007: Million-Dollar One-Person Business with Elaine Pofeldt

For so many of us, growth is not our driving metric. There are 30 million small business owners in the U.S. who have no full-time employees. We are deliberately keeping operations small to optimize instead for sanity, freedom, and abundance. Elaine has spent the last several years studying the “Olympic athletes of one-person million-dollar businesses,” people who tend to value their time more than money. In 2019, 40,000 “non-employer firms” brought in $1 million to $2.5 million. 585,000 non-employer firms brought in $250K to $500K in revenue, and 2 million non-employer firms earned at least six figures.

More about Elaine: Elaine Pofeldt is an independent journalist and speaker who specializes in careers and entrepreneurship. She is author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, where she looks at how entrepreneurs are scaling to $1 million in revenue prior to hiring employees. She is a freelance journalist for CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, and Money, among others. Our first conversation from April 2018 is one of the top ten Pivot podcasts of all time!

❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener supported—consider donating to become a podcast Insider and you’ll get access to a private monthly Q&A call with Jenny.

📘 Books Mentioned: Pivot, The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business, Revised: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want., The 4-Hour Workweek, The E-Myth Revisited

🔗 Resources Mentioned: Elaine on the web, Twitter: @ElainePofeldt, LinkedIn: Elaine Pofeldt, Elaine's Articles

🎙 Related Episodes: 96: The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business with Elaine Pofeldt

💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter: http://itsfreetime.com

💸 Enroll in the Mini-Course: Free-up Founder Time

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey

🗣 Submit a voice question or comment for future episodes: http://itsfreetime.com/ask

🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to ‘casts: http://pod.link/freetime

📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! http://itsfreetime.com/episodes/007

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices