Solopreneurs are Changing the Economic Landscape
Vivek Chauhan
Assistant Professor @SBJITMR, Nagpur | Computer Science, Emerging Tech | Content Creator✍️
A new breed of entrepreneur is sweeping the business world, and solopreneurs are doing it all on their own.
We're still deciding on the best phrases to define solopreneurs because they're growing so quickly. The Small Business Administration (SBA) classified 50.7 million enterprises as small in 2019, with up to 499 employees. However, 81 percent of them were business owners who did not have any more employees and were grouped together. As more people turn their attention to beginning their own enterprises, a slew of new technology emerges, equipped with the tools to turn anyone into a business owner. Indeed, they're making it easier than ever for more people to establish their own enterprises.
These are solopreneurs, or entrepreneurs that run their businesses entirely on their own, and they're about to transform our economy.
A one-person show is run by solopreneurs.
A solopreneur is a business owner, however not every business owner is a solopreneur. The majority of entrepreneurs begin as sole proprietors, but the main distinction is in their goals. While an entrepreneur aims to build a large company, a solopreneur seeks to start their own business. We used to lump one-person performances like these into the category of freelancers, who offered standard freelancing skills like designers, consultants, and accountants. Despite our best efforts to communicate in the same language, a growing number of these single, self-employed professionals are rejecting traditional notions. This transformation is being driven by content creators, e-commerce providers, and traditional service suppliers. They come in all forms and sizes, and some of them don't even bother to quit their day job.
We are currently witnessing a major exodus. People are quitting their employment to create their own enterprises. Not because they want to build a giant firm, but because they want to rediscover their work-life balance or find meaning in beginning something new. According to a research published by MBO Partners in 2021, 51 million people are self-employed. However, according to Census Bureau data, less than 3% of them filed as firms intended to hire staff. According to the report, 82 percent of small business owners prefer to keep their businesses small, and 56 percent prefer to remain solopreneurs. Many people resorted to entrepreneurship to enhance their lives, not to add to the stress of managing others or setting up a large organisation. They have that option with solopreneurship.
Technology allows for a wider range of solopreneurs.
The first split between solopreneurs and freelancers occurred when the former began to market themselves through social media impact. We might have thought of influencers as a niche market at first. Even micro- and nano-influencers with tiny followings can now earn $60,000 to $100,000 per year. Many people still provide services that are similar to freelancing. They do, however, conduct content operations and sell physical things via affiliation or their own line. A phenomenon like solopreneurship might not have been viable ten years ago. However, as automation makes the task of running a business easier, people are recognising they can do it on their own.
Kylie Jenner (of the Kardashian clan) built a cosmetics empire by outsourcing manufacture and packaging to private label companies and delegating sales and fulfilment to various services. With only seven full-time and five part-time staff and her tremendous social media presence, she's become a billionaire, according to some sources. And Kylie isn't the only one. Drop-shippers evolved from Amazon and eBay's third-party order fulfilment. They've grown as brands thanks to systems that allow them to design, manufacture, and sell their own products directly to customers via a bespoke e-commerce site. From dog trainers to therapists, solopreneurs can make six-figure salaries. From babysitting to gardening to selling homemade cupcakes locally, a variety of passion-driven companies are making dreams a reality. As technology continues to make doing what individuals enjoy even easier, solopreneurs will expand their business into new areas.
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A more diverse economy is a more powerful one.
In 2020, independent freelancers will account for 36% of the US workforce, contributing $1.2 trillion to the economy. This is up 22% from last year, and according to one survey, 83 percent of CEOs expect to increase their usage of freelancers in the next three years. This quick increase was aided by the global health crisis, although solopreneurship has been on the rise for more than a decade. Non-employer enterprises experienced tremendous growth in 2013, according to reports, and three years later, they expected that the number of solopreneurs will explode by 2026. Solopreneurs will continue to take up a growing share of the economy each year as technology makes business easier and our long-held perceptions of the workplace are modified.
Solopreneurs are neither freelancers nor business owners trying to expand. This new breed of solopreneur will require more than a new moniker: they'll also require a new set of tools. When you're running a one-person show, project management software is less beneficial. Instead, solopreneurs require technologies that automate as many aspects of their firm as possible in order to remain competitive while working alone. Most people find that managing all of these tools is the most difficult part of the process. This has spawned a whole new industry of advising solopreneurs, websites that connect them with firms that need their services, and platforms like ours that provide people with both the tools and support they need to stay in business on their own.
Major corporations are continuing to automate and centralise their operations. To earn the same income, they'll require less staff, leaving fewer slots in the old system for everyone to fit. However, there is more opportunity for people to create their own businesses. Even if they don't have staff, solopreneurs create jobs, support their families, and disseminate economic advantages throughout their communities. They'll form more networks of solopreneurs who hire solopreneurs, and they'll become more resilient as a result of their collaboration. A severe economic slump will result in the closure of a significant number of small firms. Closing each and every one of these small, dispersed enterprises, on the other hand, is much more difficult.
As the number of solopreneurs grows, society as a whole will become more economically resilient. Instead than letting huge firms drive the economy, solopreneurs give us the option of a local butcher and handyman. Diversification improves a group's chances of survival, just as agriculture is driven by its own logic, which leads to the cultivation of seed banks and the planting of more than one species of apple. The more economic spaces that solopreneurs take up and raise, the more stable they will become.
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