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255. The Biggest Solopreneur Lessons from 2025 (What Actually Worked and What Didn’t) · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: This week on The Aspiring Solopreneur, Joe and I look back on the biggest lessons solopreneurs learned in 2025. and no, we're actually not gonna talk about AI.
• 0:08
  Carly: From why human first is winning harder than ever, to the surprising power of personal branding to the systems, community, and income strategies that actually made a difference this year, we're breaking down what really moved the needle. So if you want to head into 2026 feeling smarter, steadier, and more supported, this episode is one you don't want to miss. You're listening to the Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving. I'm Carly Ries and along with my cohost Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one.
• 0:51
  As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things solopreneurship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work. If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you. But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back.
• 1:25
  I feel like I have learned or we have learned so much about the solopreneur world this year. Even after years of working with solopreneurs, I feel like this year was a big educational year because we have data. Like, we've been working with people for so long now. I feel like we actually have information and history behind us. So I wanna talk some of our talk about some of our biggest lessons from 2025 as it relates to solopreneurship.
• 1:51
  I am gonna throw out a caveat. We could always talk about AI. Obviously, AI was a big thing from this year, from the past few years. But I kinda wanna remove that from the conversation. If you listened to our episode last week or SoundBite episode with just Joe and I, we talked about AI quite a bit in it.
• 2:08
  Well, I just wanna take a step back from AI and focus on some other key learnings, if that is okay with you.
• 2:17
  Joe Rando: That's more than okay because, you know, AI will take over the whole episode, and everybody's talking about AI. So let's talk about something else.
• 2:23
  Carly: Yes. And in contrast to that, one of the biggest learnings is that for solopreneurs, human first always wins. Now more than ever with AI, with automation, with all the tech that we have, people are really responding to a human first approach. And I can just hear George b Thomas, who contracts with us, he's beaming right now because he's been preaching this for years. He practices what he preaches.
• 2:50
  But we need to go back to, I don't wanna say old school tactics, but just, I guess, common sense tactics of connecting with your audience and being a real person, and a real human, and solving their real problems, and making things personal. Like, enough with the mass e blast. I mean, obviously, you can say the mass e blast, but make it seem personal. Like, just get back to the root of that connection. Share your emotion.
• 3:19
  Be authentic. Be transparent. Just be you, and it'll do wonders for your business. So human first. Joe, do you have anything you wanna add?
• 3:32
  Joe Rando: just something I think is really interesting because you look at what people are doing now with AI and particularly videos, and it's really impressive. It's really impressive, the things that people are doing. But, yes, I see these videos posted to social media, and the comments are all, oh, this is just AI crap. And I think it's partially because people are trying to pretend it's not AI, but it's generating a lot of animosity.
• 4:00
  And so it just leans into what you're saying that, being human first, being real, being authentic is so much. I mean, I think people are just responding even more to that now because they're going, oh, it's real. You know? And I just really want to double down on what you're saying is that, people don't really like AI when it's trying to pretend to be human generated. It just makes people mad.
• 4:30
  Carly: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, to piggyback off of the being human, let's talk about building a personal brand.
• 4:37
  Joe Rando: Oh, yeah. You know, we do the website showdown a few times a year on the solopreneur success sessions. And solopreneurs put their websites out, and me, you, and George kind of politely, you know, ripped them apart.
• 4:54
  And one of the things that really baffles me is that a lot of solopreneurs don't even mention that their own name or barely mention their own name on their website. And I think they're trying to look like a big company, but they're not obviously, and that goes back to kind of that authenticity.
• 5:20
  And, really when it comes down to it, if you go back and look at one of our favorites, Donald Miller's story brand, it's about the guide, right? The customer's a hero and there's a guide. And if that guide is a brand name, okay, I guess I can get excited about, Apple figuring out how my phone should be built. But it's like, you know, if I'm hiring a consultant or a contractor or a coach, I wanna know who that person is, what their credibility is, what they're all about. And that means building a personal brand.
