About Solo Innovator
Hi, I’m Tom – a programmer, writer and lover of all things entrepreneurship. With this blog and its supporting resources, I help people learn how to start their own business, either to make a bit of money on the side or to buy back their time and start working for themselves.
If you’re interested in learning more about my backstory and the formation of Solo Innovator, keep reading…
Back in early 2020, I started to get bored in my day job.
As a consultant software engineer, I spent my days helping other people develop software for their new businesses. In other words, every day I was helping other people achieve their dreams of owning their own time while firmly securing myself into a 9 to 5 work schedule.
I decided that if I wanted to buy my own time back, I needed to build something of my own. So in September 2021, I launched my first product, an uptime monitoring and status page application called Status Hive.
The only problem, the launch flopped!
Amongst a lot of other basic entrepreneurial mistakes, I’d focussed solely on building the technical aspects of the product instead of focusing on the customer. This meant that the product lacked any USP in an already crowded market, resulting in me not getting a single paying customer despite my efforts.
Armed with a lot of new experience from my first failure, I picked myself up and started working on a handful of other businesses for the next year and a half. Some failed, while others started to bring in a bit of revenue, including my SaaS poster generator, Code Poster.
While I was gaining a lot of hands-on experience from launching these businesses, I knew that I needed to learn the fundamentals from other experienced entrepreneurs to really launch a successful business.
However, I found it really difficult to find any clear and solid entrepreneurship advice on the Internet. With so many contrasting opinions out there, knowing exactly what to do that would allow me to buy back my time was really difficult.
So, in February 2023, Solo Innovator, my solopreneur blog, was born.
By combining my research and experiences of startup successes and failures, my aim was, and still is, to simplify the entrepreneurship journey so that everyone can build a business to buy back their time.
Where To Get Started
Looking to get started on your entrepreneurship journey? Check out these hand-picked articles to get you started.
My Solopreneur Journey
If you’re interested in seeing what I’ve been up to in my entrepreneurship journey, click here. I’ve been posting regular updates since May 2023 about the progress of my businesses, including the ups and downs.
Coming Up With A Great Business Idea
If you’re looking to start your own business but don’t know where to start, check out our ultimate guide to coming up with a great startup idea.
You can check out my guide to coming up with a great business idea here
Marketing Help
Got your MVP ready, but need help marketing your product, check out our complete guide to marketing below.
Connect With Me
If you’d like to be kept up to date with the latest information about starting a business, be sure to follow me on other areas of the web as well as on this solopreneur blog. Or, if you’d like to get in touch, head on over to my Contact Page.