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Most people think of solopreneurs as a one-person machine. The solopreneur (according to social media) sends invoices, juggles client calls, manages marketing campaigns, and troubleshoots their own websiteall before lunch. Its a compelling narrative because it celebrates endless hustle and grit. But its also a myth. Solopreneurship simply means you make the business decisions. You dont have to consult anyone else or wait for approval. It doesnt mean youre the only person doing the work. Most solopreneurs eventually bring in support (including me, in my solo business). Hiring help doesnt mean youre no longer a real solopreneur. Its a sign that your business is growing. You recognize the value of your time or the limitations of your skill set. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-mobile-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Work Better\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn\u0027t suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.workbetter.media\/\u0022\u003Eworkbetter.media\u003C\/a\u003E.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457605,"imageMobileId":91457608,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Smart solopreneurs hire help as an investment. Outsourcing work or projects can expand your bandwidth while still allowing you to maintain full control over the direction of your business. When to bring in professional support One of the hardest parts of running a solo business is deciding when to get help. Many solopreneurs wait too long because they assume they should be able to do everything themselves. But if you feel like youre working endless hours or youre spending too much time on tasks, its probably time to hire. Think of hiring as a strategic business decision, not a financial splurge. – Accounting or legal help The first category many solopreneurs consider is financial and legal support. They recognize that they dont have the expertise neededand financial or legal mistakes can be costly. An accountant or bookkeeper can manage tax compliance, keep your books clean, and help you understand your cash flow. Their jobs are to be familiar with accounting and tax laws, so you dont have to stress. Typically, accountants or bookkeepers provide ongoing (monthly) support. Legal help becomes important as your business grows in complexity. A lawyer might review your client contracts or help you navigate trademarks if youre developing a brand. Depending on your legal structure, you may also need a lawyer to help with documentation like Articles of Organization (for an LLC). You dont need a lawyer on retainer. Even a few hours of legal support per year can prevent legal problems later. – A virtual assistant A virtual assistant (VA) is often the first hire for solopreneurs who are stretched thin. A VA can manage your inbox, follow up with clients, organize your files, or complete other organizational tasks that eat up hours of your time each week. I rely on a lot of automation in my business. Tasks are completed automatically in the background between apps (using Zapier). But eventually, I reached a point where I couldnt automate anymore. Some work needs a human touch. It was either me, or a virtual assistant. I chose to hire a VA so I could focus on the more strategic/creative parts of my business. Most VAs work on an hourly, project-based, or monthly retainer model. With the right VA, you can start small and expand later if needed. Even a few hours per week can give you breathing room and help you stay focused on the work that generates revenue. – Project-based work Not every type of help needs to be ongoing. You might hire a specialist when youve hit the limits of what you can do yourself. For example, for a long time, I created my own brand assets. Eventually, I hit the limits of what I could do in Canva and wanted a more professional look for my business. I hired a brand designer to create my logo, choose fonts, and clarify my brand messaging. He gave me hundreds of Canva templates for various purposes. If you need a website, a brand refresh, or automation support, a temporary engagement with an expert might make sense. That way, you dont have to spend your time acquiring skills you dont otherwise need and can start using the finished product quickly. Building a team that supports your business Before I started my own business, I was a manager in the corporate world. Being responsible for other peoples career success was hard for me, and I dont think I was particularly good at it. Bringing on help as a solopreneur doesnt mean you have to become a manager in the traditional sense. Often, youre hiring other independent professionals, like you. With the exception of a virtual assistant (who has to learn your systems/processes), the people you hire may not need a ton of oversight or hand-holding. Bringing in help doesnt have to mean building a team in the traditional sense. But before you hire, you should consider these three things: Revenue stability: Can your income support this additional expense? ROI: Will freeing up your time allow you to earn more or reduce stress in a meaningful way? Alignment: Does delegating this work directly support your business and create value? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you may not be ready to hire yet. Solopreneurship doesnt mean doing everything alone Your business works best when youre working to your strengths. The rest can be delegated or outsourced. Im not a designer, so I hired someone to help me with design. Im not an accountant, so I hired someone to help with my bookkeeping. Youve got to know which parts of your business you should hand off so your business can thrive. The goal isnt to grow headcount, like a traditional business would grow. Its about protecting your time and energy the greatest assets your solo business has. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/work-better-mobile-1.png","eyebrw":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Work Better\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn\u0027t suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.workbetter.media\/\u0022\u003Eworkbetter.media\u003C\/a\u003E.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457605,"imageMobileId":91457608,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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E-Commerce
