Three Lessons I've Learned From Going Solo

My six-month reflections

Hello and thanks for reading the first issue of my newsletter!

If we haven’t met before, my name’s Susanne and around six months ago, I decided to leave my full-time job in consulting to build a new portfolio career that allows for various interests and more autonomy, creativity, and specialisation.

I’ve always been interested in pursuing entrepreneurship and dabbled in the Fintech education space in 2018. However, after never being able to decide or focus on just one thing, I didn’t want to keep waiting for a spark that might never come. I felt my best chance was to simply start and figure out my path through experimentation.

So far, I’ve been working to balance my career around three areas:
1. Fractional experience leadership (independent consulting services)
2. Building digital products and services (diversifying my income through side projects)
3. Research in AI narratives and natural language processing (completing my masters and teaching)

I would never have had the courage to start and continue down this path if it weren’t for the hundreds of people I’ve followed and read over the years who’ve transparently shared their strategies and tactics in solopreneurship and life design.

It therefore felt fitting to focus this first post on some of my own learnings so far, and reflect a little on the mistakes and pivots I’ve made to keep growing.

1. Leveraging your existing skillset is much easier than starting from scratch

After handing in my notice, I was so excited to have the time and freedom to work on any side project I wanted that I didn’t stop to think about the effort involved in trying to make multiple brand new ideas a reality. I was determined not to constrain myself and believed that my enthusiasm and interest would push through any hurdles.

I spent the early months floating between choice paralysis (unable to make a decision) and extreme productivity (making significant strides in design and code), but stretched myself so thin across multiple ideas that I rarely actually finished anything. It was really fun and I ‘felt’ creative, but I wasn’t making much progress. I was also learning a rather obvious lesson that not everything I enjoy needs to become a project…

In parallel, I had been running some free webinars, my coaching and mentoring services were picking up, and I was able to start noticing patterns in why people were reaching out or referring me. (This was overwhelmingly around design leadership goals and less about design craft.) I’d already been looking into how I could better help the people for whom 1-1 mentoring wasn’t suitable, but who still wanted something structured, and after being inspired by this podcast which focuses on productising services, I decided to experiment with building a short course.

My approach to this was entirely different - I was confident and able to build the skeleton of the idea within a few days, which left much more time to personalise the content and include the learnings I feel are missing in most leadership trainings. I was building the kind of product I’d have wanted several years ago and believed in what I was making. I didn’t get distracted by building a perfect website or writing the final copy, I was much more willing to put the concept in front of others earlier and test.

I pulled together a really simple Notion one-pager and sent the link (manually through email + Whatsapp + Linkedin dms) to a group of people and communities I felt may be interested, along with a heavily discounted pre-launch price. So far, I’ve gathered 12 sign ups, have another 10 people on the waitlist, and am now focused on finishing the materials and interviews, as well as launching a public landing page by next month so that I can start marketing a little more widely and iterating further.

What I learnt from this was less about selling and more about the impact a small win can have on your attitude and self-belief in the realm of entrepreneurship. Resistant self-talk has been something I’ve battled these past months, particularly around marketing and sharing publicly, and sometimes just having a small voice that can say undeniably that 22 people have believed in what you’re making, is enough to keep going.

2. If something’s working, follow the momentum

In solopreneurship, momentum is everything. There’s no boss to push you, no colleagues to stay accountable to, you’re on your own and totally responsible for the success and failure of your work. It’s hard to keep a motivated attitude, particularly when you’re not getting much feedback in the beginning, so any small wins become your fuel. After my mini success with the course idea, and realising how much I enjoyed interacting with people on something I was creating, I decided to take a second look at my side-project backlog and re-prioritised it based on the following:

1) Personal excitement/interest level (will I enjoy working on the problem, even if it’s not ultimately a success?)

2) Purpose (will it help or entertain people?)

3) Existing skillset fit (do I have an advantage over others that will help me launch this quickly and build something valuable?)

One area I narrowed in on is AI - I’ve been studying narrative futures for the past two years at Edinburgh University, with a focus on natural language processing, bias, and the intersections between AI and the humanities. Most people are unaware this area of study exists and I get a lot of questions about it since most content right now is around automation and GenAI.

It’s early days, but I’d really love to build an online space for a community of people to discuss and learn about the ‘slower’ side of AI, through the influences of narrative, politics, culture etc. Maybe it would involve everyone building a project or writing something that can be shared, I’m not sure yet. I’m going to test the idea by running a workshop or small cohort in January and have already started booking speakers and a potential sponsor to support in making some scholarships available.

As with my previous learning, I’ve found that if I focus on areas I’m confident within and am able to move quickly on, I don’t worry about having a 100% ready-made idea and have been able to generate momentum by openly discussing something quite conceptual, and then iterating from there.

3. You don’t need to forget the crazy ideas

In trying to manage distraction around creative projects, I now block out 4 hours per week - I call these the ‘FOMO 4’. These hours are never planned and exist purely to give me time to work on absolutely anything I wish, outside of my core goals and client work.

I’ve been doing this for over a month now and whilst I wouldn’t say I’m particularly productive in this slot, it has been fantastic for helping me let go of ‘what ifs’ and ‘shiny object syndrome’. I no longer need to tell myself that I can’t work on something, as I know I can revisit it during the ‘FOMO 4’, where I allow my enthusiasm and interest to guide my choices on the day.

I’ll often know immediately, or at least within an hour or so, whether an idea is worth pursuing once I start working on it. And at that point, I can choose to investigate it a little further during next week’s slot, or discount completely and remain a consumer or hobbyist.

This time is also good for revisiting ideas which have stalled, but that I don’t want to let go of completely. One example is a project I built over summer called ‘GuessClub’, a live quiz events service targeted to the older and homebound population. I received an amazing response from everyone I tested it with, and learning more about designing for accessible services was fascinating, but I haven’t yet found a way to grow it further without significant time investment. It remains a passion project for now, rather than the helpful community initiative I feel it can become.

On reflection, taking this kind of time-blocked approach years ago would have saved so much effort and overthinking, and would have helped me decipher between the things I feel I should be working on, vs what I, Susanne, actually want to do.

What’s Next?

Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed the post. If you’ve any feedback, advice, or thoughts on what you’d like me to share, let me know!

Coming up, I’m planning to write every other week and will focus my content across a blend of experience strategy deep dives and case studies (my main area of expertise), my learnings and experiences in solopreneurship and career design, and my process of creating and launching side projects.

Have a great week!
Susanne