The $1.8M Solopreneur Playbook

Brett Williams is a solopreneur who achieved over $2 million in annual income with zero employees and working 6 hours a day. He operates Designjoy, an unlimited graphic design subscription service.

Step 1 'Demand-based pricing': He acquired his first customer within 24 hours at an exceptionally low initial price of $449 per month. Subsequently, as demand increased, he gradually raised prices to $1,000, $3,000, $5,000, and $8,000.

Step 2 'Boundaries': Clients submit requests asynchronously via a Trello board, limited to one request at a time. He protected his time and prevented burnout by accepting only written requests, with no meetings or calls.

Step 3 'The $5,000 Client': Shifted from $500 clients (cheap and high-maintenance) to $5,000 clients (wealthy and low-problem). For companies, Brett's service is a steal compared to hiring a $200,000 per year designer or paying $30-40,000 in agency fees.

Step 4 'High demand, low touch': Website design and branding have high impact (high demand) and, once built, don't require frequent modifications (low touch). This combination ensures high profitability.

Step 5 'Build once, sell forever': In 2019, he sold a template product called Scribbles for $4.99, which was downloaded over 25,000 times. He later created a course called Productize Yourself, and these info products now account for 29% of his income.

Currently, he can earn about $1 million annually with just 16 clients paying $5,000 per month. He maintains high profitability with minimal dollar expenses (zero employees) and time costs (6 hours a day, serving 16 clients).

The success of productized services varies depending on the type of service. Similar profit margins cannot be achieved with low-demand, high-cost, and time-consuming services like bookkeeping or video editing.