You sit through endless back-to-back meetings. You’re tired of hearing the same corporate jargon over and over: “Let’s not boil the ocean.” “We’ll circle back.” “We need to get our ducks in a row.” You give to an employer that doesn’t value your input or ideas, and you’re exhausted experiencing the Sunday scaries every weekend.
And every time you’re at work, you’re thinking to yourself, There’s got to be more to my life and career than this.
And guess what, you’re absolutely right. You can experience a fulfilling career on your own terms, with unlimited potential for making money, without being tied to an employer who doesn’t care about your wellbeing.
If you’ve been toying with the idea of starting your own business but have been put off because you thought you needed capital and a team, the good news is that you don’t need a large investment or more than one person in your business to make it successful. You can build a solo empire that replaces your 9-5 income entirely, and even make more money from it than you’re currently earning at your job, minus the stress, anxiety, and lack of career progression opportunities.
To be completely honest, this won’t happen overnight. However, if you have persistence and are consistent, and if you have one or more high-income skills plus a deep problem you can solve easily with just your laptop, then you’ve already got what it takes to build a six-figure solo business.
Here’s exactly how you can go from employee to solopreneur this year:
1. Find The Right Idea/Niche
This is often the hardest step of all because there are so many options available on the internet and you may be super-talented and not know where to start. In this case, conduct an audit of your strengths, narrow down to the top two or three which are the strongest and which you enjoy the most, and then stack them to create a service. At the same time, do market research to find out what is needed the most in your chosen industry right now, so that you can be best aligned with market demand.
Just so you know, three of the best and most popular business ideas for solo entrepreneurs in 2025 are:
- Online creation (content creation, digital product creation, app development, etc.)
- Online consulting
- Online coaching
Within these fields, there are of course many competitors, but there’s so much scope for growth and for picking a narrow niche that aligns with a highly specific market.
2. Set Up Systems
As a freelance professional or solopreneur, you’re in charge of literally everything. All aspects of your business, from behind-the-scenes admin and finance to customer engagement and service delivery, hinges on you. This can create a high-pressure situation which can even go as far as injuring your wellbeing, which of course you’re trying to avoid by building something outside of your job.
Therefore, to make things easier, have systems, workflows, and processes in place that cut short your time so you can focus on being creative and doing your best work. You don’t need to hire anyone, at least not at this stage. You just need to know your way around AI tools, automation systems and sequences, and create a process that you follow regularly to manage your time more efficiently.
Some examples of tools that can cut short your labor and save you time without hiring anyone include:
- Typeshare
- Canva
- Mailchimp
- ChatGPT
- Airtable
- Notion
3. Focus On High-Ticket Or High Volume
There are two ways to sell your services or products and scale to six figures within a couple of years at the most: either have digital products that are priced very low and sell them at a high volume because of their accessible price point, or, as many freelance professionals and solo business owners prefer, have a handful of high-ticket clients that you can sell to each month.
For instance, as a coach, if you had a coaching package that sells for $4,000 and you had five of these clients, you’d be earning $20k a month, which would translate into $240,000 annually. There are a number of ways to achieve this, such as:
- Choosing to only work with corporate (B2B) clients
- Choosing to only work with corporate clients who operate in a high-pay industry such as tech, or specifically, SaaS
- Working exclusively with high net-worth individuals
As a bonus, once you have completed these steps, you can continue layering or stacking your skills and services and producing spin-offs to create scalable income. For instance, you could repurpose the content in your 1-2-1 coaching sessions for high-ticket clients, and turn it into a course, e-book, licenced material, etc.
Stop waiting for permission, the right time, or enough money to get started. You can build your one-person empire right now, without quitting your job, and scale it to the point where you’ll have the freedom and flexibility to hand in your notice without ever looking back. Your consistency, skills, and execution will reward you.