Being a solopreneur sounds very… solo.
But I’ve come to realise that being a solopreneur doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone.
In fact, support for solopreneurs can be one of the most important parts of running a business — whether that’s practical help, friendship, encouragement or simply having someone who understands.
You run the business.
You make the decisions.
You deal with the clients.
You decide what happens next.
And ultimately, the responsibility sits with you.
But I’ve come to realise that being a solopreneur doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone.
In fact, I think having the right people around you can be one of the most important parts of running a business.
Some Mornings You Just Need Your People
This morning didn’t exactly start brilliantly.
A 1:1 I’d planned for was cancelled.
Something I’d bought to improve the way I work was dismissed as something we could have done more cheaply.
And some client work I was expecting hadn’t arrived.
None of these things individually was disastrous.
My business hadn’t suddenly fallen apart.
There wasn’t an emergency to solve.
But added together?
They left me feeling thoroughly deflated.
And that’s one of the strange things about working for yourself.
If I’d been employed in an office, I might have turned to the person at the next desk and said:
“Well, this morning’s going well…”
We’d have had a five-minute moan, probably laughed about something completely unrelated, and then got back to work.
As a solopreneur, there isn’t necessarily somebody sitting at the next desk.
That’s why you need to create your own version of it.
My Secret Squirrels
I have a small group of business friends we affectionately call the Secret Squirrels.
I’m not going to tell you what makes the squirrels secret — because then they wouldn’t be very secret, would they?
But I can tell you about the people.
There’s Sheena , Claire , Jo and Angie
We’re all running our own businesses.
We’re all doing different things.
And we certainly don’t spend our time having formal business meetings and presenting quarterly reports to one another.
Sometimes we brainstorm.
Sometimes somebody needs another pair of eyes on something.
Sometimes there’s a difficult client conversation or a frustrating situation that needs to be shared with people who understand.
Sometimes there’s good news that deserves celebrating.
And sometimes somebody shares something completely ridiculous and we all laugh.
That’s part of the support too.
Why Support for Solopreneurs Matters
There are things about running a business that are difficult to explain to somebody who has never done it.
The excitement when an enquiry comes in.
The disappointment when something you thought was definite disappears.
The client who makes your day.
The client who makes you want to hide under your desk.
The idea that arrives when you’re supposed to be doing something completely different.
The days when you’re absolutely convinced you’ve got this.
And the days when you wonder what on earth you’re doing.
Having other business owners around you means you don’t always have to explain the background before you can talk about the thing that’s actually bothering you.
They get it.
They’ve probably experienced their own version of it.
And sometimes simply hearing “Yep, I’ve had one of those days too” is enough.
Your Team Doesn’t Have to Work for You
When we talk about building a team in business, we often immediately think about employees, associates, VAs or outsourcing.
And yes, they can absolutely be part of your team.
But I think there’s another kind of team that’s just as important.
The people who support you.
Your team might include people you see regularly in person.
It might include people you’ve met through networking.
It could be people hundreds of miles away who you mostly talk to online.
It could even include AI. FocusBot has certainly become part of mine — particularly when I need to get everything out of my head, work through an idea or turn “I’ve got all this going on” into something I can actually tackle.
But AI doesn’t replace the people.
Because sometimes I don’t need an answer.
I need a conversation.
Sometimes I don’t need a solution.
I need somebody to listen.
Sometimes I don’t need someone to make the frustration disappear.
I just want someone who understands why I’m frustrated in the first place.
Friendship Has a Place in Business
There’s another element we don’t talk about enough.
Friendship.
Not every business relationship needs to be about referrals, collaborations, opportunities or what somebody can do for you.
Some of the most valuable relationships I’ve developed through running Focus Guru have become friendships.
We know what’s happening in one another’s businesses.
But we also know what’s happening outside them.
We share the successes and the frustrations.
We can talk seriously when we need to.
And we can be completely daft when we don’t.
Support for solopreneurs doesn’t always need to have a measurable business outcome to be valuable.e.
Sometimes feeling less alone is the value.
Solo Doesn’t Have to Mean Alone
I am a solopreneur.
Focus Guru is my business and ultimately the decisions about it are mine.
But I don’t run it completely alone.
I have people I can brainstorm with.
People I can ask questions.
People I can celebrate with.
People I can be frustrated with.
People who will listen.
People who will make me laugh.
And yes, occasionally a FocusBot that will help me untangle the contents of my brain.
That’s my team.
Yours doesn’t need to look anything like mine.
It doesn’t need a name.
It doesn’t need scheduled meetings.
It doesn’t even need everyone to know they’re part of it.
But I think support for solopreneurs matters, and we all need people around us who provide encouragement, conversation and friendship.
Because there’s power in being a solopreneur.
But there’s even more power in knowing you don’t have to do it alone.