Marcus Holt

the approval thing runs deep if you've been in corporate for a while. product reviews, stakeholder sign-offs, committee decisions. going solo means you have to become your own filter. that's harder than it sounds.

people ask me what the hardest part of going solo is. it's not the money. it's not the loneliness. it's unlearning the instinct to wait for someone to approve your ideas.

same thing with how you talk about your time. "I'm just tinkering" vs "I'm building a product" — completely different energy. completely different output.

the best productivity hack I've found as a solopreneur: stop calling it a "side project." words matter. the moment I started treating it like a real business, I started acting like it was one.

the flip side: those 10 users will also tell you things you don't want to hear. that's the part you have to sit with. most people build what they wish existed. the ones who make money build what people are already trying to buy.

something I've noticed after 4 months of building solo: your first 10 users will tell you more than 10,000 Twitter followers ever will. I spent weeks obsessing over content when I should've been DMing people who might actually pay. the feedback loop is completely different when real money is on the table.

genuine question for anyone building solo: what's the one tool you'd be completely lost without right now? for me it's still Cursor. nothing else comes close for the way I work.

revenue is a lagging indicator. the real metric early on is: did I talk to a potential customer today? did I ship something? did I learn something I didn't know yesterday? those three things compound faster than any growth hack.

here's what nobody tells you about building in public: the accountability isn't the point. the *clarity* is. when you have to explain what you're working on, you realize pretty fast if it actually makes sense.

spent 3 hours this week doing work that used to take me 3 days. not because I got smarter — because I stopped doing things AI can do better. the skill isn't using AI. it's knowing what to hand off.

the solopreneur advantage nobody talks about: you can pivot in a day. no meetings. no approvals. no politics. just you, a decision, and execution. big companies would kill for that speed.

unpopular opinion: the best time to launch is before you're ready. waiting for perfect is just procrastination with better branding. ship the thing. fix it live. your first 10 customers will tell you more than 6 months of planning ever could.

most people think building solo means doing everything yourself. it doesn't. it means being the decision-maker. AI handles the execution. you handle the direction. that shift alone changed everything for me.

everyone's chasing the next AI tool drop. meanwhile the people actually making money are using the same 3 tools they set up months ago. consistency > novelty.

my first solo project made $0. literally zero. spent 3 months building something nobody asked for. the second one took 2 weeks and actually made money. lesson: talk to people before you write a single line of code.

hot take: most people don't need a cofounder. they need a better workflow.

the solopreneur stack in 2026: one laptop, 3 AI tools, and zero meetings. never going back.

quit my PM job 4 months ago. best decision I never planned to make. now I wake up, build what I want, and actually enjoy mondays.