Week 1: Wins as a Beginner Solopreneur
The first big investment
I’m starting a new series where I share my journey as a beginner solopreneur. I’ll take you through what I invest in, adjust, learn, build, and sustain along the way.
My goal with these posts are to show you that being a solopreneur and building online isn’t about one single thing (ex: just creating content, just creating products, etc) but it’s about being intentional with time, energy and mindset.
Every Saturday I’ll post an update with a post like this. I just happened to post this on a Tuesday cause I put it off. Oops.
Let’s get into it.
What I’ve invested in
I’m investing into an academy and a copywriting course.
Literally Academy by Lara Acosta
BTW: I don’t earn any commission by talking about this academy, just sharing my thoughts.
I wanted to pull the trigger and invest in something. Anything. Well, with discernment. I had seen Lara’s posts on X and LinkedIn.
When I heard about the academy at first I didn’t really think of buying it. I was on the fence about things when it comes to getting courses because I thought I could do it all on my own.
Then time went on and I met a personal trainer on X that I’m working with, and he told me about the Literally Academy. Since I had already come across it, I took that as a sign to invest in it after spending a couple of weeks thinking about it.
Per the Literally Academy’s website, you get to “leverage the potential of personal branding, become an authority in your niche and start attracting dream prospects for your business without spending a penny on ads.”
I know that I want to strengthen my personal brand and that I want to become an authority in email marketing for fitness businesses, and I do want to attract clients because, well, you need clients for a business.
In the academy, there are multiple courses. Each having their own modules with topics ranging from mindset, positioning, high impact writing, algorithms, lead generation, and how to turn personal branding into a business-driving machine.
Investing in the course would be helpful with structure, organization, and discipline. I want to become more organized when it comes to solopreneurship, and I want to get legit about this sort of stuff. I want to get good at this early on to build systems upon it.
The thing is you’ve got to know yourself well. Forget about the metrics you’re having now.
Have discernment and “read the room” of your solopreneurship journey by realizing that what’s holding you back isn’t just lacking some expertise, but instead that it’s something underlying like organization, which is another reason I invested into this course because I felt like I was scrambled when it comes to my business journey. I was trying so many things and I felt like I was spreading myself thin.
Investing in a course like this would help me stay on track and keep myself accountable when it comes to solopreneurship.
A lot of why I procrastinated and put things off for a while was because I thought I lacked knowledge and that I somehow would be able to attract that knowledge on my own.
But by taking this course, I’ll know that I already know the information from this course so then I would be eliminating the excuse that I don’t know enough to start, to keep pushing forward or to keep executing.
Copywriting Course by Kieran Drew
Copywriting is one of those skills that you need to start any business. I figured I would just invest into it, but I’ll do it once I finish the Literally Academy.
I haven’t even thought of logging into the course, but I’ll obviously give you an update in another post like this once I get to it.
What I’ve changed
So I’m writing on Substack, X, LinkedIn and Beehiiv. I talked more about my process of posting online (and what I’ll be posting online) across these four platforms in an article I recently posted: how to show up online even when no one is watching.
But here’s a brief summary of what I’ll be posting.
Every week on these platforms
Substack
3 long form posts
1 note every day
X: 2 tweets per day about things like
Key takeaways from my articles from Substack
Email marketing tips and strategies (shorts and threads)
Lead magnets
Personal stories
Lifestyle/business insight
Behind the scenes of my work
LinkedIn:
Repurposed Substack articles
Email marketing posts
Solopreneurship posts
Lead generation posts
Occasional lifestyle posts
Beehiiv
1 newsletter every Sunday
Most of my solopreneur endeavours I’m focusing on LinkedIn and my separate newsletter The Pitstop.
What I am aiming towards
I have always envisioned myself to have a creative type of business. That’s why at times I’ve been at a crossroads when it comes to writing online. For some reason I have thought that writing is not creative. But that was more so in the past. Now I know you can literally be creative with any skill you have or build on the side.
I also film on YouTube. In the past I was aiming to create some sort of business with filming. But I realized I’d like an OG type of business. By that I mean having a newsletter that I send out weekly or bi-weekly.
In this newsletter I’d provide:
High-value content while promoting your paid or free offers. I’d include a blend of email marketing, entrepreneurship and lifestyle content
Valuable insight, tools or case studies
Promote free guides, coaching, or digital products
Encourage engagement
I’d nourish this newsletter with content from my Substack, LinkedIn and X and drive traffic from those platforms to the newsletter.
Overall, I want to really value networking with people and socializing. And I do want video content to be part of my business somehow. So this is how I’d want to navigate the way that I run my business.
Digital skills
I’m learning email marketing for CEOs and founders. I’m learning copywriting because I think every great entrepreneur is great at convincing their audience of a story, to buy a product or service, or to take some sort of action.
And personal branding I hope to use the skills from Literally Academy to come up with a plan and grow it.
My personal thoughts on my journey
Like any new beginner solopreneur, I have had my doubts along the way. I have tried learning a lot of different skills, posting on different platforms, and trying out new business models. But I think it really comes down to mindset.
If your mindset doesn’t somehow involve playing the long game, creating assets like newsletters, courses, or digital products that pay off over time then it’ll be challenging to truly create something sustainable.
With all of this in mind, my mindset is on developing a business model that can actually scale. In other words, playing the long game is where it’s at. Expecting to see results overnight just… doesn’t work.
Let me know what you thought about this post, if you’re a beginner solopreneur or not.