I have a 1-person business myself, and it seems to me that it starts with an idea and/or personal skills, the two of which are inherently related. There are things that I know, and things that I'm good at. The author advises you to target businesses, not consumers, and perhaps that's good advice in the abstract, for a generic person, but for me personally it feels like bad advice. B2B is not my area, not in my past experience, not what I know. The author says "The opportunities are endless", but that's a curse as well as a blessing. How are you, as a single person, going to make an impact, distinguish yourself from other businesses? You have to rely on your personal strengths, whatever those happen to be, even if they go against the author's generic advice.

My own advice would be this: don't try to start a 1-person business unless you need to. ;-) It's extremely difficult.

> How do I get an idea to start?

I usually check marketplaces where businesses are sold. Not to acquire one, but to get an idea of what makes money. Then start assessing each business from your point of view: Is it easy to build a similar product? Do you have ideas for a improvement? Do you have a strategic advantage through your network or knowledge?

Patrick McKenzie:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/

Dan Grossman

http://www.awio.com

Although they occasionally deal with contractors, they are one man shops. There are benefits and costs to do this.

It really limits your "impact" and how much money you can make...however there is a lot less stress involved.

Would you want to be a successful solopreneur or do you feel the traditional startup is the right path?

2. Just concentrate on getting those first few sales. It may never happen.

3. It depends. If you want to raise funds and recruit lots of people, you should probably be in a big city. If it is just you, you can be anywhere.

4. Big topic. It isn't enough to do stuff, you need to also tell people about it (marketing). The best marketing channels vary a lot depending on your product, goals, personality, budget etc.

5. Big topic. I prefer not to deal with investors and bootstrapped my business with my own savings. Venture capital allows you to launch bigger and faster, but with a lot of strings attached. I suggest bootstrapping, at least to start with, You can always try to raise money later, if you have some customers.

I have written various stuff about marketing and running a small software business over the years. You might find some of this useful: https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-microisv/

Good luck!

Generally there is better advice!

=== Startup Big Point

Here is a big, huge, gigantic point about doing a startup and owning 100% of it: In broad terms, that's the American way!

Or, it's obvious; just look: All across the US, east to west, north to south, from an isolated house in the woods to a crossroads up to the largest cities, sole, solo entrepreneurs start and run successful businesses. No biggie. No tech. No MBA. No venture funding. No team of co-founders. By the millions -- wrong, by the 10s of millions. If that was so difficult to do, then there wouldn't be tens of millions of people doing it.

=== US Mainline Business

What do they do?

Mow grass -- the ones on my street show up with $100+ K of capital equipment counting the truck, the trailer, the mowers, etc.

Note: Now $100 K will pay for one heck of a powerful Web server farm; if you can keep that farm busy, then just at standard ad rates you have nearly a license to print money. Or, for computing, $100 K in capital equipment is now a LOT.

Do auto body repair.

Do other auto repair.

Sell car tires.

Add asphalt to driveways.

Do landscaping, architecture to grass mowing, for good customers, e.g., any company with nice grounds.

A dentist.

A CPA.

A pizza carryout.

A Chinese food carryout.

An Italian red sauce restaurant.

A manufacturer's representative.

A local wholesale plumbing, electrical, building materials supplier.

A wide range of what can be called big truck, little truck businesses -- buy stuff delivered in a big truck and sell it out of a little truck.

Run several fast food restaurants, gas stations with convenience stores, etc.

And on and on.

Generally these businesses have one of the most powerful advantages in all of business -- a strong barrier to entry. That barrier is, and may I have the envelope, please [drum roll], geographical, that is, the businesses are not in competition with anyone more than 100 miles away. In particular they are 100% immune to competition from China. If they are in Tennessee, then they have no competition with anyone in NYS or CA. Etc. So, if they can do comparatively well in a radius of 100 miles, then they can do well for their career.

A huge fraction of the people who pay full tuition for their children at private universities did not take venture capital, did not have co-founders, didn't get an MBA or a STEM field college degree, were nearly never an employee, and were not close to any of the scenarios in the OP.

Okay, that, my friends, is American Business 101 Facts of Life. That's the overwhelmingly popular version of US business and, indeed, US careers. Nothing else even comes close. And the OP is far away from that.

So, take that US business 101 and, with computing, try to do more -- the computing should be an advantage.

=== Being an Executive

Okay, briefly, for being an executive: No security. None. Zip, zilch, zero. No matter what. Instead are an at will employee that at any time can be fired for any reason or no reason. Biggie reasons for getting fired: (A) As in the OP, office politics. E.g., there's gossip (you get accused, tried, convicted, and fired all while knowing nothing about it). (B) The company does poorly. (C) The company does fairly well but gets bought out by another company. (D) The owner has a son and wants to give him your job. Etc. The crucial point is, you don't own the business.

Just as an executive, your skills, alliances, knowledge of your current job, etc. anywhere else with a dime usually won't cover a 10 cent cup of coffee.

Is there a way? Okay, be in sales and have a nice list of your accounts that do well. You don't really want to be the sales manager, just a good sales guy. If your employer goes out of business, gets bought out, etc., then take your customer list to whatever company in the industry wants to server your customer list. Be sure the industry will be solid even if your employer might not be.

