If You Only Have 60 Minutes a Day to Build a One-Person Business, Do This

Very, very dumb people are making $100K and even $1M with this approach

Image Credit-Midjourney

Thinking of yourself as a one-person business is a powerful mindset.

It changes how you act and it increases your value. Even if you’re an employee you’re technically a business of one. In this article, I’m going to talk about turning yourself into a one-person business after hours.

I know many of you love this topic because you want more time, freedom, and bigger paychecks. And most of you are sick of micromanaging bosses and “we are family” corporate burnout culture - I wouldn’t wish that lifestyle on my worst enemy.

The limitation to build a one-person business is time. With only 60 minutes a day you can still make a lot of progress. Do these things.

“No one is going to pay you what you’re worth. You have to start a company” – Nivi

Everyone is busy and facing some dire problem

To carve out time you first have to change how you think about time.

The most common objection I get with starting a one-person business is some version of “this difficult thing has happened so I don’t have the time or mental energy to do it.”

This sounds smart. But it’s actually dumb & an excuse. You’re stealing from yourself.

As I write this, I have messed up my back. I can’t lift my daughter or even bend down to pick up the leaves on the grass that my wife so desperately wants me to do.

I have sharp pain down both legs. I’m on heavy medication for the pain. I can’t sit for too long. I’m limited to 15 minutes of walking.

But I’m still f*cking writing and building a business.

I’m not using it as an excuse. I’m not saying “when this tragic event passes, then I’ll take action on my business.”

Because as soon as this tragic situation passes another one will enter my life. Before this accident with my back, I took my neighbor to court. Before that, one of my family members got sick and nearly died. And before that, I busted my ankle and couldn’t walk properly for 6 months.

Bottom line: life will always throw curveballs at you. Don’t be a loser and use them as excuses to do nothing.

Use tragic events as a reason to move forward, not drift 100 steps backward.

Become data-backed instead of the harmful alternative

For the first 5 years of building a one-person business, I made a big mistake.

I didn’t look at data. Instead I made assumptions like “websites don’t work anymore.” Or “social media is too saturated.” Or “I don’t want to be salesy.” Or I consumed loads of theory from different gurus that all conflicted with each other.

My success online increased when I ditched the 5-year plans & strategies and became data-backed.

• Publish daily

• Talk to real leads

• Make paid offers to people

• Look at your email marketing/newsletter analytics

• Pay attention to the stats on your social media content

Most of all, talk to successful people – not some loser on Medium dot com who made $20 an article writing about making $20 an article on Medium while getting 50 views.

Your assumptions are wrong.

The internet has billions of people and trillions of dollars circulating around every day. Thinking you know anything is a bad mistake. And whatever experience you have from the 9-5 world should probably be unlearned as it usually holds people back.

They think “I don’t have to sell.” Wrong. When you work for an employer they do 90% of the sales and marketing. When you become a one-person business you have to sell yourself.

Good news: anyone can sell because sales is just helping people.

Early morning produces the best deep work

The morning is when your energy is the highest.

After 5 PM is when your energy is the lowest because you’ve just been hit with a tidal wave of input and your brain is fried.

So build your one-person business for 60 minutes before 9 AM. The biggest productivity hack I found while working a 12-hour-a-day banking job was to wake up and instantly start work. No morning routine. No to-do lists. Just wake up and do.

The question is what do you do in those 60 minutes…

If you have no attention online, your little one-person business goes bankrupt, fast

I’ve been working with business owners for 10+ years.

They mostly have one simple problem: they have no eyeballs. They’ve built some great product or service but they’re not making money because nobody knows.

The counter-intuitive way to build a one-person business is to solve the hardest problem first and build a small audience online. Not 1M followers on Instagram while semi-naked holding a Pokemon smoothie bottle. Nope.

5000-10,000 followers on one platform is more than enough.

With that you can build a tiny online empire and easily make 6-7 figures a year. I’m an idiot because I wasted years gaining millions of followers which is a waste of time, especially if you hate fame like I do.

In the 60 minutes (or more) a day you work on your business, some of that time should be used to build an audience.

Make sure to build an offer as fast as possible

Most people build an audience and waste too much time caring about likes or views.

But likes don’t equal cash. You’d be surprised how many 100K follower, one-person businesses are bankrupt – or about to sell all their furniture.

Monetizing before you’re ready is key because it takes time to figure out what business model works for you.

I could tell you to create a paid community but perhaps you’re an introvert and hate apps like Slack or Discord. Or perhaps you launch a paid community and nobody joins.

You want to solve these problems asap, and 9 times out of 10 it’s an offer problem.

You’re asking someone to pay you money for something that has no perceived value or is framed in the wrong way.  So you make $0 and scream “Denning is a liar, off with his head.”

A paid offer lets you validate the right business model much faster. You draft it in a google doc, then start sending it to everyone you know and any social media followers you have. If people buy then you double down. If nobody buys then you tweak the offer until they do, or try different business models.

Leaving this step until last is fast way to waste years of your life working on something that ultimately never lets you quit your job.

Very, very dumb people are making $100K and even $1M with this approach

“The worst prison in the world is having the talent and intelligence to achieve something great but lacking the courage to go out and do it” – Sahil Bloom

Let’s finish here.

The start of building a one-person business is simple. You don’t need an MBA or high intelligence. In fact I’ve found the dumbest people do best. Smart people overthink and waste years strategizing and hypothesizing what works.

Meanwhile, the internet stops for no one. Slow people get further and further behind as real wages don’t increase and AI keeps picking off low-value jobs.

Here’s the crazy thing: the average person will get inspired but then stop showing up every day for 60 minutes within 30 days. All you have to do is not make that mistake and you’re well on your way.

Build a one-person business for 60 minutes a day and unlock your potential. Then get free, run your own schedule, make some cash, then hire freelancers to do the boring work for you.

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PS — Ready to get started for real earning money online? 

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