Why Keeping Your Solo Business Idea a Secret is a Huge Mistake

Watch the Episode on YouTube

Are you keeping your business idea under wraps, afraid someone will steal it? Think again! In this short episode, we break down why secrecy could be sabotaging your success—and what to do instead. Learn how to properly vet your product or service, test your messaging, and refine your pricing before launching, so you don’t waste time on an idea that won’t fly.

Ready to stop hiding and start growing? Hit play now!

Like the show? We'd love it if you'd leave a 5-star review!

Being a solopreneur is awesome but it’s not easy. It's hard to get noticed. Most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone...until now. LifeStarr's SoloSuite Intro gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one-person business. 

So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, click here to check out SoloSuite Intro!

Episode Transcript

Carly Ries: Are you holding back on sharing your business idea because you're afraid someone might steal it? In this episode, we break down why keeping your idea under wraps might be holding you back and how betting your product or service before launching can save you time, money, and frustration. We'll dive into smart ways to test your business, refine your messaging, and ensure you're solving real problems for your audience. Plus, we'll share why the fear of idea theft is often misplaced. So tune in and learn how to validate your solopreneur venture the right way.

You're listening to the Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Reese, and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I are your guides to navigating this crazy but awesome journey as a company of one. We take pride in being part of Lifestar, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you.

So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. So, Joe, we have spoken with thousands of solopreneurs. And one of the things that always just grinds my gears is when people say, I don't wanna let people know what I'm doing or put my product out there because I don't I don't want them to steal my idea. Or I want it to be a big surprise and a big reveal.

And I just I feel like we should have this episode today because I think that's a bad idea. I think you agree with me.

Joe Rando: I think with very, very, very rare circumstances, nobody's gonna steal your idea. Ideas are easy, and execution of ideas is really hard. So most of the time, people might, you know, hear your idea and like your idea, but they're not gonna run off and steal it. So I I think it's a pretty safe bet.

Carly Ries: Yeah. It takes a lot of effort. But the thing is if you don't vet your product service before you fully launch it, you won't know if it's successful, and you could put in a lot of work for something that never takes off.

Joe Rando: Yep. That people don't want. Yep.

Carly Ries: Right. So, Joe, what are some of your ideas that you have for people to vet their business or tips that that they should keep in mind?

Joe Rando: Well, I think for starters, you you need to first identify who you want to sell your offering to. So if you don't know who the the target audience is, it's really hard to talk to them. So start by defining the kinds of people that you think should want to buy what you're planning to offer, and then go to try try to find those people to talk to them, just to ask them what they think of the idea. And I've said this a lot in other podcasts, but if you have trouble finding them to talk to them, gonna have trouble finding them to sell to them. So that's a good little test in and of itself.

And then once you get people listening to your idea and and kind of vetting it for you, you know, don't be discouraged if, you know, you talk to 10 people and three of them love it and seven people go, nah. That's actually pretty good. You know? You don't take an idea like that. If you get three people that love it out of 10 people you were able to find, that's probably a pretty good market overall.

Right? So so don't let the the naysayers make you feel like this isn't a good idea even if it's more than half the people you talk to. As long as a small number of people love it, you're probably on the right track.

Carly Ries: Yeah. And I think it's one thing to test your business idea, but the other thing that is that you need to test is how you're talking about your business idea and how your messaging is coming across. I mean, the elevator pitch is the oldest phrase in the book. Right? Like, have that elevator pitch.

But, honestly, if you can't explain what you do in one or two sentences, you're gonna lose people. And it's hard to get to that sentence.

Joe Rando: It's a lot of work, and it's and the hardest thing I think for people, and I know it's been for me over the years, is stepping back from what I'm doing, right, which is where we wanna go with our idea. We get this idea to help people with whatever. Well, I'm gonna do this, and I do this, and I do that to what they're going to get. Right? I have the the Post it note, right, on my desk here that's tucked to my monitor that says, what's in it for them?

And it's like you want to always keep that in mind. It's it's talk to it from their perspective, talk about their pain points, talk about what will be it will be like when they don't have those pain points anymore, and then you'll get attention. Then people will wanna hear what you have to say, and they'll understand your idea. Because if I sit there and I say, well, I've got a a, you know, a a multi matrix approach to to developing and outsourcing jobs for small businesses. They go, what the heck are you talking about?

And if I say, you know, I'm gonna help you figure out the best people to outsource tasks that you're currently doing that will save you money and make you more efficient and productive and profitable. People are, oh, okay. You know? So it's it's that kind of thing of keeping keeping that perspective of what are they gonna get? What's what are they gonna see that's different?

What pain are they no longer gonna feel?

Carly Ries: But you're not gonna understand that unless you talk to these people.

Joe Rando: Well, I mean, I hope you have an idea of what kind of pain you're gonna solve. Right? You probably have some experience in life. I mean, some of the best ideas are the people that go, gee, I wanted to buy this thing, and all the things that were available didn't they they all stunk, so I made one that worked for me. And guess what?

The lot of the world liked it too. So, I mean, I think, you you know, rarely do you start off and go, you know, I have no idea what what pain points I'm gonna solve. I I I that's that would be surprising to me. But you you might not be thinking about it in those terms. Right?

