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Though it’s likely you’ve encountered your fair share of entrepreneurs; chances are you may be less familiar with their counterparts: Solopreneurs. While solopreneurs—like entrepreneurs— establish their own businesses, the former run most, if not all, operations by themselves. On the other hand, the latter often utilize co-owners, contracted employees, and outsourced services to keep their companies up and running.
If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty differences between solopreneurs and entrepreneurs, read on to learn the defining distinctions.
Solopreneurs are their own employees
As the name suggests, solopreneurs are the sole owner and runner of their business and operations, while entrepreneurs often have contracted, W-2-employed workers. Though solo-run companies may utilize freelance services from time to time, day-to-day functions remain a one-person job. Between creating product, invoicing orders, and executing delivery, solopreneurs have their work cut out for them.
On the other hand, entrepreneurs often delegate duties to managers and employees, taking a more hands-off approach. Even business owners directly involved in daily operations rely on employees to keep everything up and running.
Because of each business owner’s drastically different routines and duties, the necessary tools for solopreneurs will differ from those of entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs rely on teams
A significant difference between solopreneurs and entrepreneurs is their approach to running their businesses. Most entrepreneurs seek out teams to manage to scale their business without overwhelming their personal workload.
However, solopreneurs are perfectly content running a one-person shop and maintaining their company rather than shooting for significant growth. Most solo-run businesses remain small, focusing on small-batch products or services instead of large-scale rollouts.
Solopreneurs focus on one business
Unlike many entrepreneurs, solopreneurs generally aren’t looking to open a chain of businesses. Instead, solo owners often provide a niche service to a loyal, established base of customers. Too much growth and customer engagement can overwhelm solopreneurs, so most stick to small productions.
Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, tend to be more growth-focused. Successful business owners often open multiple storefronts and invest in major marketing campaigns to attract new clientele, scale operations, and build revenue.
Entrepreneurs scale through networking
As aforementioned, solopreneurs are less focused on expanding their business and more concerned with long-term continuity. However, entrepreneurs spend a significant amount of time and money networking on building strong ties with customers and other companies.
They might spend the majority of their time networking while their team handles the inner workings of their business. That’s not to say that solopreneurs never network, but they’re generally more focused on ensuring their company consistently provides quality products or services to their existing client base.
Solopreneurs have less financial responsibility
Most solopreneurs have a single-member LLC business or a sole proprietorship. Where an entrepreneur would need to worry about ensuring employee payment or tax complications, solopreneurs can focus attention elsewhere with less financial responsibility.
As a solopreneur, you don’t have to worry about paying employees, and your tax process will be more straightforward. Plus, you’ll be the one making financial decisions regarding your business instead of working with a team of financial advisors to evaluate and execute your monetary goals.
Final Thoughts
If you dream of opening a business but dread the typical responsibilities, like running teams of people or large-scale operations, solopreneurship may be the perfect solution.
However, if you love networking and delegation and have high hopes for expansion, entrepreneurship is the way to go.
You may also like: 10 Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Image source: Shutterstock.com