The Cold War lasted 45 agonizing years. Daily life in the Soviet Union was a mixture of dread and horrorchildren taught to report their parents’ whispered doubts, families queuing for hours for bread, dissidents vanishing in the night. November 8, 1989, was just another day of knowing World War III might pop off at any time. But on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. No tanks. No gun battles. No sabotage. Just a peaceful, surreal collapse. The empire fell both slowly and suddenly. Gen Xers and boomers remember the disorienting feeling of watching the impossible happen on evening news broadcasts. With the benefit of hindsight and declassified records now available, we know life under Soviet rule was far worse than Cold War movies or propaganda posters ever revealed. Millions suffered in silence, unable to ask for help because everyone was incentivized to spy on their neighbors. And then, out of nowhere, Germans from east and west Berlin were blaring American rock music from boom boxes, laughing, dancing, and spray-painting graffiti. Strangers took turns smashing apart the physical barrier between despair and hope with whatever they could findhammers, pickaxes, or bare hands. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Spontaneous acts of high-spirited foolishness, to quote Sky News. Utter disbelief and glee. The lesson history keeps teaching us Just because current circumstances are miserable doesn’t mean they can’t turn around. When you study history, you can’t help but be overwhelmed by how often things get better in the endand how quickly the transformation can happen once it begins. Cynicism can be tempting for urbanism reformers. They desperately want to break free of status quo regulations and processes that create an antihuman built environment, but it seems hopeless. And yes, the current situation for most Americans is harmful: Anxiety and depression from isolation. Loneliness from neighborhoods designed to keep people apart. Chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancers. Air pollution and noise pollution. Traffic crashes as a leading cause of death. It feels like things have always been this way and always will be. Lack of pedestrian infrastructure, unreliable transit service, subsidized sprawl, ever-expanding arterialsit’s exhausting. Focusing only on the negative without exploring positive outcomes is how cynicism creeps in. “They’re never going to change, because they don’t care about us.” (Whoever “they” happens to be for any given topiccity council, planners, engineers, developers, NIMBYs.) Cynic (noun): a faultfinding critic who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest Cynicism feels like realism, but it’s actually a form of blindness. It prevents you from seeing the change agents working in the background, the small victories accumulating, the institutional momentum slowly, imperceptibly shiftinguntil suddenly, the wall comes down. The walls will come down The internet is full of inspiring examples of institutional reform, from massive governments to pocket neighborhoods. Change agents work quietly in the background for years, and then suddenly . . . liberation. Just like world history lessons, you can’t hold onto cynicism if you allow yourself to learn about before-and-after stories related to the built environment. There’s too much evidence of reform, too many walls already crumbling, for anyone to hang their head in gloom about the future of planning and design. The people dancing on the Berlin Wall in 1989 didn’t bring it down alone. They were the visible celebration of decades of invisible workdissidents who wrote forbidden letters, families who maintained hope, officials who made small concessions that accumulated into structural weakness, and a few rogue journalists who told the truth despite the consequences. You might be one of those invisible workers right now. The person who shows up to planning meetings, who writes letters, who builds tactical urbanism projects, who votes for better policy, or who simply talks to friends about what’s possible. The wall you’re pushing against might not fall tomorrow. But if history teaches us anything, it’s that things that seem permanent can collapse with stunning speed once enough pressure accumulates. What feels impossible on a Wednesday becomes reality by Thursday. Things get better in the end. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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E-Commerce
While American workers face “forever layoffs” and struggle to find work in todays tumultuous job market, some are reframing this era of unemployment and finding a silver lining in their personal economic meltdowns. Laid off in June and the job market is so bad I decided to have a funemployed summer, one TikTok creator posted earlier this year. Another wrote: a weekday as a funemployed millennial. In the video they wake up at 11 a.m. and scroll TikTok for an hour; after breakfast at 1 p.m., they journal, read, think about life, hit the gym, and then call it a day. Some funemployed were laid off. Some quit, lured by voluntary buyout programs. Some simply crave a career break or are in-between jobs. I got laid off four months ago, yall wanna know what I learned, one TikTok creator posted. Life goes on. Instead of spending their days poring over job listings or firing out résumés, theyre embracing the time off and using it to travel, pursue a passion project, or simply rest. (At least until the severance pay runs out.) As workers are currently in the thick of end-of-year layoff season, more of them may well find themselves in a funemployment era of their own. Especially as layoff announcements now surpassed 1.1 million this year, the most since 2020 pandemic, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday. The concept of a gap year, or a sabbatical, has been around for years, and even the label funemployement is nothing new: Urban Dictionary defines funemployed as The condition of a person who takes advantage of being out of a job to have the time of their life. I spent all day Tuesday at the pool; funemployment rocks! Also, when it comes to younger generations, work is less central to their lives and sense of self. Studies have shown that across the board employees are more disengaged than ever. Many are using the extra free time to help pursue passions they may not otherwise have time for, or create social media content to bring in some extra funds. Besides, humor is Gen Zs go-to defense mechanism. Question: how can I stay funemployed (from a financial standpoint) forever, one TikTok creator posted earlier this year. I swear I’m hardworking but even the thought of going back to a traditional in-office 9-5 starts to suck the soul out of me. A period of unemployment, while it might hurt financially, is no longer seen as the moral failing it used to be. Résumé gaps no longer carry the same stigma and people can make extra cash through side hustles or gig work while they figure out their next move. Its worth noting, those posting about funemployment are often young and single, unburdened by the costs of children or a mortgage. Of course, if youre buoyed by savings, severance pay, or have parents to help you out, you might have the luxury of not having to rush into another job for the sake of a paycheck. The entry-level job market is also the toughest its been in years, with only 30% of 2025 graduates finding jobs in their fields. Considering more than 1 in 4 workers without jobs have been unemployed for at least half a year, might as well try to have some fun in the meantime. (Until the mental gymnastics kick in, anyway.)
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