Brilliant, Elena! Thank you for consolidating your thoughts into this single newsletter and breaking down the path to solopreneurship by growth levers.
As I read this, two questions came to my mind:
1. ‘Start with Advising’ - what do you recommend to acquire the first couple of clients if someone doesn’t have a distribution channel like Reforge?
2. How easy was it to hiring advisers for areas that were not your core expertise when you were CMO at Miro? I always struggle w impostor syndrome ‘shouldn’t I know all of this as a leader’ ‘would the CEO tell me: ‘that’s what we hire you to solve instead of spending add’l money to advisors’
Elena, I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well. I have an advisory contract with a very young startup, but getting there was hard. What avenues for folks that don't have reforge like audience.
Brilliant read, Elena. This clarifies so many questions in my head.
A personal challenge I've had is explaining to companies the difference between a coach, advisor, consultant and part-time employee. Many orgs conflate all of those and that just sets up the wrong expectations.
Ex: You mention in the article, "advisors aren't responsible for outcomes". However, many orgs will still judge those advisors by business and product metrics as opposed to their contributions to the individual or team's knowledge or process growth.
How do you create clarity/alignment on what to expect (and what not to) with orgs that hire you early on in the relationship?
I don’t preach advising to convert companies into the concept. I preach to converted only. But I will do a separate post breaking down mentorship from coaching from advising.
Great read Elena. It can be tough to make the jump from FT to solopreneur, so it’s awesome to see you encouraging more people to make the leap (and giving them a step by step process to make it happen.)
Such an amazing read, thank you for sharing! You’ve outlined this all so well! I started my Solopreneur journey just 5 months ago doing consulting and it’s been amazing. I decided to build my business in public as so many wanted to learn how I was doing it. Would love your feedback as an expert: blakeharber.Substack.com
Must read this weekend, thanks so much Elena 🙌 . Additionally, I recommend that younger professionals in the industry apply for existing jobs to get their first freelancing opportunities. They can also start by commenting on social media posts to provide value before creating content, especially if they don't have many portfolio companies to showcase. It's important for them to strategically choose clients that can provide references to help level up their freelancing, using an ABM/ABS approach. ✌️
I really like the idea of insights per minute as a metric (for them and for you!). That helps clarify some of why I've niched down the way I have, into term-limited projects helping clients navigate moments of transition (where I have lots of experience but is also a time full of lots of new insights for me, because every company and every situation is different). Meanwhile, steady-state fractional work results in very few insights for either me (or, I suspect, the client).
So good. Thanks for sharing, Elena!
Brilliant, Elena! Thank you for consolidating your thoughts into this single newsletter and breaking down the path to solopreneurship by growth levers.
As I read this, two questions came to my mind:
1. ‘Start with Advising’ - what do you recommend to acquire the first couple of clients if someone doesn’t have a distribution channel like Reforge?
2. How easy was it to hiring advisers for areas that were not your core expertise when you were CMO at Miro? I always struggle w impostor syndrome ‘shouldn’t I know all of this as a leader’ ‘would the CEO tell me: ‘that’s what we hire you to solve instead of spending add’l money to advisors’
Elena, I would love to hear your thoughts on this as well. I have an advisory contract with a very young startup, but getting there was hard. What avenues for folks that don't have reforge like audience.
I love how much you overshare. It's as if you crack open the black box.
Over sharing is the new form of caring :)
Thanks for sharing!
Inspiring and calling to action.
Absolute
bomb
of a newsletter !!
You could just read this and ignore all the noise.
Thank you !
Boom!
Thanks for this, Elena!
Do you have good resources on what to expect/negotiate for advising with a cash + equity set up?
How about I’ll write a separate post on this!
Brilliant read, Elena. This clarifies so many questions in my head.
A personal challenge I've had is explaining to companies the difference between a coach, advisor, consultant and part-time employee. Many orgs conflate all of those and that just sets up the wrong expectations.
Ex: You mention in the article, "advisors aren't responsible for outcomes". However, many orgs will still judge those advisors by business and product metrics as opposed to their contributions to the individual or team's knowledge or process growth.
How do you create clarity/alignment on what to expect (and what not to) with orgs that hire you early on in the relationship?
I don’t preach advising to convert companies into the concept. I preach to converted only. But I will do a separate post breaking down mentorship from coaching from advising.
Great read Elena. It can be tough to make the jump from FT to solopreneur, so it’s awesome to see you encouraging more people to make the leap (and giving them a step by step process to make it happen.)
Such an amazing read, thank you for sharing! You’ve outlined this all so well! I started my Solopreneur journey just 5 months ago doing consulting and it’s been amazing. I decided to build my business in public as so many wanted to learn how I was doing it. Would love your feedback as an expert: blakeharber.Substack.com
this resonated so much with me, Elena! I just wrote a Linkedin post about your article adding some guiding questions that have helped me tremendously as part-time solopreneur: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tanjalau_is-solopreneurship-right-for-you-activity-7055480354240884736-HwMZ
Must read this weekend, thanks so much Elena 🙌 . Additionally, I recommend that younger professionals in the industry apply for existing jobs to get their first freelancing opportunities. They can also start by commenting on social media posts to provide value before creating content, especially if they don't have many portfolio companies to showcase. It's important for them to strategically choose clients that can provide references to help level up their freelancing, using an ABM/ABS approach. ✌️
This is clever!
gold, thanks for writing this Elena!
I really like the idea of insights per minute as a metric (for them and for you!). That helps clarify some of why I've niched down the way I have, into term-limited projects helping clients navigate moments of transition (where I have lots of experience but is also a time full of lots of new insights for me, because every company and every situation is different). Meanwhile, steady-state fractional work results in very few insights for either me (or, I suspect, the client).
In the early days of carving out a solopreneur path and this was such a great read. Thanks for sharing your experience!