Solopreneurship Archives - Solopreneur Grind

A big conference and sales week

Josh Schachnow — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:57:48 +0000

Happy Monday folks, hope you had a great week and are ready to rock for this update and upcoming week ahead. Let’s jump in:

Update and story of the week

Very hectic week on my end for 2 reasons.

First, I attended a pretty cool conference that started Thursday night and ran through Saturday: the CBA Immigration Conference in Ottawa, Canada.

I know, I know: probably sounds like a major snooze to you.

But to an immigration laywer like me – and especially as one who sells software to immigration lawyers – it was a big one. Not only because we got to show off our immigration tech platform, Visto, but because I got to meet a lot of great lawyers and people who I’ve connected with over the years, mostly online, and shake their hands in person.

Despite getting pretty comfortable in a mostly virtual now, I still think nothing beats a good in-person conversation. Agree?

Second, we had a huge sales week – the biggest we’ve ever had – and added more than 5 law firms (paying customers) to the Visto platform in a matter of days. We actually had 2 clients convert while we were in the car driving from Toronto to Ottawa for the event!

I can really see us turning a corner here, in a great way, as our product is starting to catch on and our revenue is starting to reflect that.

Now we need to keep the pedal to the metal and the snowball rolling…

Key takeaway

Not only am I excited from our recent progress, but all of the interest we got from the event last week. Lots of good connections and demos scheduled as a result.

And something I forgot about, a little, is how important events and in-person networking is.

Everything else is good to too – cold emails, calls, video conferencing, etc. – but I am confident that the connections I made during that event, where we were able to shake hands and talk in-person, will lead to higher quality connections and prospects.

Key takeaway: don’t forget about the power of in-person. Whether it’s attending some conferences, networking events, or even going to visit a prospect or client in-person.

Books

I finished The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty and loved it. As mentioned in my previous emails, this is a fantasy/fiction novel, and a bit out of the norm, but if you like that genre then I highly recommend it.

I’m now about 1/3 through The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: Apple, Ford, IBM, Zappos, and Others Made Radical Choices that Changed the Course of Business by Verne Harnish.

So far, a very cool read. It basically goes decision-by-decision and breaks down how and why it happened, and what was so great about it.

For example, why 3M’s decision to give their employees 15% of their week as free time to work on their own projects has made such profound impacts on their company in the last century.

It’s a pretty easy and short read, with punchy lessons that will get you thinking. Full review when I finish it next week, but so far, so good.

The Woodstock of investing last weekend

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 14 May 2023 18:49:27 +0000

Continuing on from my last solopreneur update post talking about the one and only Warren Buffett.

Who coincidentally, held the Berkshire Hathaway annual general meeting (AGM) last weekend.

I know what you might be thinking: it’s an AGM, who cares?

And it’s a good question. Because if you’ve ever been to an AGM, you probably know how freakin’ boring most are.

Not for Buffett.

In fact, his AGMs are so popular that some people buy a share in Berkshire just so they can go (their B stock currently trades a bit over $300 USD – while their A stock is a hair under $500k. Yes you read that right, $500k/share).

Anyway, their AGM is like something out of a movie, a weekend long event in Omaha including tours of some of their major investments (read: businesses) and the chance to hear Buffett speak and ask him questions.

It’s like the Woodstock of investors.

And another reason why building up your solopreneur personal brand can be a huge advantage. If you can gain a following of people who are so interested in hearing what you say that they’re willing to make trips to do it in person, you’ll punch your ticket to success.

Now ironically, Buffett never really tried to build a “following” or personal brand, at least not in the traditional sense. For him, his actions speak louder than words and he’s amassed a following of investors who can’t wait to read his yearly letter to shareholders or attend his AGM.

Mostly from investing and helping grow companies, not from posting on Instagram, although obviously times have changed a little.

But it’s one of the reasons my good friend (and email subscriber) Chris and I started our podcast, The Grind Mastermind. To share our stories along the way as we try to build our businesses.

