I Wish I Knew How: 5 Things to Learn in Solopreneurship
Learning how to celebrate small wins, ask for help, and more.
Since October 2023, I’ve been exploring an independent path. Before that, I spent 6 years at Miro, passed with the company from Seed to Series C, and finished as a Head of Growth Product Design. Now I’m exploring a new independent nature as a Growth Advisor, creator of Growthmates, Maven courses, and more on “My Pathless Path”.
Here I’d like to share my recent self-reflection that led me to 5 things I’m still trying to learn in Solopreneurship:
How to celebrate small wins;
How to ask for help;
How to share publicly and stay vulnerable;
How to deal with uncertainty;
How to find “work-life integration”.
This post doesn’t have best practices from the industry, research, or other things I typically share here. It’s a self-reflection to learn and share these learnings with others who might be exploring an independent path or just curious about it.
#1. How to celebrate small wins
When I’ve been on my recent trip to Japan in March, I received this notification from Substack:
It was hard to experience immediate excitement or appreciation, as social media and the collective mind are teaching us the opposite (chasing for more).
For me, the expectations bar was quite high from the childhood. I wore the hat of an “adult” quite early, and have always been an A-student. My parents were kind to me but took success at school and work as something for granted. Later I started taking many things for granted as well, I forgot how to feel joy like a child and give myself credit, but now it’s an amazing opportunity to learn that again.
It’s been hard to remind myself that my creator path started officially only in January. Since then I’ve been posting podcast episodes and articles regularly on a bi-weekly basis.
After a minute of thinking, I started feeling a more sincere appreciation for those 1000+ people who found my content useful and subscribed 🙏 After processing it for longer, I started feeling gratitude towards myself, and the effort I invested into all that work, with the discipline, consistency, and commitment.
Maybe it can be a reminder for you as well, the hard work you’re accomplishing at work, or some independent projects. Great job 👏
Visualizing the milestones can also be quite helpful. Recently I went to The Blaze concert in Amsterdam AFAS arena with the capacity of ≈6000 people. If something you’re doing is approaching thousands or millions — it’s a huge impact, and the responsibility comes with it.
First, I’m grateful to everyone who finds my work valuable. Thank you 🙏
Second, I encourage you to celebrate small wins by saying that you’re doing well to yourself. Just say it 🙌
#2. How to ask for help
Corporate work teaches how to collaborate, but not necessarily how to ask for help. One of the success criteria for career progression is the level of autonomy. Over years of optimizing for that criteria, a simple “ask for help” becomes hard to adopt. Questions like that appear in the mind:
What will these people think of me?
Am I interrupting their busy schedule?
Does that mean that I’m incapable of doing this by myself?
Being a solopreneur doesn’t mean doing all the things by yourself. As the proverb says: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”. Asking for help is exactly how you go together.
In recent months, I practiced this in multiple ways by asking others:
Share knowledge on the things I’m new to (e.g. building the newsletter);
Introduce me to other founders or companies to build the advising pipeline;
Help me find new guests for the podcast;
Share information about my course with relevant people in the network.
And now, let me practice it with “learning by doing” and ask you all for help right here 👇
While working at Miro, I was trying to connect with other leaders to constantly learn and get fresh perspectives. This personal aspiration was laid down as a foundation for Growthmates — the place to connect and learn from industry leaders and make these insights available to everyone. For the 1st Growthmates anniversary, I’d like to create something valuable and memorable — “The Playbook for Growth Teams” that will collect insights from the episodes and fresh perspectives from this industry research 🚀
And you can help me a lot by taking part in this study:
Wooh, that was not easy to put here! And I’m grateful to anyone who can contribute with some insights that motivate create more of these things for the community 🙏
#3. How to share publicly and stay vulnerable
I came from a Product Design background, so sharing work for critique was quite a natural part of my work. However, sharing a more vulnerable and “true” side of myself in public is a different story. When I transitioned to leadership and already adopted some wisdom from
, Brene Brown, Kim Scott, and other incredible books authors about leadership, I started sensing that the necessary foundation for growth is the ability to embrace vulnerability.Surprisingly, a month ago I noticed a book in a yoga studio from one of my favorite authors and true role models — Brene Brown, “Atlas of The Heart”.