• 5:56
  And, it's a big mistake to not kind of think through, an authentic presentation of a portion of yourself, Right? You're not putting everything out there. I might, you know, enjoy collecting stamps, but, it doesn't really have anything to do with being a solopreneur. And I actually don't. But, you know, I play the guitar. I don't lean into that a lot, in the LifeStarr presentations, LifeStarr content. Every once in a while it might come up, it's not what I'm about in this context. Right? And I think you need to take those pieces of you that relate to your business and find a way to present them consistently so that people understand who you are, can feel trust you and what you're doing.
• 6:54
  It could just make a really big difference.
• 6:56
  Carly: And we're not talking about the social media side of you where you have to present yourself as being perfect. nobody's perfect. We all know that. Show the good, the bad, and the ugly to an extent, obviously, as it relates to your business. But personal brand does not equate to a perfect brand.
• 7:14
  Don't hide parts of yourself that could help your business even if it's not your best moment, which I think is huge. But on that note, I mean, we were all warned. At least I was. I was in the generation where Facebook was just for college students when I was in college. It wasn't for anybody else.
• 7:32
  And I remember people saying back then, do not post anything you will regret twenty years from now. Well, it's twenty years from now. And that still holds. Even if you are your business. So whether you're at a party, whether you're out with friends, like you're still representing your brand.
• 7:53
  So really think through that even if you're not talking about work specifically.
• 7:58
  Joe Rando: I mean, this doesn't really totally relate, but when at my last company, when we would hire people, we would be interviewing people. We had a guy that was really good at digging through social media, like surprisingly good. And he would find people's social media stuff. And we actually passed on some hires based on what we learned from their social media because we had a company culture that we really liked and it was kind of wholesome and, cooperative and kind of, you know, everybody trying to pull in the same direction and serve the customer. And when we saw something that didn't fit that, it was like, yeah, no.
• 8:37
  Carly: Clients have that same ability to research social media. So just know.
• 8:42
  Joe Rando: Right.
• 8:43
  Carly: Anyway, we could talk about that forever. But I'm gonna pivot to the importance of systems and processes as a solopreneur. I know it can be so hard to put down the client work and focus on your own business. A lot of times it's a do as this, do as I say, not as I do situation. But you have got to press pause on some client tasks and really focus on the systems and processes that will make yourself more efficient.
• 9:12
  Whether that be outsourcing, AI automation, putting together standard operating procedures, whatever the case may be, really focus on that because it will pay over and over again if you could just get your processes on a dock somewhere. I can't recommend that enough. It is so worth the time to invest in your own business to save time and dollars later on. So that's a big learning this year that I feel like we've really leaned into and that we've really told other solopreneurs.
• 9:43
  Joe Rando: I totally disagree. I don't think it belongs on this list. Because there was never a year where this wasn't a really good idea.
• 9:51
  Carly: Fair.
• 9:51
  Joe Rando: I mean, this has always been something that people should do. It's the kind of thing I think that people always to do. I learned the hard way years ago that if you put together a standard operating procedure or automate something you're doing manually, it pays dividends, like you said, mostly in terms of time, but then that time can be turned into money if you want to, or it might be turned into, something fun, whatever it is that you want. But, definitely take that time, invest, you know, four hours a week, just a small portion of your week into finding ways to work on the business instead of in the business. And you'll find at the end of the year, you're way better off than you were when you started that year.
• 10:39
  Carly: Absolutely. Well, Joe, what's next on the list?
• 10:43
  Joe Rando: Community and collaboration. And, you know, a little bit of a shameless plug topic because we have a solopreneur community at LifeStarr. Collaboration. I love seeing people come together and work with each other. We're having solopreneurs, work together and, maybe they're hiring one another or maybe, helping each other for free or don't tell the tax people. I think the tax people might care about that.
• 11:12
  But, you know or doing something else where just, coming to other people's aids and helping each other. And it's huge. I mean, sometimes it's just, this is tough, it can get tough sometimes. And, somebody all of a sudden is having a tough time and just needs few people to kinda say, hey, it's okay. You're gonna be okay.
• 11:35
  You know, here are some ideas. And, we have people, as you well know, Carly, that, at times are in tears. And, because of the community, they're not in tears for long and things get better because they've got people supporting them. And that's just huge. Don't forego that as a solopreneur.
• 11:57
  Find it somewhere. Find it here with us or find it somewhere else, but find it.