I’m not sure if we’ll ever get anywhere near the level of Buffett, but in that sense, we’re probably far more relatable.

Chris building his copywriting/UX agency, and me working on my immigration tech company, Visto – so you get a nice combo of service business and tech company.

Anyway, episode 7 just went live – you can watch or listen to it here.

Have a great day and keep grinding.

The post The Woodstock of investing last weekend appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

Building your own tech as a solopreneur and a great read

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 07 May 2023 19:06:46 +0000

Got a question from one of you lovely email subscribers after my solopreneur update last week:

———-
“Good Morning:-)

Where can I learn more about your platform?
Are you the tech savvy guy behind it? Are you outsourcing all the build items?

Have a great day!”
———-

And it made me realize – I talk a lot about my tech company, but very rarely do I ever plug it.

So just in case you’re curious, you can learn more about the Canadian immigration platform we’re building here: http://visto.ai/

To answer the second question, no I am definitely not the tech savvy guy! When I was starting up Visto years ago, I partnered up with a good friend of mine who I grew up with in Ottawa who is a software developer, and he builds all of our tech (along with another full-time software developer that works with us).

What I’ve come to learn is that a great dynamic duo for a tech company is 2 cofounders, where 1 is great at tech and 1 is either a domain expert or great at sales (or both).

A domain expert is someone who knows a lot about the industry or product you’re trying to build. So in our case, Alex is our techy and I’m the immigration expert – a good match (I’m also decent at sales)!

From my experience, outsourcing tech kinda sucks.

There are SO many dev agencies out there, and it’s hard to tell which are good and which are not. They also will never have the same motivation and excitement about your product as you, because you’re just one of potentially many clients.

So my recommendation would be to either find a cofounder/business partner that can take charge on the tech side, or go vet and find a really good independent contractor on something like Upwork that can commit to just your project for however long you need.

But I highly recommend the former over the latter.

And of course, if you want any more insights on that experience or have other questions, just let me know.

I also finished a great book last weekend. About one of my favourite “entrepreneurs.”

I put the word in quotations because he’s not the traditional entrepreneur that starts and grows one big business.

At least not like in Shoe Dog (Nike), Amazon Unbound (Bezos) or The Virgin Way (Branson), as per many of my favourite books.

And that’s part of what makes him and his story so interesting. It’s a huge business success story, but with a twist.

The book is “Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist” by Roger Lowenstein, and it’s a biography about none other than Warren Buffett.

I didn’t know much about him – other than what we hear or read in the news – until about 3 years ago when I started reading books about/from him, and I’ve been fascinated since (this is my second readthrough of this biography – as you know, I often re-read my favourites every 2-4 years). I’ve also read The Essays of Warren Buffett, which is basically a compilation of his annual shareholder letters organized in a meaningful way.

Here’s why Mr. Buffett is so cool, and why anyone would read a compilation of his shareholder letters:

Unlike a lot of the entrepreneurs I read about and allude to, he’s made most of his money investing in companies – not starting them. He started a few smaller ones when he was much younger, but most of his success came from investing in companies that he liked and thought were underpriced, and then benefited from their growth and appreciation.

Of course I’m summarizing here, and it’s much more nuanced than that, but he’s arguably the most successful investor of our time and it’s fascinating to read about how he evaluates companies, what he looks for in them, how he approaches investing and more.

I highly recommend the book, and the Essays too.

Maybe I’ll share some of my key takeaways in tomorrow’s daily email…

Have a great day and keep grinding.

The post Building your own tech as a solopreneur and a great read appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

How to get over your fear of cold calling, and a big sales “first”

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 07 May 2023 18:58:52 +0000

Is there anything worse than a lingering cold?

I mean, probably yes.

But when you’re going through it, it feels like hell and the thought of just getting better is like heaven on earth. Suffice to say my runny nose is still sticking around, but hopefully back to 100% asap.

