From one recovering solopreneur to another let me tell you frankly that the solopreneur within me has finally capitulated to the fact that it’s not nearly as an attractive model as it once was. In fact, I’m now somewhat repulsed by the idea.
Not only that, I’ve actually been more successful now that I’ve put the solopreneur act on hold. This idea of doing things “on my own” within my own little vacuum and coming up with ingenuity and ground-breaking innovation is a farce, a lie. The point that I’m making is this: It’s far more healthy, far more satisfying, and the potential for success is far higher when you partner with others.
There’s no badge of honor, no medal for keeping that title – who told you that anyways? When did you feel that that model was really that cool?
Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, a psychology professor who studied innovation, once said this:
All great inventions emerge from a long sequence of small sparks; the first idea often isn’t all that good, but thanks to collaboration it later sparks another idea, or it’s reinterpreted in an unexpected way.
Collaboration brings small sparks together to generate breakthrough innovation.
I’ve found this to be incredibly true in my own experiences as some of the “best” ideas that I’ve had have become infinitely better in the context of a team as we’ve been able to iterate on them and refine – the process has been so successful that I cannot ever not partner with people on the ideas that I have so as to risk them not coming into fruition!
So the question sits with you – are you a so-called solopreneur? What’s keeping you there? Pride? Ego? A misguided belief that you can simply do it “better” by yourself? Or are you worried that you won’t make as much money by sharing the load (and the wealth) that comes into your small little pipeline?
Are you so special as to believe that you’ve got it all figured out and that you don’t need anyone (or want anyone) to lean into your ideas and challenge them a bit?
I certainly wrestled with these things and spent a great deal of my time as a solopreneur but I’ve been able to get past the emotional and financial challenges and see the light – partnering with others and the power of community easily makes up for those things (and then some).
I guarantee that you will be more successful in partnership with others than you could ever be on your own. There are an infinite amount of examples of this in business, in the context of sports, and all other areas of life that you could pull from and for every success story out there that features “that one guy” or “one woman” there’s a team that’s sitting behind them who helped them get there.
Even if you’re a small-time blogger (at this point) it’s never too early to find that partner to work with and to build your blogging empire together. Heck, you’ll do it faster and you’ll have much more fun in the process.
Make it a goal this year to kill the solopreneur. It was a fun model while it lasted.
