A Love Letter to Our Solopreneur Community

We’d like to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to essentially write a love letter to our community. 2022 was truly a transformative year for our business, and in order to fully explain how, we want to take a trip down memory lane with you to show you where we started versus where we are now, and where we’re headed.

This post is a little vulnerable for us because we admit some hiccups we’ve encountered, but they were by no means mistakes. Without them, we wouldn’t have learned and ended up where we are today…with all of you.

A History Lesson on LifeStarr

Did you know that LifeStarr didn’t actually start out as a place for solopreneurs? It’s true! LifeStarr was born after founder, Joe Rando, read the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Producitivty by David Allen (great book, BTW).

After reading it, he conceptualized an app that would put the ideas from the book into practice. Essentially it would be an app that would help people stay more organized and be more efficient so that they could spend more time doing the things they love instead of constantly managing an inbox or sifting through tasks. 

There are a gazillion organizational and task management apps designed for teams, but what about for people who work with people outside of a team? 

Voila, LifeStarr was born.

Our app was in a good place at the beginning of 2020 but once the pandemic hit we decided we needed to rush the launch to help get it in the hands of everybody who overnight had to begin working remotely. We really thought this would be a big help.

We had a relatively good launch, but quickly realized we had some show-stoppers we needed to deal with within the app, as well as with our targeting strategy.

The app was life-changing for people who committed fully to it. Unfortunately few people made this commitment and therefore we had to reimagine the app in a way that would provide a quick win for people. We’ve figured it out, now we’re building it,

Also, our initial audience was just too broad. We needed to make our messaging far more specific and figure out who our actual audience was. Then the lightbulb moment hit: Let’s focus on solopreneurs. After all, we were all solopreneurs teaming up to work on this.

Knowing who our exact audience was also allowed us to pivot to another business model. We no longer wanted to just be an app. We wanted to provide tools, resources, and a community for solopreneurs looking for help navigating their journey.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

LifeStarr Today

We are so motivated by where we started compared to where we are now.

2022 kicked off with our “One-Person Business Podcast.” We talked to some incredible people on the show and were validated that we were on the right track entering the world of solopreneurship. We continued to learn more and more about what people go through, outside of our own experiences as solopreneurs. 

This year also marked the conception of our events formerly known as The Solopreneur Brain Trust as well as the beginning of our community.

Mmm, the community.

While learning more about our audience and putting a plan in place of how to best serve solopreneurs is important, we’ve got to be honest. The best part of the year wasn’t really business-related. The best part was cultivating some amazing relationships along the way with a number of you.

I truly mean that. I’m sure it sounds sappy and even a little cliche to read, but we genuinely love this community and are so happy to be a part of it. We hope you feel the same way.

The Future of LifeStarr

Well, if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few years, it’s to expect the unexpected. So, we are ready to pivot based on your needs at a moment's notice if needed, but for now, here is what we have in the works for you in the upcoming year::

Solopreneur Problem Solvers

This free monthly event, formally known as The Solopreneur Brain Trust, is a great place for experienced solopreneurs to connect with other solopreneurs, get inspiration, and solve business problems. The icing on the cake? Beginning in 2023, George B. Thomas will host these events. If you’ve had the pleasure of listening to George speak or have been able to speak with him yourself, you know he’s a real gem. For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, get excited! It’s a real treat. You can learn more here.

Solopreneur Success Sessions

I’m stepping out from behind the keyboard and podcast mic to host our new, free, monthly micro event. Each month, we’ll invite four experts to speak about various topics to help you with your solopreneur business, and you get to pick which of the sessions to attend! You’ll attend one session in the first hour and one in the second hour, with Q&As at the end of each! All four sessions are recorded so you’ll get access to them all after the event. You can learn more here.

Solopalooza

May 10, 2023, is going to be epic. An event with amazing speakers dedicated to answering your questions about solopreneurship? Sign me up!

Community Growth

We have such an incredible group of solopreneurs in our Facebook Community. We are excited to expand in the new year but trust us, we like the close-knit feel as much as you do and have no intentions of moving away from that vibe.

More Amazing Content

There’s a reason we send surveys and ask questions about what people want to see…it’s because we want to give it to you! We’ll be launching our Solopreneur Success Cycle Guide at the beginning of the year as well as its corresponding checklist. This will help you navigate each phase of solopreneurship.

We’re also going to be increasing our presence on social media. Video will be the name of the game and you’ll see Joe and me a lot more on your screens!

And that’s just the start. We plan on really ramping up our content generation machine in 2023, so if there’s anything, in particular, you’d like to see, let us know!

The Release of Our App!!

I don’t think I can include enough exclamation points. This app has been a long time coming and we can’t wait to share it with you. If you want to be on our beta tester list, click here.

Another Podcast…Potentially

We met so many wonderful people and had such a great time with the podcast, however, with everything else going on, we decided to put season two on hold for a bit. We’d love to start it back up but we have a question for those who listened: do you like the current format or would you prefer we change things up a bit? Let us know!f

Anyway, this blog post is a very long-winded way of saying:

Thank you.

Thank you for the inspiration. 

Thank you for the insights. 

Thank you for your feedback. 

Thank you for sticking with us

We appreciate you all more than you’ll ever know.

We hope you had a wonderful 2022 and wish you nothing but the best in the year ahead.

We encourage you to check out The Solopreneur Success Cycle! It’s an incredible roadmap designed to help you start, run, and grow your company of one and is beneficial for novice and experienced solopreneurs! Be sure to check it out!