That being said, I’ve gotten into a decent groove with cold calling over the last few months and wanted to quickly chat about it.

Because I feel like over the years it’s fallen to the wayside, as everybody looks to automate everything.

Cold email campaigns, cold LinkedIn outreach, cold Insta DM’ing.

And some of those are great, if done well. But from what I see in my inbox, and the amount of terrible, ice cold LinkedIn crap I get – most of it probably isn’t all that great. It also means even more opportunity for those of us who haven’t given up on cold calling.

Because while everyone else is worrying about perfecting their cold tech this and that, I’m just having honest conversations with people, on the phone.

Which is probably the best way to present your product/service, instead of being 1 in a million emails/LinkedIn messages/etc. That being said, it ain’t easy. There’s a reason so many people love the cold tech stuff – they can sit behind their comfy computers, and just press a few buttons.

Now don’t get me wrong – some of that stuff can work, and work well. But there’s a reason cold calling has, and probably still is, the most effective way to close new clients.

The trick is, mostly, getting over your fear of it.

Because unless you’ve done a lot of it before, or are extremely comfortable starting cold conversations with random people, it’s probably at least a little bit intimidating.

I know it was for me.

But one of the things I’ve learned, after probably hundreds of cold calls now, is that it’s like anything else – the more you do it, the better you get, the more confidence you get doing it, and it’s a virtuous cycle.

The hardest part is mostly in the setup:

have a defined target market
get a good list of these people ahead of time (with contact info)
have a script ready for how you’d like the convo to go and key messages to get across
know the key outcome you want to get from the call (demo booked? free trial? followup call?)

That’s half the battle.

And I talk more about it in the recent short snippet video I posted on Youtube Shorts/Tiktok. We basically take snippets from the Grind Mastermind Podcast, and repurpose them.

Bite sized knowledge, from yours truly. Check out the video on Shorts here, or Tiktok here.

Also had a cool “first” last week in my cold outreach adventure.

As most of you know, it’s been a big focus on sales and growth for the last month or so.

Cold calling, emailing, scheduling demos, trying to get new users, etc. And we actually had a pretty good month of April, so that’s exciting. I’m also continuously trying to learn and improve my sales game, because if I’m being honest, I’m not an A+ in sales.

I think I’m pretty good at sales – heck, I’ve been doing it on-and-off for the last 6 years for my law firm, then in tech for Visto. But I’d say I’m more of an operations guy than a sales guy.

Which made my sales “first” today even more exciting. So what was it?

Well, as you know we sell immigration software, and so the usual flow is cold outbound, then try to book a demo, then do a demo, then get them to sign up for our free trial.

Now what my sales advisor told me to aim for was to try and close a new user in as few steps as possible. So instead of cold calling and trying to book a demo – try to do the demo live, on the cold call, and avoid adding an extra step.

Makes sense logically right? If you can sign up a new user in 1 step instead of 2 or 3, that’s ideal. First because it’s faster, and second because there are fewer chances for the lead to fall off (back out, skip a call, etc.).

Today, I landed my first new user sign up on a cold call – all in one step – and it felt great.

I made the call, confirmed they were in our target market and that they were interested in our product, then asked if they had 10 minutes for a quick demo on the spot. They said yes!

So I quickly swapped us over to a video call, gave the demo and got them signed up for our trial. All within about 25 minutes from calling them that first time.

Now for some of you A+ salespeople out there, that might just be another day in the office. But for a guy who hasn’t done a ton of tech sales, it was a fun accomplishment to convert a brand new user right from a cold call.

Suffice to say, I’m just warming up over here… and if I can keep up this work, and continue improving as I go, I think we’re going to have a good few months at Visto. Hopefully you’re enjoying the journey too, and if there’s any part of that story/sequence/sales content that interests you, hit reply to let me know and I can go into more detail.

I’d also say I think I crossed the cold calling chasm.

And what I mean by that is, I’m starting to get comfortable doing it.

