You must read these books before starting a one-person business

Solopreneurship requires you to be efficient and know when to make certain decisions.

If your business grows and you haven’t optimized early on, then you will slowly drown.

To combat any potential inefficiency, you need to know what you’re up against.

You need to prepare by:

• Automating as much as possible
• Creating processes which handle any type of situation.
• Being aware of any potential roadblock you might come up against.
• Creating a business model that is aligned with your longterm goals.
• Creating SOPs (standard operating procedures) at every step of the way.
• Building a business fortress which can immediately scale when the need hits.

To be prepared you need to firstly develop a “Business Mindset”.

More importantly, you need to develop a “Solopreneur Mindset”.

To do this, you should know how to:

• Lessen your workload overtime.
• Know about common problems before they happen.
• Prevent yourself from creating an inefficient business.
• Survive as a one-person business by building systems and automations from the get-go.

The following books will ensure you do all these things.

Once read, you will be fully prepared to start your Solopreneurship journey.

The Millionaire Fastlane — M.J. Demarco

M.J. DeMarco presents a framework that contrasts the traditional “Slowlane” approach — relying on a job, saving, and investing for retirement — with the “Fastlane” strategy that emphasizes entrepreneurship and rapid wealth creation.

He outlines key principles such as identifying scalable business opportunities, leveraging time and resources, and focusing on value creation.

This book will help you come up with a successful business model specific to who you are.

Even though “Fastlane” is in the title, this book is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

The focus is on an efficient business model.

An efficient business model:

• Scales easily and infinitely.
• Has low overhead and low initial investment.
• Has less major obstacles that it can face in the future.
• Requires little input after a larger initial investment of time and energy (passive).
• Allows you to spend more time working on the business than working in the business.
• Something which relies as little as possible on human input (in other words, is automation friendly)

I highly recommend reading this book first.

The business model you create will be the hardest thing to change later on, if not impossible.

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

Gerber zooms in on the concept of working “on” your business rather than just “in” it.

He emphasizes the importance of creating systems and processes that allow the business to run smoothly without the constant intervention of the owner.

The book outlines the stages of business development and provides practical advice on building a company that can scale.

This book has helped me form tons of systems and SOPs early on.

It shows you how important it is to write things down and create systems.

Everything I do is something which will be necessary to either automate or teach later on.

You are essentially alone as a solopreneur.

The more you can get your business working by itself, the better.

This book will teach you how to achieve a self-working business from the start.

Much like the last book, the sooner you start this process, the less difficult it will be later on.

Even if you’re finding this book late in the game, you can still implement its advice.

It just might be more difficult. Especially if you are already inundated.

Get ahead of your future problems.

How to Grow Your Small Business — Donald Miller

Miller shares insights on building a solid business foundation, attracting and retaining customers, and creating effective marketing campaigns.

The book also covers operational efficiency and leadership principles essential for scaling a business.

I use this book mainly as a safety manual.

It gives you the tools for many future situations.

If you read it cover to cover, you’ll know how to preempt common pitfalls that solopreneurs often make.

Scaling is often what kills a business.

If you don’t know how and when to scale, you’ll fail faster than you can pick your own schnoz.

If you can know what parts of your business to scale and when, you’ll save yourself a lot of problems.

You’ll learn which paths are good and which paths are dead-ends.

Without a safety manual you could:

• Waste capital on a poor marketing strategy.
• Spend too much time conducting sales and not automating.
• Create too much unnecessary content while little research would have produced more traffic.

And the list goes on…

Miller helps the early solopreneur by guiding them away from common pitfalls.

These pitfalls cost time and funds.

Put another way?

Reading this book will lead you to greater gains in a shorter timeframe.