The Pros and Cons of Growing Your Team as a First-Time Solopreneur

As a solopreneur approaching the $200k revenue mark, you’re facing a critical decision:

Should you continue to grow your business solo, or is it time to bring on contractors or staff?

This is a problem you dreamed of experiencing when you first started your business.

But that doesn’t make it any less daunting.

You don’t want to ruin the business you’ve put so much effort into building.

Here’s how to avoid accidentally scaling your way to a full calendar of all-hands meetings and 1:1s.

The Quick Pros and Cons List

The pros of staying solo:

1. Maintaining Full Control: You retain complete decision-making power and can pivot quickly when needed.
2. Simplicity: Your business processes remain streamlined, with no need to manage or coordinate others.
3. Higher Profit Margins: Without the overhead of salaries or contractor fees, you keep a larger share of your revenue.
4. Personal Satisfaction: There’s a unique sense of accomplishment in growing a business entirely on your own.

The cons of staying solo:

1. Limited Capacity: There are only so many hours in a day, and you find yourself hitting a growth ceiling.
2. Risk of Burnout: Trying to do everything yourself leads to exhaustion and decreased productivity.
3. Missed Opportunities: You have to turn down potentially lucrative projects due to lack of bandwidth.
4. Limited Perspective: Without a team, you miss out on diverse viewpoints and innovative ideas.

The Team Approach: Scaling with Support

The pros of bringing on a team:

1. Increased Capacity: With more hands on deck, you take on more clients or projects.
2. Diverse Skill Sets: Team members bring expertise in areas where you might be less proficient.
3. Faster Growth: With the right team, you scale your business more quickly.
4. Work-Life Balance: Delegating tasks frees up your time for strategic planning or personal pursuits.

However, this path also comes with its cons:

1. Increased Complexity: Managing a team requires new skills and processes.
2. Financial Risk: Payroll and contractor fees represent a significant financial commitment.
3. Quality Control: Ensuring consistent quality across a team can be challenging.
4. Cultural Shifts: Your business culture will inevitably change as you bring on others.

Making the Decision: Intuition Meets Analysis

So how do you decide which path is right for your business?

This is where the interplay of intuition and data-driven decision-making becomes crucial.

Psychology research suggests that intuition plays a genuinely valuable role in strategic decision-making, especially in unstable or rapidly changing environments (Khatri and Ng, 2000).

As a solopreneur, you have a strong intuitive understanding of your business and market. This “gut feeling” can’t be dismissed.

However, intuition alone isn’t enough.

Covin et al. (2001) found that the effectiveness of intuitive decision-making styles can vary based on factors like organizational structure and environment.

This underscores the importance of combining your intuition with careful analysis of your specific situation.

Here’s what you need to think about:

1. Financial Analysis: Project your revenue and expenses under both scenarios. How do they compare?
2. Market Analysis: Is your industry growing? Are there untapped opportunities that require additional resources?
3. Personal Goals: What do you want your role to be in the business long-term? Do you enjoy managing others?
4. Risk Tolerance: How comfortable are you with the financial and operational risks of bringing on a team?

Want Help Making This Big Decision?

Solopreneurship doesn’t come with an advisory board of team of executives that know the ins-and-outs of your business to tell you what to do.

And that’s the pro and con of this type of business.

It’s great because you get to do what you want to do when you want to do it.

It’s scary for that exact same reason.

Want an intellectual thought partner that can walk you through this decision using:

• Mental models
• Psychology research
• Questions from your favorite entrepreneurs?

The 3-Prompt Starter Pack is designed to help solopreneurs like you make confident, strategic decisions about your business’s future.

The 3-Prompt Starter Pack

Get immediate access to 3 thought exercises that turn AI into your on-demand business strategist.

Turn off the noise of the online gurus and figure out exactly what works best for your business with a reflective exercise that helps you:

1. Evaluate your readiness to scale (solo or with a team)
2. Align your growth strategy with your personal and business goals
3. Identify potential risks and opportunities in your scaling decision

Each prompt is crafted based on research in business psychology and real-world experiences of successful entrepreneurs.

Get Your Free 3-Prompt Starter Pack