Like anything that’s sort of new or a little intimidating, it can take some time to get settled in before feeling confident in a certain task.

Selling, creating content, riding a bike, you name it.

After some more reps and advice, I’m starting to feel pretty confident with my cold callng game, which makes waking up and doing it everyday that much easier.

And I think it comes down to 2 things:

being well prepared
doing it a lot

Doing something a lot is pretty simple. The more you do it, the better and more confident you’ll get, especially if you’re being intentional with it and adjusting along the way.

Selling, creating content, riding a bike, etc.

But the other thing that’s helped me a lot for cold calling is being prepared. In this case, with a really good script.

As I’m making calls, I’m looking over on my second screen to my script that lists exactly what to say at the beginning, what to say depending on their response, how to close out the call, etc.

With a good script, I know exactly what to say about 85% of the time. And when that’s the case, it’s just a matter of going through the motions and hitting your numbers to get results.

And it’s probably the same with anything – selling, creating content, riding a bike, etc.

Have a good plan/guide in place and it will make doing those things much easier.

Maybe overly simplistic, but hey, usually the best business advice is…

Have a great day, make sure to sign up for my daily solopreneur tips here, and keep grinding.

The post How to get over your fear of cold calling, and a big sales “first” appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

Solopreneur sick days, walks and motivation

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 07 May 2023 18:42:48 +0000

Back to the grind today after a hectic end of last week and crappy beginning of this week.

Here’s how it went down:

So last Thursday night I had a meeting with a potential partner, which ended up being a few beers long. It should probably be a written law in business that more beers consumed during a business “meeting” = a better result in the end for both companies.

Anyway, it’s for a very exciting partnership for Visto, and their CEO and I wanted to discuss details in-person after business hours. Good talk, hopefully good outcomes for all of us.

I’ll keep you posted as it evolves.

But it also meant I was out much later than usual and wasn’t able to get my Friday morning email out – my sincerest apologies.

To make matters even worse, I caught a cold over the weekend and while I didn’t take Monday fully off, it knocked me out for all of Sunday which is when I usually write the Monday morning email.

It leads to an interesting question, which is how should solopreneurs treat sick days?

Is there even such thing as a sick day as a solopreneur? Because a day off usually means zero work/output. I have 2 thoughts on this.

The first is that the best way to tackle sick days is to lead a very happy/healthy life and avoid them as much as possible.

Easier said than done, but I’ve found that in the last 3-5 years as I’ve optimized my health (routine exercise, eating healthy, lots of water/sleep, etc.), I rarely get sick. I’m talking 1-2 times per year, maybe.

Again, maybe your situation is different and getting into a good routine is harder, but I think that being healthy and avoiding getting sick should be goal #1 here. Do you agree?

Now secondly, if you do get sick, I think the best thing you can do is maxmimize recovery so you can get back to 100% as quick as possible. Not sure about you, but I find my efficiency and quality of work is much lower when sick, so I’d rather take an extra day/half day off to recover, instead of grinding too hard and extending the period of being sick.

So for example on Monday, I slept in a bit longer than usual, made sure to drink tons of liquid, took a few cold meds, and mostly did admin work from bed.

At this point I know my body pretty well, and with one more good sleep I’ll be back to 100% – so there’s no point trying to force in 1-2-3 more big tasks, over-tire myself and push things back.

Just my thoughts: avoid sick all together, and prioritize getting over it if you do.

I think that more than ever, we as solopreneurs need to be as on-the-ball as ever, so this is all very important.

Keeping a closer eye on trends, world events (to an extent – don’t need to follow every detail), key factors affecting different parts of the world, financial stability, and yes, staying healthy.

And being able to adjust as needed.

Luckily it’s easier than ever to do that thanks to the internet, and also making sure you have a good network of people that can keep you focused.

I had a good mastermind call with a group of solopreneurs I meet with every 2 weeks, and the benefit of simply talking to others – who could be in very different industries from yours – who are in the same kind of solopreneurial journey during these crazy times can have such a grounding and calming effect.

