Thinking about launching your startup but confused about the difference between a solopreneur vs an entrepreneur? Well, understanding the difference is really crucial to adopt the right mindset and grow your business. Read to know how solopreneurship is different from entrepreneurship.
What is an Entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur, as you might already know, is a person who creates a large business despite the challenges and risks by acquiring a large, efficient team and a high investment sum. Entrepreneurs run a business organization smoothly and lead their teams. They are risk-takers who establish their business from an innovative idea while analyzing and managing all the hurdles that come their way.
What is Solopreneurship?
Now that you know a gist about entrepreneurship, it might be easy for you to understand what solopreneurship is about.
By definition, a solopreneur is an entrepreneur who establishes a business alone without the support of any employees and performs all the duties on his own. Many people prefer solopreneurship over entrepreneurship or a job as they get the freedom to work independently, take all their decisions alone, and combat all the challenges single-handedly.
Furthermore, many solopreneurs prefer to work as an employee as well as a founder until the business reaches a certain height. Without any employees, solopreneurs have slow and steady business growth. Hence, they produce passive income and are liable for lesser financial risks.
Types of Solopreneurs
Any individual who establishes his business alone is a solopreneur but here are the four major types of solopreneurs you need to know about:
1. Freelancers
Freelancers work from the comfort of their homes and make great money while being their own boss. From graphic designing to ethical hacking, content writing, and much more, freelancing is expanded across various domains. Furthermore, freelancing opportunities have drastically increased since the pandemic broke down.
2. Consultants
Many highly-experienced professionals also choose to provide their valuable knowledge and advice to budding business owners. Solopreneur consulting is hence, another popular career opportunity that many individuals choose.
3. Social Media Managers
Since every business – small or big, has some or multiple social media accounts, people with good digital marketing knowledge also prefer to work as social media managers to help their clients get better visibility and drive more organic traffic their way.
4. Digital Creators
The fourth most popular type of solopreneurs is digital creation where individuals choose to create their YouTube channels, do blogging through websites or make micro-blogs on Instagram and Twitter.
Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur: Key Differences
Understanding the definition of both these terms is not enough to understand the major differences between them. Since there are many more differences involved, here is how solopreneurship is different than entrepreneurship:
1. Long-term Plans
Solopreneurs often start their businesses to pursue their passion or work in their field of interest whereas entrepreneurs work hard on establishing a new business and once it is on track, they begin another venture. Hence, solopreneurs aim for slow and steady growth whereas entrepreneurs are all about building a high-income business in a short time to sell it off or expand it into various branches.
2. Workspace
Usually, solopreneurs prefer to work from home or own a very small workspace as they do not have any employees or manual production. On the other hand, entrepreneurs work in large offices away from their homes to incorporate their huge workforce. Some entrepreneurs even own their property if they have a manufacturing and packaging business.
3. Marketing
Since solopreneurs work independently, their marketing tactics are smaller and usually, don’t involve paid campaigns or ads. They are focused on gradually creating their personal brand and even rely on networking and referrals. Contrarily, entrepreneurs maintain separate brand identity and invest huge money in their marketing campaigns to attract more organic traffic.
4. Scalability
Solopreneurs only work as much as they can handle and are not usually bothered by scalability in their business model. On the other hand, entrepreneurs have pre-set business goals and are very specific about the scalability of their business to grow fast.
Wrapping Up
We hope we helped you understand what is an entrepreneur vs solopreneur. Solopreneurs are simply entrepreneurs with smaller business goals, lesser requirements, and different growth approaches. Entrepreneurs are big-picture thinkers who aim to establish an empire and have more complex goals and requirements.
No matter whether you choose to be a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, your biggest focus should be to constantly strive to learn and grow personally. You don’t always need to be an entrepreneur to generate pools of income. All you need is to provide value to your customers or clients.