My One-Person Business Philosophy - Full Article - Dan Koe
For the near entirety of running my business, it has been a one-man operation. A one-person business. Only myself.
A creator, if you will.
Somebody who creates digital products and services while selling them via digital real estate.
That is to say, products that require 0 time and effort to sell after they have been built. They can replicate infinitely while being hosted online.
There is a progression to this. You can start as a beginner and scale infinitely (with time, intelligence, and leverage).
Recently I've built a small team that I plan to keep small and dedicated to the mission behind Modern Mastery — the private community with quite literally everything I know posted inside.
I was a one-person business for ~3 years full time. I hit my first $50K month as a creator.
The point of this email is to show you what's possible and often isn't talked about. My approach is unique. It goes against the grain of common business advice because that's what I like to do. I question everything, take the good advice, and discard what my gut tells me to.
Let's dive in:
The Foundation: Experience
A traditional business has branding. They craft their brand message in a way that appeals to what they are trying to sell.
If you haven't been able to tell, the world is going personal. The world craves authenticity and human connection. Big business does not do that. Work is going remote. More people are hiring independent contractors. Those that have some form of monetizable skillset will thrive.
The education industry is shifting before our eyes. (Insert statistic about online education projections in 10 years).
The formal education system is broken and anyone can teach someone that is one step behind them.
(Just look at YouTube, there are people teaching marketing, Photoshop, productivity, and any other interest. They rake in cash when they create a beginner-level digital product & service stack — while fueling sales with their audience)
Everyone needs to learn. Meaning that brands that provide value will continue to grow. There is zero competition if you follow what I am about to say.
The thing is, there is still a cap at the beginning. A testing phase if you will to see if you can make it through. If you are selling your time for money with your skills there is still the problem of time. We want autonomy.
My first success was freelancing after trying and failing at multiple different skill-based business models. For every one of these failures, I stacked experience. This goes for every other growth-oriented pursuit. Personal development and the lot.
That digital art page that didn't work? It helped me make designs for my personal business and taught me how to grow on social media.
Those ecom brands that failed? They taught me direct response marketing, branding, and advertising.
Yo-yo dieting and weight lifting? They taught me discipline, consistency, and the value in personal experimentation.
Drinking a bit too much? It taught me that I needed people, environments, and goals that are conducive to my vision.
Diving deep into spirituality? It taught me the voice and tone I am most attracted to and resonate with - the one I want to put across.
Experience is the key here. Doing unconventional things (occasionally extreme), failing, and stacking lessons. Iterating until you have the pieces to create an irresistible offer that nobody else can.
NOBODY is going to go down the same exact path as you. They do not have your same voice. They do not have the conditioning you've picked up over time. They do not have your same biases, interests, failures, or any other of the billions of choices, thoughts, and actions you have taken.
Experience IS your brand. Experience IS your message. Experience is your USP, what sets you apart from the competition. It is your content strategy, product / service foundation, and everything else related to your business.
Experience is my notion of a "one-man business model."
Personal growth = business growth.
This is one of the many reasons you need to go all-in on the path of improvement. It is fulfilling and lucrative.
It is also a very spiritual journey. It becomes lucrative once you transcend your non-enlightened self-interest.
The Money: Unique Systems
Improving yourself and stacking experience falls under the health, wealth, and relationships verticals. We can take that further into mind, body, spirit, and business.
This is where burning, lucrative problems exist.
You have overcome SOME problem within these verticals. The way you did so is unique. This can be packaged up into a step-by-step system that gets results - focused on your transformation.
This is how you make a lasting, valuable impact on humanity. By changing an individual's human experience. (Is that not all that matters at the end of the day?)
Transformations and systems that make it easy to acquire that SELL. One, because they are easily marketable to your past self. Two because they are not commoditized. Nobody else can sell it. Only you. Market research is already done.
This works incredibly well for digital products, consulting, and education offers.
The Distribution: Socials
Social media platforms are free distribution of your unique systems. No paid ads necessary unless you want to. I get around 5-10 million impressions across socials every month. That would cost $35,000-$70,000 per month with paid ads. (Per google).
You grow on them by deconstructing the platform and figuring out how to get eyes on your profile. You also have to create content that the platform favors.
If you have money, you can also invest in someone to help you grow it.
Your ideas for content should revolve around The Content Pyramid.
Your brand should revolve around the Social Matrix.
Your content should revolve around 3 things:
- Education
- Entertainment
- Inspiration
If you follow those steps (and create content that does well on the platform) it's hard to fail.
This revolves around your experiences and lessons. The actionable advice you give from improving yourself and your skills. The authenticity you display by documenting your process and showing people your life. The growth you receive by dishing out your lessons in a way that the platform favors, allowing you to grow.
People follow and buy from you because you are at a point in life that they want to be at.
Then, you will need to market and sell your offers through the platform. These strategies vary depending on the price of your offer.
Slowly, you build out a value your digital offer ladder and restrict levels of access to you based on your experience and value provided.
The Scaling Problem: Productization
Eventually, it makes sense to have a consulting offer - no matter what you do. You will charge for your time and directly teach people one on one.
Few do this, but you can make your consulting more valuable and less time consuming with experience. I call it Hybrid Consulting.
You create an in-depth curriculum, walk people through it, give them one-on-one support, and make it near impossible for them to not achieve their desired result. Depending on what that desired result is — and how much it will impact their life — you can charge more.
There are people selling $20K+ per year memberships for a facebook group and weekly zoom calls. Because the person running it has immense and valuable experience. They have advice and systems that guarantee a higher result.
This guy needs enough impact and authority to get 50 people in there and boom, a million dollar a year business.
The other cool thing, you don't have to even do consulting. There are social accounts pulling in $1M+ selling info products of their own unique systems.
Given enough time, consistency, and experience - there is nothing preventing you from doing the same.
The Lifestyle
With all of that said, you can slowly start to create the desired lifestyle you want. You can create your own schedule. You can stack experience in the places you want to.
That's the cool thing about this, people trust you because of you. If you are a marketer and want to sell a fitness product, awesome. More problems solved and more money for you.
You can quite literally do anything you want with this business model.
If there is something you don't want to do, you build a small team and have others do it for you. Don't focus or worry about this yet. Improve yourself, build in public, and create a product / service when you are ready.
10-year mindset. Not 2-week mindset.
Start stacking that experience my friends.