It’s part of why I always recommend networking to solopreneurs, and especially developing some close connections and/or mastermind type groups for deeper discussion when you need it.

One of the key takeaways: now that’s nicer out, I need to go on more walks.

If you’re ever in the position of making a difficult decision, or tough spot, or stressful week – usually a nice walk clears your head and makes harder decisions feel easy.

We’ve also got a big week ahead of us. Largely filled with sales, and by the looks of the weather forecast, rain.

Up here in Toronto it’s been a rainy few days, and forecast for another 3-4 more it seems – a warm welcome to summer.

But as they say, it can’t always be sunshine and rainbows.

On the business side, we’re slowly starting to see some traction with our (pretty cool) immigration platform. These things usually don’t happen overnight – as much as we’d like them to – but after months of launching, selling, listening to users, adding new features, and continuing to sell, the needle is moving.

We’re feeling confident, and just need to keep pushing.

Even though it’s going to be a gloomy week (weather wise), I’m gonna get up each day and pound out a ton of cold calls.

It’s not exactly the thing I’d love to do, day in and day out, but it’s what we (the company) need right now to get to the next level. And we can smell it…

This motivational Monday update is almost as much for me as it is for you, but this is a reminder to just keep pushing. For all we know, we’re all just another day, or another week, or another month away from huge break throughts and progress.

As long as we keep pushing.

So let’s do it together. No matter what difficulty you may (or may not?) be facing this week, let’s take it one day at a time, and keep pushing.

I know I will be.

Have a great day, make sure not to miss out on my daily solopreneur business tips and stories here, and keep grinding.

The post Solopreneur sick days, walks and motivation appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

How 1 LinkedIn Live got me 650+ views in less than 12 hours

Josh Schachnow — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 17:06:04 +0000

Oh boy, what a week in the immigration world.

For those who don’t work in the Canadian immigration industry, the government workers went on strike last week. This basically means that the staff that are responsible for processing millions of immigration applications in Canada each year… didn’t go into work due to a strike.

And as you can imagine, this is not a good thing for people who are submitting these applications – the aspiring immigrants and the immigration professionals they work with.

Suffice to say, not a happy day.

Now for all I know there is probably a decent reason to be striking (I know they’re negotiating higher pay, etc.), but I hope it doesn’t last a long time.

I woke up yesterday and decided to go live on LinkedIn to talk about it.

Why?

Because if all we’re getting is a bunch of bad news, might as well talk about it in public and hopefully drum up some good chatter.

Here’s how it played out:

woke up and realized the strike was happening
texted a colleague of mine around 830am to ask if he wanted to go live with me on LinkedIn to discuss it
scheduled a LinkedIn Live for 1pm
posted the event on LinkedIn to promote it at 11am
had 60+ people sign up to the event on LinkedIn ahead of time
went live at 1pm and had an average of 45 viewers for the entire 1 hour session

The post and subsequent video generated a ton of buzz, and I think plays into something we should all be doing as solopreneurs – positioning ourselves as industry experts and at the forefront of important industry conversations.

And as a result, it’s generated 73 comments, 6 shares and over 650 views – in less than 12 hours! And I’m sure it will get more views and comments over the next few days as well. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s also in line with something I discussed with a friend about onboarding last week.

Because another thing I’ve learned in the last few months is how important this part of the process is in tech (stay with me for a minute here, I’m bringing it all together I swear…).

When you sell a product, it’s pretty simple – they pay you, you give product. When you sell a service, it’s pretty simple too – they may pay you upfront, may not, then you provide the service.

When you sell tech, there’s typically some form of onboarding at the very least. Especially if you offer free trials.

They sign up, they hopefully use the tech, you keep reminding them to try the tech, they hopefully like the tech, they upgrade to becoming a paid subscriber.

If things go well.

But there’s a whole bunch of nuanced stuff that goes on in there.

