solo and small businesses behind. Thus began a tectonic shift from the way humans had conducted commerce for eons to an entirely new and unpredictable model.

Of course, some entrepreneurs continued to pursue their own small ventures. They provided local products and services to local customers, and were responsible for the entire production chain from start to finish. A local bakery, for example, would purchase raw ingredients from mostly local farmers, then serve a population of people within whatever radius they could physically reach.

In a matter of a few years, everything changed.

An Entirely New Game

New technologies that sprang up the mega-factories near cities were now capable of baking goods to the tune of 100,000 loaves of bread a day. Their game was centralized production with broad distribution: They centralized labor under one roof and distributed it across the production process. This separated every worker from the traditional start-to-finish connection with the product or service. Henry Ford’s assembly line comes to mind. No longer were highly-skilled craftspeople required to build complex objects or bake from scratch. Instead, one person transferred the wheat bags from the loading dock to the staging area. Another person opened the bags and dumped them into the mixers. Another took the dough and fed it into a machine (no person required!) that separated the dough into smaller loaves. And on the process went, until the bread was wrapped in plastic, stacked on pallets, and loaded onto another truck for delivery to thousands of newly-opened chain grocery stores.

Consumers and The Path of Least Resistance

Guess what happened to the original local bakery owned and operated by a single family? Soon, half of their customer base chose the convenience of buying bread at the chain grocery, where they simultaneously bought produce, meat, and other goods not offered at the bakery. Plus, due to the massive production volume from the factory, they could undercut the prices of the local bakery.

Profits waned, small businesses closed, and the owners took jobs at whatever local factory was hiring.

A Critical Shift

The story of technology in the 20th century features countless chapters about this new model of centralized production with broad distribution. We owe most of our economy today to this model. Some benefits, for sure. But, also some detriments. One detriment, in particular, became evident quickly: As the giant Mega-Corps waged war (directly and indirectly) on small businesses, pragmatism outweighed individual agency for those considering owning their own business. Soon, the centralized nature of the new model had absorbed all talent, all resources, and all markets under a relatively few brand-name empires.

This story largely remains the same until, one day, a brand-new technology emerged: Personal computing. But, I won’t drag you through the history of the first consumer computer systems. I suspect you already understand its arrival and impact. I only mention it to link us to the real technological shift that matters to us Solopreneurs: The Internet.

We take the Internet for granted now. But, I need you to stop and think about what it means to us Solopreneurs. For 100 years, corporations waged a ruthless war by leveraging their primary competitive advantage: the centralized production with broad distribution model. There was little, if any recourse for small and solo business.

But now? Think back to our independent bakery shop that got shut down by the Mega-Corp. Well, they had something all along that the Mega-Corp never had: Higher quality, personal attention, and a direct connection to the production process. They only lost their battle, because customers were willing to sacrifice these benefits for convenience and lower costs offered by the volume-based corporations.

Can you see where I’m going with this? To this day, Solopreneurs never lost our competitive advantages of higher quality, personal attention, and a direct connection to our products and services. But now, by a glorious—and ironic—act of technological progress, we’re also the most convenient and lowest-cost option. Think back to the quote I referenced to open this article. The game we play now doesn’t require a factory. It requires only a laptop and an Internet connection.

Technology has come around full circle for the Solopreneur.

How To Take Advantage of This Knowledge

I wanted to walk you through this history lesson, as it’s critical for you to understand why we’re able to compete in the first place. If you thought this was going to be a “Top 10 Apps for Solopreneurs” article, you’ve already figured out that’s not the case.

You don’t need another article that copies and pastes a list of tech from another article that did the same. You need to understand what these technologies MEAN to us and the customer. Once we understand this, we can approach any new technology through the lens of a smart strategic decision, rather than chasing the latest feature set.

After all, technologies come and go (I’m looking at you, Slack).

Let’s dive in.

Client-Facing Technologies

Regardless of industry, clients primarily care about the list below. Degrees will vary, of course, but neglecting any of these is a foolhardy, at best. Examine each category. Make a list of the technologies you’re using in each of them. Are the technologies providing the maximum benefit to the client? If there’s a better option available to you, then get it. Once again, our ability to compete hinges on leveraging the most powerful technologies available to us.

Quality of product/service

If your product or service does not meet a sufficient level of quality to satisfy the customer’s expectations, nothing else matters. Any technology that helps us improve the quality of our own product or service is paramount above all else. Apps and equipment have become so affordable and ubiquitous, most of us can easily access the exact same toolset that any large company uses.