You might not be thinking about it in terms of pain points as much as some offering, some and and we also wanna go first to the aspiration. Oh, your life's gonna be so much better. You You're gonna be more profitable. But you always that old saying that we said a lot on the show, it's easier to sell painkillers than vitamins. Right?

People vitamins are, you know, are they aspirational? I'm gonna be healthier, but that takes time. Painkillers are like, I have a headache, and I want it gone in the next twenty minutes. So it's always good to focus there.

Carly Ries: Yes. Absolutely. Well, yeah. And I mean, just circling back to the the main point of this conversation, the the vetting of your product or service. We we've been talking about messaging, the idea itself, but this is also a way to understand your pricing structure and what resonates.

I mean, Joe, we had a call this morning because we had an idea of how we're about to price something, and we ran it by our audience. Mhmm. Yep. We're like, is this going to work? And a lot of people don't think that way.

Joe Rando: Well, the cool thing about that conversation, if you recall, was that our original idea, they they liked and we kept it as is, but we changed something else about our offering. We we changed something that we didn't even think about changing until one of them said something that went ping. And so this idea of talking to people can really help you develop, make your offering better, more resonant with the people that you wanna target.

Carly Ries: Yeah. Absolutely. But the other thing I wanna circle back to is you were saying if you have a hard time targeting or finding the people for these kinds of conversations, you're gonna have a hard time selling to them. And I think it's always a good idea to meet some people face to face, even if that's over FaceTime or something. Just actually and I also I mean, inexpensive paid ads is another way to test messaging, test your offers, not with the intent to sell, but the intent to gather information and to learn what you're doing right, learn what you're doing wrong, look where your mistakes are and the gaps.

And it doesn't have to be expensive to gain a lot of knowledge. And so that's another way that I really recommend testing your partner servers because that's also to people you don't know. Whereas they revert to people you know from a conversation standpoint.

Joe Rando: No. I mean, I've heard about a guy that basically had an idea for a product, and he advertised it. And I mean, this is a little a little iffy ethically, but he advertised it for sale. He got a bunch of sales, so we knew it was a good idea, but he didn't actually have the product. So then he said basically, you know, sorry.

I'm I'm sold out or something and refunded all their money. And then went and built the product and and sold it, but it's you know, I I that one's, you know, ethically I mean, certainly not evil, but unkind. It does it did it yeah. It did it did, vet the product very effectively. So there is, you know, just ways of getting people engaged.

I mean, you know, the thing that we did I did a few years ago was to find out what kinds of things solopreneurs needed and whether they all needed similar things and ran I ran a survey, a paid survey through SurveyMonkey and had 337 solopreneurs or one person businesses answer the survey and found out that guess what? The same problems for every solopreneur, not everyone, but, you know, overall on the average. You know, over 40% struggled with lead generation. 37 struggled with sales, and I think 35% struggled with time management and efficiency. So there was a lot of common problems regardless of whether they were a coach, a contractor, a consultant, anything else.

So so that's what told me, hey, this can work.

Carly Ries: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Joe, before we wrap this up, do you have any other tips for solopreneurs in terms of vetting their product or service?

Joe Rando: I think I think I kinda gave gave the the the major parts away is you know, the main thing is is when you're starting this process, make sure, you know, it's something that you're good at. Right? Because you can I could sell all kinds of things, but, you know, if I start the business and I'm really not, you know, a master of what I'm doing, I'm really good at what I'm doing that I can truly help people, then, you know, that that test that test run of sales is not gonna tell you much about whether you're gonna have a successful business? So, I mean, it's a little little off the topic, but, you know, we, you know, we always talk about selling without sleeves, and this idea of being truly able to help people with whatever it you're doing is one of the key components to keeping, you know, selling a completely honorable process.

Carly Ries: Well and I'm gonna I'm gonna piggyback off of that, but also make sure it's something that you like. As you are vetting this product and hunting people down and refining your messaging and and refining the product or service itself, if you find it to be a drag and you're waking up like, ugh, I have to call another person. Ugh, I have to change this thing. Maybe this isn't the right business for you to start because if you don't like it before you start it, you're not gonna like it when you run it.

Joe Rando: Okay. I'm piggybacking off of that then. So Piggybacking back. Is an important one because this whole ikigai concept, which was like an you know, is not an ancient Chinese I mean, ancient Japanese thing. The word is, but the Venn diagram the Japanese were not that into Venn diagrams, at least back in the, you know, olden days.

And the the fact is it was invented, like, 2015. And this idea of having to be passionate about, you know, what you're doing and, you know, something you you you can do when you're passionate is is great, but it's it's not necessarily what every solopreneur does. Because some people just say, look. I don't I I like it. I'm okay with it, and it gives me the freedom I want to live my life the way I want, and I don't have to be this doesn't have to be my life's passion.

You know? So I think that sometimes people go, oh, I gotta find this thing, the intersection of, you know, what I love and what I'm good at, what the world needs, what the world pay for. It's like, yeah, you can probably get away with three of those, at least certain combinations of three. So I just wanna put that out there that that, you know, it's not necessarily that you have to hit the quadfecta on icky guy in order to have that business that you're talking about.

Carly Ries: Exactly. Well, Joe, I think that's all we have for our listeners today. And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Please share this with a friend. Leave that five star review.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, and we will see you next time on the aspiring solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStar, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs.

Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestar.com. That's community.lifestarwith2r's.com.