What are the terms of the free trial?
When and how do you sign them up?
Can they sign up on their own or do they need an invite?
When do you follow up to see if they are using/liking the tech?
How can they upgrade?
What do you do if they sign up and don’t try it?

You get the picture. Lots going on. So we were strategizing ways to improve the Visto onboarding experience, so we can get as many users to try – and upgrade – to our paid plan.

The interesting thing about launching new tech products is there’s no perfect way to do it. You have to test and adjust.

For example, should you offer a free trial? Well, probably… depending on your product.

All you can do is test a free trial, see how it goes and adjust based on how things are going. Same with onboarding, pricing, etc.

One strategy may have worked for Hubspot in 2014, but that doesn’t mean it will work for Visto in 2023. As an example. Similarly, going live on LinkedIn may be great this year, but not the next.

As I’ve learned to start saying nowadays – ABT. Always Be Testing!

Have a great day, don’t miss my daily business tips here and keep grinding.

The post How 1 LinkedIn Live got me 650+ views in less than 12 hours appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

Warm weather, accountability and tech launches

Josh Schachnow — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 16:59:10 +0000

Happy Monday folks, and hopefully you had a good weekend.

Over here in Toronto it’s starting to warm up. Apparently it’s actually going to be a cold week ahead, but we had a nice warm weekend which was great. Because as some of you may know, spending months in the dark/indoors through a Canadian winter isn’t always that fun.

More warm weather = more sun which usually = more energy, good moods, etc.

I also got back into running outside, a routine that I don’t like during the winter. Although if you want to read about the time I was forced to train outside by running in a Canadian winter, definitely check out my blog post from last year on running my first (and only?) marathon.

I find that running, like business, and almost anything else, is about setting a plan and then staying consistent. Everything else is usually not quite as important. Consistently and hard work probably trump everything, so make sure to never forget that (even though we all do at times).

It’s one of the reasons I’m finally pulling the trigger on that Discord community I’ve been thinking about for a while, but wanted to wait for the right time and reason before doing it. The main reason is simply to keep each other accountable, because it’s so easy as an entrepreneur not to have that accountability or system in place, to keep you consistent, day in and day out.

So what I did is create a basic Discord community, and the main focus is keeping yourself accountable. All we do (mostly me for right now because it’s so new) is post once per day, about the 1-3 things we want to get done that day. And then at the end of the day, post an emoji to show it foyu got it done or not (thumbs up or down).

That’s it.

So far, even after a few days, it’s helped me stay focused and consistent because I know others are watching.

Anyway, getting back to business and recent progress, when I first got into tech I thought that building and launching products was a good chunk of the work.

What I quickly learned is that’s the easy part.

Since we all have ideas and what we think are good solutions, we think that building and launching will lead to instant riches. Maybe that’s how it happens for some – the Facebook’s of the world – but for most, it’s a much different road.

A road filled with crickets.

Meaning that you launch a product, then realize you have to actually go and sell the thing! And to add a kicker, selling software can often mean convincing people to try a new piece of technology that they’ve never used before – which I’ve found to be a bit harder than selling a traditional service.

Now I don’t want to turn everyone away from tech. Far from it.

Just trying to share from my experience, so that more people do more prep before building tech products in the future. And also realize that once you build the product, the real journey begins.

Selling, marketing, talking to users, getting their feedback and adjusting, etc.

It’s one reason we’re adding in a big new feature this week at Visto, because it’s something a lot of users, and potential users, are asking for.

A big reason I usually recommend keeping your MVP – initial product – super barebones and just getting it out into the public asap. So you can talk to users, get feedback, and only build in what they actually want, instead of spending way too much time building features they might not even use.

I’ll keep you posted as we build it in and launch it, and hopefully it leads to some good traction.

Have a great day, make sure to follow along for my daily solopreneur tips here, and keep grinding.

The post Warm weather, accountability and tech launches appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

Big events coming up this month

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:45:55 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we’re back in action after our long weekend here in Canada.