Yesterday I encountered the definition of vulnerability in that book:
Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.
Brene Brown, “Atlas of the Heart”
In this book, Brene mentioned several examples of situations when people felt most vulnerable. These 3 examples resonated with me:
Talking about my feelings;
Starting my own business;
Giving and getting feedback.
It feels that solopreneurship allows experiencing all of them at once and in a new spectrum. Talking about my feelings publicly, sharing challenges I face along the way, giving feedback to myself and close partners with whom I’m building the podcast, courses, workshops, and more.
Another great quote from Brene appeared as a light in front of the solo path:
There is no courage without vulnerability. Courage requires the willingness to lean into uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.
Brene Brown, “Atlas of the Heart”
An example of that courage is showing up, even in situations of high uncertainty. Keep on doing things that do matter. Keep meeting people, building connections, asking for help when needed, and sharing stories here, even if it’s uncomfortable.
It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable, so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.
Dr. Harriet Lerner, "The Dance of Fear”
I decided to choose showing up over the avoidance. It doesn’t make it all easier, as I’m still confronting a lot of uncomfortable emotions, but at least it helps to better understand them and start building my own “atlas” of emotions and ways of dealing with them.
#4. How to deal with uncertainty
As I previously shared on "My Pathless Path” — one of the most important challenges that I consciously wanted to face was how to deal with higher levels of uncertainty with a sense of peace and inner stability. Now it seems to be a necessary foundation for any other experiments throughout the lifetime.
There’s a new spectrum of uncertainty to deal with when you don’t have a stable and predictable income source. Things like:
Mortgage pay increased;
Unexpected tax or utility bills in the inbox;
A very promising client dropped off last-minute;
Family members in another country need financial support;
and more stuff like that.
It’s not easy to accept things beyond your control. As a survival reaction, there’s a trap that pulls into a safer, stable, and predictable environment. The question “Maybe I should get back to a stable full-time job?” already appeared several times in my mind.
But whenever these thoughts come to me, I’m sitting down and have a small dialog with myself:
Alright, welcome back. I understand it’s a new, unstable condition where you’ve never been before, and it’s scary. But I trust you, and I belive in you. Everything will be alright, just keep doing the things according to your values, with commitment and consistency. I support you.
I learned that finding this inner support is way more important than looking for that externally. Eventually, I want to start “dancing with uncertainty” which already presents itself as an area full of curiosity and growth opportunities.
Thanks for
who created “The Pathless Path” which keeps inspiring me to move forward on that track.#5. How to find “work-life integration”
I was chasing the concept of “work-life balance” for a while before I uncovered a more interesting “work-life integration” when reading “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott.
Don’t think of it as work-life balance, some kind of zero-sum game where anything you put into your work robs your life and anything you put into your life robs your work. Instead, think of it as work-life integration. If you need to get eight hours of sleep to stay centered, those hours are not something that you do for yourself at the expense of your work or your team. Your work and your life can give each other a “double bounce.”
Kim Scott, “Radical Candor”
It changed the way I look at my work and daily life quite dramatically. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about creative things or working for 10 hours — I keep doing that if it feels good. However, at times I can’t concentrate, and then I grab a sup board and do a ride in my neighborhood during lunchtime — this is my type of work-life integration these days.
I’m still learning how to maintain that integration. Sometimes I take too much on my “solo plate” and my schedule looks busier than any full-time job I had before. But what works at least for me — if I love working, I’ll keep working. If I need some rest or to shift the focus— I can embed it into my day at any time, like this subboard ride.
What’s next and a special ask 🙏
I think this is just the “top of the iceberg” of the things I’m going to explore along this independent path. But now I look at these things with a more curious attitude than before.
I’ll keep doing the things I’m doing — and here’s a special ask 👇
I might need some external help in the near future with my podcast, newsletter, socials, and other exciting collaborations. If you’re interested in supporting that, having some 1:1 time with me, or have a good recommendation — please reach out to me directly on LinkedIn 💜
P.S. Thank you for being a part of the community and observing my journey. As
put well in her book — “the journey is only 1% finished” 🚀
Kate, thanks so much for sharing your path. I keep copying & pasting many of your sentences. Love the format and your openness, brave and bravo!