• 12:01
  Carly: Could not agree more. Well, I was trying to think of a good pivot into the next topic. I don't think I have a good pivot, so I'm just gonna switch gears to diversifying income streams streams is huge. I mean, you have a lot of experience with this. Do you wanna dive into it first?
• 12:16
  Joe Rando: Sure. I mean, as a solopreneur, we're kind of talking through both sides of mouth. We're like, focus, focus, niche down. Do, one thing well. but once you've got something working and you've again, going back to what we said previously about kind of trying to do one thing and, that was the last podcast, talking about not taking on other customers, You know, taking on customers that don't fit.
• 12:44
  But once you have customers that you're serving well and efficiently, the idea of coming up with another product for them, or, you know, maybe a similar product, but for a different group of people that you can deliver efficiently can really protect you from changes in the environment. Something happens to one particular industry or another, or, whatever. You just, can have these multiple income streams, and it's just like a hedge against something happening that would adversely impact you, might adversely impact you at 50% of the level it would have if you were relying completely on that income stream. Diversifying revenue streams, can be multiple products, but there's another one that's probably even more important for a lot of solopreneurs, and that is having too few customers.
• 13:35
  And this is something I've lived through. At one point, I was in a company and we had a number of employees at this company. We had three customers. And if any one of them went away, it was doomsday. And that is a fine place to be when you're getting started, but no place to stay.
• 13:56
  So if you have, one or two customers, I mean, I remember there was a guy and he was, he might've been a solopreneur, but he had basically a hiring agency. He supplied customers, supplied employees, either temporary or permanent employees to businesses. But this one business nearby was really big and just basically became all of his business. And he didn't serve anybody else. And one day a company came along and won the contract.
• 14:31
  He was out of business, ended up living in his office, lost his house. That was just terrible. So this is the kind of thing, if you have three customers, get six. You know, if you wanna have I mean, obviously, this limits based on your business, but you wanna get as many customers as you can in supporting your business, because otherwise, if you lose one, it can be very painful.
• 14:56
  Carly: Yes. Absolutely. Well, I did not have a good transition before. Now I do. This is all to avoid unnecessary stress.
• 15:04
  And a key learning that I think we have from this year, big lessons, is just the importance of focusing on your mental health and your work life balance. I say work as part of that work life balance. We've talked to solopreneurs who are like, I'm struggling to work because I have control of my own schedule. How do / when do I prioritize going on a hike versus actually getting work done? You do still need to prioritize that work.
• 15:33
  But man, that mental health is so key because if you are not a well oiled machine, your business will not be a well oiled machine. It will not run the way it should. So now that you're a solopreneur and you get to create your own schedule, really create that time to take a step back from your business, to get that exercise in, to read a book, to meditate if that's your thing. Whatever the case may be, make it a part of your business plan. Because you are your business now, which you have said a few times in this episode. so make sure you are good to go so that your business can thrive the way you want it to.
• 16:08
  Joe Rando: I guess my take on this is, especially in early twenty twenty five, I heard a lot of, not a lot, but a number of people on social media saying, there's no such thing as work life balance. It's not really a thing. And I just wanna say, yeah. Yeah. It is.
• 16:28
  It is. It's something you need to think about. You know, if you wanna be a scale bro and work eighty, ninety hours a week, don't give up employees. If trying to become a multimillionaire, don't give up employees. Don't be a solopreneur.
• 16:43
  If you wanna be a solopreneur, you're doing it because you want something besides just money. And whatever that is, you know, maybe you wanna work ninety hours a week doing the work you wanna do. Great. If that's what you want, beautiful. But for most people, it means something you know, work being good and something else being good as well.
• 17:01
  And you need think about that. It's not gonna happen by accident, I think is what you're trying to say, Carly.
• 17:07
  Carly: Yep. You have to be intentional. Well, Joe, I think that's all we have for today. But solopreneurs, thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you found these takeaways helpful.
• 17:17
  As always, please please leave that five star review. it just really means the world to us. It helps us get in front of more solopreneurs. In addition to that, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Share this episode with a friend or a fellow solopreneur.
• 17:29
  And we'll see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs.
• 17:54
  Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.