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🖐 Hi, Solopreneur! 

Happy Wednesday, and welcome to issue #36 of Solopreneur Doorway, your weekly insight and inspiration to turn your skills into solutions people buy.

This issue is a 4.0-minute read.

Discover the Terrible (and “Well Done!”) Big $$ Decisions I Made in Two Solopreneur Ventures

⚡️ In this issue:

• You get to laugh, cringe, cheer, and empathize with the big $$ decisions I made in my first and second solopreneur ventures.
  

• 5 secret metrics I lean into as a finance specialist to understand the short- and long-term fiscal impact of spending money in a solopreneur model.

**This issue contains insight on my solopreneur financial adventures and is not to be construed as financial advice. Always consult your financial advisor, attorney, and accountant for appropriate steps for your specific business model.

Finance Choices that Transformed the Businesses and Helped Me Sleep at Night

Making financial choices is tough and even more challenging when they impact your solopreneur business.

😀 When you make the right ones, you feel like a rock star, and your business gets an immediate boost.

5 positive financial decisions I made in my solopreneur ventures:

• Collaborating in the early stages with smart business attorneys to gain valuable insight on compliance, business entity formation, trademarks, and how to transition a business to a third party.
  

• Interacting every quarter with a CPA and bookkeeper to maintain accurate financial records, tax filings, and payroll documents.
  

• Hiring sharp teammates to assist clients and experienced freelancers to create marketing ideas, write copy, and build websites.
  

• Attending conferences to meet industry leaders and learn from successful business owners in similar industries.
  

• Purchasing IT equipment that runs well, lasts, and facilitates the daily tasks for me and my teammates.

Finance Choices that Hurt the Bottom Line and Put My Businesses in a Bad Mood

😕 Financial errors keep us up at night. When you feel awful about a fiscal misstep, it’s helpful to remember that we try to make the best decisions we can given the data available at the time.

Still, when I discover a time machine, I’m reversing these five financial ‘Ouch!’ decisions.

• I allocated big dollars to freelancers to help me create a digital course. I built slides, spreadsheets, templates, infographics, and voiceovers that sit idle on my hard drive. (The freelancers were excellent; my weak industry research and awful client-product fit led to a course I never launched.).
  

• I spent hard-earned coin on pricey, monthly subscriptions for SEO tools way before I understood SEO or was ready to launch my website and blog posts.
  

• I handed over tons of US currency to a sensational web developer, who built for me a website that was off the mark in helping me reach my target market with the right message. The web developer was excellent. My error was failing to collaborate with a smart marketing research team before building the first website.
  

• I authorized a high monthly allocation for a domain company that had slow web hosting and poor customer service. I should have conducted thorough research on web hosting firms before I chose where to place the business website.
  

• I let go of valuable cheddar to purchase an excessive amount of audio and video equipment before I was ready to launch a podcast or build a YouTube channel; the equipment will be helpful this year, yet the opportunity cost of purchasing that equipment vs. investing those dollars in market research for the website was a nasty misstep.
  

Allocating $$ to advisors, especially when you think it’s bothersome and not worth the expense, can be a tough business decision.

When I collaborate with an attorney, CPA, or professional mentor, I always treat the expenditure as an investment rather than a cost.

And if that logic doesn’t convince me (it always does), I lean on Mark Twain to remind me to hire smart folks who specialize in specific arenas.

5 Quick Finance Terms I Lean On to Spend Wisely and Increase My Odds of Favorable Results

🏔 Positive communication and accurate data are the foundation for having healthy fiscal conversations with advisors and making smart finance decisions.

My MBA adventures and Wall Street days took me down deep rabbit holes of complex math. The net result is that I learned how money moves through corporations of all kinds.

To this day, I lean on five finance concepts every time I spend money on product development or work with vendors, advisors, and freelancers.

• CAC: Customer acquisition cost

• ROI: Return on investment

• BEA: Break-even analysis

• Amortization

• PM: Profit margin

Chat GPT and other online resources will give you helpful examples for each of those concepts. Your time is valuable, and I’ll let you explore those as your schedule permits.

📣 Business Article of the Week

TikTok’s days are in countdown mode across the US.

All major news outlets covered the TikTok vote and its potential impact on millions of solopreneurs. Exploring US and Chinese perspectives re: the app is a case study well worth your time.

🔑 What’s the takeaway?

First, no platform stays the same forever. Change is constant, and we solopreneurs have to diversify.

Second, your marketing strategy should speak different languages depending on the arena in which you interact with your audience; namely, create content that embraces the same message yet shares it in a unique fashion.

In this way, you minimize the negative impact on your business model that any one social media platform might deliver.

I hope TT sticks around. The edutainment is priceless.

By the way, if LinkedIn went away tomorrow, would your client funnel disappear?

Diversify.

Stay curious and keep opening doors.

-Erik

Whenever You’re Ready: You and I Can Advance Your Solopreneur Adventure

Schedule Your 1:1 Strategy Session: 

Let’s improve your business model and strategy. You get my 14+ years of solopreneur and entrepreneur experience to listen, suggest, and amend your business strategy so you can fall in love with your business all over again.