[davismwfl]

So I can't call myself a solopreneur at this time, but I am a solo-founder that started as a solopreneur. All the things that are good about being a solopreneur are pretty compelling, but there are some serious downsides too.

One of the most prominent to me is the lack of ability to have people around to challenge you, your ideas etc. And for me, being the smartest (or only) guy in the room is never a way to get the best idea when you have the final say on said idea. Which for me generally meant I spent more time trying to find multiple ideas/solutions so I could weigh their options. Having a team around that could be done in a couple of hours because people think differently, by yourself its tougher and takes longer if you are honest with yourself.

As a solopreneur you rely on clients more to give you feedback to help mitigate my last point, and done right that can be super powerful, but if you get one client that can tip the scale too much by being too much of your revenue then they can put you out of business quickly. This is simply because you will feel obligated to keep them happy and so they will be forcing your hand more than you would like and you keep deluding yourself with I'll do it this time... With a team even a large client will get more of a balance because the team is talking to multiple clients, but when its you by yourself it is harder to manage.

There are a ton of other things I could mention, but no matter, I wouldn't say being solo vs a team is better or worse, just different with different challenges and benefits. You just have to weigh them to see what is right for you. And I would not say that there is less stress being solo, it is just stress of a different nature, e.g. you aren't responsible for other peoples income just your own, but you still have all the client and engineering stresses except they are all on you whether its 3am or 10am.