Solo Entrepreneur Tech Startup Case Studies | Sramana Mitra

Have you started or are you stuck in your startup journey?

Many entrepreneurs think that they need a cofounder or a team to start, but it is really simple.

• Find a niche.

• Start solo and run lean.

Did you know ServiceNow was started by a solo founder? His name is Fred Luddy. Now, the company is worth over $125 billion.

Here are 6 Udemy courses on how to do a startup as a solo entrepreneur. Lean, capital-efficient ventures remain one of the best ways to build robust businesses.

In this course, listen to several successful founders sharing how they began as solopreneurs, bootstrapped, built virtual companies, and raised funding.

This course will teach strategies that you need to understand and implement.

1. How To Succeed As A Solo Entrepreneur with Sramana Mitra

Sure, there are exceptions like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. They were built differently. But those are low probability scenarios. And raising money for fat startups has become very difficult, especially for first-time founders.

Don’t believe the myth that solo entrepreneurs do not succeed.

Most of us start alone.

And in these days of virtual companies, you can get lots of help as a solopreneur and get very far in your quest for product-market fit, validation, even traction. You can even bootstrap with a paycheck. It is important to study and use bootstrapping when you are a solo entrepreneur and these courses cover all the variations of bootstrapping.

2. Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra

3. Bootstrapping a Startup with a Paycheck with Sramana Mitra

4. Bootstrapping a Startup with Services with Sramana Mitra

5. How to Bootstrap Startups by Piggybacking with Sramana Mitra

6. How to Bootstrap a Startup to Exit with Sramana Mitra

Can a solopreneur raise funding? Yes. But there are caveats.

You don’t necessarily need a full executive team for seed funding.

However, solo entrepreneurs typically have difficulty in raising seed funding.

Investors prefer at least one co-founder.

If you are a solo founder bootstrapping, you should put all your energy into getting to product-market fit, and getting to paying customers. Not on trying to artificially fill a co-founder position.

The way to mitigate this is by bootstrapping your startup to traction, where you have paying customers and a clear path to high-velocity customer acquisition as a solo founder. If those metrics are in place, you can raise money without a co-founder.

Most entrepreneurs are not lucky enough to bond with a friend or a colleague in a meaningful way before starting a new venture.

Starting alone is the norm, not an exception. Study the course How To Succeed As A Solo Entrepreneur with Sramana Mitra first if you want to get inspired.

The skills you’ll learn in all of the courses will help you launch your own tech venture successfully as a solo founder and virtual entrepreneur.

So here you have it, six great courses you can master in a few evenings and weekends.

Oh, and if you have a job, please don’t quit ?

If you have any specific question, come and see me at a 1Mby1M free roundtable.

P.S. We’re looking to partner with community leaders who write blogs, teach and mentor entrepreneurs, and help support startup ecosystems in every corner of the world, no matter how small or how remote. I have written about my own journey building startup ecosystems around the world, and how you can draw from my lessons from the trenches. If you’re interested in partnering with 1Mby1M, please consider joining our ambassador program.

Please check out the external resources for more information.

DoggieLawn Founder Natalie Youn has done a superb job of positioning a niche product and building a great business starting solo.

It is very difficult to find gaps in e-commerce these days. Sawyer Twain CEO Chris Turner found one and executed the hell out of it.

Developers interested in bootstrapping ad-supported B-to-C startups would find this discussion valuable.