Business Management Basics for Solopreneurs

How to run a business.

Image created via Midjourney

If you’re trying to learn about business management and Google the term, you’ll get a ton of articles about managing a team, marketing, operations… all directed at people running companies.

While the principles are the same for a one-person business, how you implement the principles is vastly different. You’re not interacting with a team (which, many solopreneurs would consider a good thing!) and you can make decisions quickly. On the flip side, you don’t have anyone else to provide expertise or a different perspective; it’s just you.

I spent years on the executive team at a tech company before I branched out on my own. Because of my role, I saw the ins and outs of running a business.

Here are some key business management basics that I’ve applied to my own business — and highly recommend to anyone looking to create a solid foundation.

Contract management

You need a contract for any project. Period. The lack of a contract (or unclear contract terms) is how you’ll get screwed over. Or simply end up doing work that you hadn’t planned to do.

Here’s an example from my corporate days. I wrote contracts for custom projects that allowed 20 hours of work. As my team got more…