There's just no magic to being an executive. And there's nearly no power; instead your job is to get along, go along, and hope nothing bad happens. If you sponsor a new project and it fails, then you have a black mark on your record, and everyone else has an excuse to gang up to fire you. If the project is successful, then you have jealous enemies all the way to and including the BoD.

Part of this is the fact that currently the US economy has about 94 million people out of the labor force. So, mostly, there's no shortage.

Currently it's too common for Mr. Big CEO to wake up, have a bad day, look at his budget and organization, draw a big X, and say "Off with their heads." In this way big, famous companies have suddenly fired dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people. E.g., at one time, as computing was roaring ahead, IBM suddenly went from 407,000 employees down to 209,000. They cleaned out rush hour traffic over big parts of NY, CT, and NJ.

Another time, at IBM Research, a group of about 100 people got into serious political trouble, and when the dust settled a lot of managers were demoted or fired and a about half of the rest, about have high-end Ph.D. holders, were fired. It was all about work-place politics, cliques fighting each other, etc.

Sure, decades ago lots of people could join a company and work until a nice retirement. Things changed slowly. E.g., could work for Sears for decades and retire. Sears? It's about to go belly up, totally. No more; that's rarely the case now. If you really want that, then: (A) Work for a company, e.g., a public utility, where the employees have a strong union and join the union. E.g., at one time could do that with the Bell System. Alas, even Ma Bell didn't last. A local water company might be better. Be careful about a local electric utility since that industry might change a lot before you get to retire. (B) Work for government, local, state, or Federal. Remember, though, even working for government have to be careful about the slot. E.g., don't be a civilian Civil Service employee for the US military: Then some military officer is running the place; they likely have their job changed each two years or so; so a new guy comes in and quickly doesn't like you or your job, and you are OUT. So, each two years you have to sell yourself to another person you never met before. That person can make a big mistake firing you, but, then, you are still fired. So, for a 40 year career, you have to sell yourself to 20 people you never met before, and you have to be 100% successful in all 20 attempts. That's not good job security. (C) Work for, say, some very solid, stable financial institution, maybe The Ford Foundation.

Officer in the US military? Every now and then you are up for promotion, and if you get passed over three times or some such, then you are out. So, as time goes on, the many lower level officers become many fewer upper level officers. It's not at all clear which lower level officers will leave; it is totally clear that nearly all of them will.

Net, it's better to be a non-commissioned officer, e.g., a sergeant where you can keep your job. Even if you get 4 stars, like General Mattis, you can be out because someone up there didn't like you.

Some private companies have personnel policies similar to the military for their officers: They hire lots of people in their 20s, and by age 35 they are in management or out the door. It's not at all clear who will be out the door, but it's totally clear that nearly all of them will be. A lot of those people would be better off in their 20s starting and growing a grass mowing service, quite literally: There's a good geographical barrier to entry, and the grass will keep growing. Commonly in the US, a Ph.D. in electronic engineering will have a better long term career as a licensed electrician. No joke.

I know a guy, bright enough, who got a Master's in environmental engineering. His real career was as a plumber and installer of home heating systems.

=== Being a Founder

What the OP says about being a founder is quite narrow.

I have a high school friend. His father was selling beer for a small brewery. The brewery went out of business, but he knew a lot of people in the beer business. He went to the NW corner of his state, arranged to distribute about six brands of beer (right, the beer came to his warehouse on a railroad siding via railroad freight car) and sold out of little trucks. Somehow people still like beer! He passed the business down to his son. People still like beer! Good business. Darned good business.

If want to go into computing, then be sure you have an even better business than selling beer.

The OP wants to say that the business idea in computing is not very important. IMHO, that's mostly nonsense.

Sure, if want only routine technology, then the OP comments about employees, teams, etc. are important. But a business with only routine technology tends to have a darned small barrier to entry. Sure, one of the best barriers to entry was virality from a social network with a strong network effect, but that's path seems to be about saturated.

Again, there are 94 million people out of the labor force. So, if you want a job as founder of a successful business, then, IMHO, need to do something new and powerful with a good barrier to entry. Basically you have to plow new ground in US business, have to do something those 94 million don't know how to do.

It is entirely possible to start a business by yourself. People do it successfully every single day but there are a whole lot of complicated factors from financial, legal, technical and psychological at play just to get started.

Having a support system around you can insulate you from a lot of the complications that come from going it on your own, but that support system is usually based on goodwill not vested interest.

Even people who "go it on their own" but happen to be married when they do so very clearly have a partner in the business.

I've been running my own solo small business for 8 years now. No need to mince words, it sucks. Trying to do the same, but with a startup? Where rapid growth is the key indicator for whether your business is dead or alive? I honestly don't believe most people are capable.

They are very strongly advising people to get help. It's good advice.

If you've got partners and plan to grow and/or are planning on hiring several employees in the next few months, you should do the couple of hours of homework and lawyering it takes to file the right papers at the beginning.

+1

If you need one, I could name a half a dozen great ideas off the top of my head. I think most entrepreneurs could. The bottom line is, if you want to build a business, you are going to have to trust somebody sometime.