Solo entrepreneurship
📪 The Optimal Agent Newsletter #051
Take Action:
Transform your free time into wealth (and professional growth) by developing and selling your first product.
Why It Matters:
Launching your first product marks the beginning of the solo entrepreneur’s journey (one of our preferred paths to Agency). By jumping in with both feet, you’ll learn to test market demand while enhancing your skills in product development, marketing, and sales — root-level abilities that will serve you in any future endeavor.
How To Do It:
Validate Your Idea: Before starting product development, confirm there's a demand for your product. Conduct market research, seek feedback from potential customers, and ensure “willingness to pay”. This step ensures you're investing your time and resources into a product people want. For a one-book master’s degree on product (and price) validation, check out Monetizing Innovation by Madhavan Ramanujam.
Build Your MVP: Start with a simple version of your product that meets the core needs of your target audience — the “minimum viable product”. Focus on functionality and value rather than perfection. This approach allows you to enter the market quickly, gather feedback, and make necessary adjustments without huge upfront costs. For the 101, grab a copy of The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.
Develop a Launch Plan: Craft a strategy to introduce your product to the market. This plan should include list building, setting a launch date, determining your marketing and sales channels, and deciding on final pricing. Utilize social media, email marketing, one-on-one conversations, and your personal network to spread the word.
The Inspiration:
Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, is an exemplar of the solo entrepreneur. At the turn of the millennium, Blakely developed the first product in the then-new category of “women’s shapewear” — launching an empire via the humble step of trying to eliminate unwanted panty lines from her dress pants.
Starting with just $5,000 saved from selling fax machines door-to-door, Sara led Spanx for over twenty years before selling a majority state in the company to Blackstone for $1.2 billion
Sara is a natural-born salesperson. Her original sale to Neiman Marcus is a case in point — when the pitch went sideways, she took the buyer into the bathroom to demonstrate her control-top hosiery right then and there…
"In the middle of my meeting with her, I could tell I was losing her. And I just knew it was my one shot, so I said, you know what, Diane? Will you come with me to the bathroom? She goes, excuse me?”
In 2013, Blakely signed the Giving Pledge, planning to give away the majority of her wealth to empower women in politics and entrepreneurship
Explore More:
Listen: O.A. Podcast Episode #51: "Low Volatility Jobs: Overcoming Limitations & Finding Opportunities." Patrick and I delve into the financial challenges and opportunities faced by teachers and the importance of leveraging free time to optimize Wealth (Audio)
Watch: The YouTube version of O.A. Podcast Episode 51
P.S. "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." – Christopher Hitchens