And a few big events coming up in the next few weeks.

First, as many of you know, I’m a big fan of in-person solopreneur networking events.

If you’re trying to start or grow a business, find partners, expand your network – anything – it’s usually beneficial to get out there and meet new people.

Now that I’m 7+ years into my career, it’s funny, because I can trace back many of the great opportunities or breaks I’ve got back to some form of networking.

It’s also why I started running my own networking events in downtown Toronto a few years ago.

If you’re in, or will be in, Toroton for the last week of April, make sure to check out my networking event here.

My new podcast cohost Chris and I are also settling into a good groove with our new show – The Grind Mastermind.

A few months ago I switched up my interview-style podcast, to more of a duo accountability type show where we talk about our journeys of growing our own businesses, and checkin every 2 weeks.

If you want to hear about how Chris is growing his copywriting business, and how I’m growing my immigration tech company, I would definitely recommend checking it out. We spend ~20 minutes talking about how the last 2 weeks went and our plans for the next 2, then another 10ish minutes talking about the books we’re reading and new tools we’re trying.

It’s a lot of fun.

Not only that, we actually record the video live – so if you want to tune in, listen in, ask questions or make comments, make sure to subscribe to it on Youtube here.

I’ve also been cutting up the podcast into video snippets for youtube shorts and tiktok, which seems to be a decent marketing strategy…

Maybe more on that tomorrow?

Have a great day, make sure to also grab my daily solopreneur tips here, and keep grinding.

The post Big events coming up this month appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

Thinking about AI as a solopreneur

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:43:32 +0000

We did some work today on the AI side of things.

Nothing too crazy, and by no means is it any deeptech AI stuff, but pretty interesting in my opinion.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, it’s (AI) definitely been one of the hot topics of the year so far. Especially in the tech world and also for solopreneurs.

AI this, Chat GPT that, you know how it is.

And so one thing I’m thinking about is how we can leverage it to make our immigration platform better at Visto.ai

Based on how good the AI tools are already, it’s probably something every company should be asking – how to leverage AI to improve your business?

Can you use it to improve your internal processes? Produce more output? Improve your own tech product? Save your employees more time?

Something else entirely?

That’s for you to think about! But seems like there are a ton of applications and the tools will only get better.

In our case, we already integrated Chat GPT-3 into our web app and it didn’t take our devs very long. Our CTO, Alex, had it going in just a few days using their API.

I unfortunately can’t speak to the intimate details of that because I don’t do our dev work, but it seems to be pretty user friendly in that regard.

And we’re going to keep improving it over time too, so will keep you posted on how that goes.

Have a great day, make sure not to miss my daily solopreneur tips here, and keep grinding.

The post Thinking about AI as a solopreneur appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.

Working in offices for solopreneur support

Josh Schachnow — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:39:33 +0000

As a solopreneur, getting back to work after a weekend can be overwhelming. That’s why I was excited to try out a new office space offered by our lead investor at Visto.

Not only was it a great opportunity to get out of my home office, but it also provided valuable support from other successful and experienced individuals who work in the same space.

This office is a great example of solopreneur support, providing not only a change of scenery but also a chance to interact with like-minded people.

The fast internet and empty space were just the icing on the cake.

And the best part? It’s completely free for portfolio companies like mine.

As I chatted with some of the other occupants of the space, I realized how important it is for solopreneurs to have access to support like this. Working from home can get lonely and isolating, but having a community to turn to can provide much-needed encouragement and advice.

So if you’re a solopreneur, consider seeking out a similar space or community where you can find support.

It’s not just a nice-to-have; it can be the difference between burnout and success. And if you’re lucky enough to have an investor or mentor who offers a space like this, take them up on the offer – it could be the boost you need to keep grinding and moving forward.

Have a great day, make sure to join the email list for my daily solopreneur tips here, and keep grinding.

The post Working in offices for solopreneur support appeared first on Solopreneur Grind.