Efficiency

Quality matters. So does delivery. Clients are often skeptical about a Solopreneur’s ability to get the work done on time. Technologies that improve our efficiency help us eliminate this concern. Combine these with powerful systems, and your results are quickly evident to your clients.

Customer service

Providing you can deliver quality on time, the fastest way to solidify your position in your customer’s mind is to take care of them with a level of commitment that far exceeds their expectations. There is absolutely no correlation between business size, composition, or industry and the quality of customer service. Everyone sucks at it, with the exception of those who are fully-committed to making it an intrinsic part of their business. Prioritize any technology that helps you serve your customers as if they’re the most important person in the world to you. If you value your lifestyle, you’ll value the people who pay for it.

Price

Solopreneurs already have price advantages baked into our business model. We simply do not have all the overheads that the big agencies forward on to their clients. So, it’s only natural that we can charge less than them. While most of the big companies could cut overheads by relying on the same technologies available to us, the reality is: they won’t. They’ve built their entire brand on the big agency model. They’re not going to “regress” to a more nimble model that literally pulls the rug out from under their dog-and-pony show. Our technology list here focuses on any tasks that would require a human, but that the tech can solve for us.

Convenience

Do not underestimate your clients’ desire for an Easy Button. Do they want the benefits of all the items listed above? Absolutely. But, not at the expense of constantly battling a process that feels like pulling teeth. Clients have their own tasks, pressures, and priorities. If you can alleviate their pain without any other friction, they’ll keep you around for life. Identify and use any technologies that position you as an Easy Button for your clients.

Technologies For Your Business Operations

Keeping customers happy is paramount for business success. But, there will be no business if our operations are broken. In addition to the list above, Solopreneurs must also leverage technology that keeps business on the right track.

Time management

Most people are terrible at time management. Perhaps they can skate by if they have an employer who pays them anyway. Solopreneurs do not have this luxury. The ability to effectively manage their time and energy separates those who succeed from those who fail. The entire list of client and business operations hinges on getting this right.

Communication

Wars have been started over miscommunications. In fact, I bet crappy communications are responsible for the vast majority of human conflict. This is especially true in business. Maximize any technologies that help you communicate with your clients and team. While you are ultimately responsible for your direct communications, technology can help you eliminate the most common client communication pain points: misunderstandings, confusion, requesting a project’s status, misaligned expectations, and responsiveness.

Project management

Project management tools help you stay organized, on task, collaborative, and profitable. Internally, they increase your ability to get your work done and collect valuable data that you can use to improve your systems. Externally, they help take care of many of the communication items noted above for your clients and team members. Many also include tools that help you send and receive files and correspondence directly.

Lead generation

It’s no secret that I believe service-based Solopreneurs should keep their client list small and high-quality. Nevertheless, it’s a great idea to stay on top-of-mind in your industry. One of the most common challenges I see in Solopreneurship is the Feast and Famine cycle. You work like crazy to get clients, get them, then start working on the projects. Meanwhile, you stop working to attract other clients. You get the projects finally done, then realize you have no one else ready to feed you more projects. Technologies can help you ease the burden of marketing and lead generation, filling your pipeline and keep it full.

Finances

Most Solopreneurs have little or no financial management sophistication. It’s their first foray into serious budgeting, billing, projecting, expensing, taxes, and payroll. While I still recommend hiring a professional to help with most of this (good ones pay for themselves), technology has made this much easier. They help you estimate and bill quickly, then manage your books to keep your business fiscally healthy.

All for one. One for all.

I want to leave you with an important point. Yes, technology has leveled the playing field. But, the game of Solopreneurship is not an individual sport. This is counter-intuitive, I know.

While we can provide outcomes at the level of the Mega-Corps, do you really think they’re going to give up their century-long winning streak? They may have lost their competitive advantages, but they haven’t lost their billions in market cap and teams of lobbyists. Nor have they lost their proclivity for stacking the deck against competition. All over the world, we are seeing big business team up with governments (i.e., pay their politicians to do their bidding) in an effort to tilt the game back into their favor.

If you value your lifestyle of Solopreneurship, and believe that others should have access to the same, then I invite you to start thinking about fellow Solopreneurs as your team members. We are the best community out there. Who else offers the promise of making great money doing important work while living as you wish?

Reach out to other Solopreneurs on social. Connect with them, share with them, and support them. It matters.

– Torrey​