Hi. Welcome to Bloom Anywhere. I'm Gwen Moran, a writer, editor, author, and problem-solver. My goal is to share information, ideas, and resources to help you overcome obstacles, reach your goals, and get more joy out of life, even when things are messy. Thanks for joining me. (If you got this from a friend, subscribe here: Bloom Anywhere.) I'd love your feedback and suggestions for future topics. Please send me an email: connect@bloomanywhere.com.
It’s National Small Business Week. And while many folks may not get too excited about the chance to celebrate small businesses, I think that’s a mistake. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) make up 99.9% of U.S. companies and contribute 43.5% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They’re a force.
I’ve been self-employed for most of my career, starting my first business when I was 26. I was honored to be named a regional Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration during Small Business Week back in the day. In 2002, I went solo to reinvent myself as a freelance writer and have been an independent contractor ever since.
One Person, Big Bucks
When you work on your own, whether it’s your full-time job or a side-hustle, you wear many hats, and finding ways to make your business as successful as you want it to be—whatever that means to you—while also being efficient with your time and energy is a constant challenge. I was fascinated when my friend and colleague, Elaine Pofeldt, wrote her book The Million-Dollar One Person Business: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want.
If you’re skeptical that a solopreneur can reach seven figures per year in revenue, you need to read Pofeldt’s work. In a March 2025 piece she wrote for Forbes, she pointed out that, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the number of non-employer businesses reaching $1 million or more in revenue doubled between 2021 and 2022 to 116,803. Small Business Week seemed like a great reason to catch up with Elaine and discover how these SMB superstars did it. The following interview has been edited for brevity.
Bloom Anywhere: How did you get started writing about million-dollar one-person businesses?
Elaine Pofeldt: I’m a data geek and noticed data about these million-dollar one-person businesses. I wrote a post in 2013 about it for Forbes, which went viral. Then, through my Forbes blog, I asked owners of these businesses to write to me. About five people wrote back. One was Allen Walton, who ran an online spy camera store like a nanny camera store. Rachel Charlupsky ran a babysitting company for the spouses of professional sports teams from her Blackberry. (This dates us a little.) And Dan Mezheritsky was a fitness trainer who licensed his fitness training methodology to other trainers and so on. There were many different types of businesses. I wrote another post about them in 2015, and it went even more viral.
BA: What were some of the reasons these business owners were able to rise to the revenue levels they have?
EP: They're students of efficiency. Even though they're not “techies,” for the most part, they do keep up with the latest technology so they can get more done and use a lot of automation. They're also not afraid to outsource to a contractor. While I call them “one-person businesses,” non-employer businesses can have contractors. They're not doing every single thing in the business themselves. Or maybe they do strategic partnerships with other one-person businesses. They’re not just hustling from one project to the next and trading time for money.
BA: Can you share some other examples of these businesses?
EP: One is Sean Kelly, who was a college student at Rutgers University and started Jersey Champs, a business that sells jerseys. He figured it would be too expensive to license the brands from really big and famous celebrities in the sports world, but many times, stars in the music world were still undiscovered, and would license their images for a more affordable rate; now he’s also selling nostalgic styles.
Steve Ferreira, founder of Ocean Audit, audits shipping bills, which are in the public domain. For instance, if a [big retailer] orders a bunch of suits and they come over on a ship from overseas, that bill is a public document. So, he would find the errors in a bill, and then he would go to [the retailer] and say, “You know, on that shipment you just did, there was a $500,000 mistake, and I'll tell you what it is, but I get a 50% commission.” It was money added to the balance sheet. Now they just got back $250,000 that they didn't know they were going to get, and he brings in close to $2 million a year as a solopreneur.
BA: Did these solopreneurs have common traits or habits?
EP: Absolutely. One thing is that they were creative about talent sourcing. One example is Laszlo Nadler, who's in the opening chapter of my book. He found his graphic designer in his living room. She was cleaning his house, but doing that as a side hustle. It turned out that she had design talent, and he began outsourcing to her.
They're also very good networkers. I was surprised at how many knew each other, independent of knowing me. They get out there. They go to events. They communicate online. When you own a one-person business, your network is everything.
One thing I found in my second book, Tiny Business, Big Money, where I surveyed them, is that 88% exercise. And this is so hard when you have your own business. They also prioritize having some type of a spiritual practice. It isn't consistent among them. Maybe it's prayer; maybe it's meditation. But they do connect with their center as a human being.
Many have accountability partners. A fairly large percentage said they had a coach or belonged to an entrepreneurship group, and I think it helps to have other people walking the same walk, who have the same exact pressures. And many of them use SOPs—standard operating procedures—so that if they bring in someone to help them, like a contractor, that person knows what good looks like. Some people do it in writing, or they do audio or video, but SOPs mean they don't have to keep on re-explaining everything.
BA: Any other advice for folks who want to grow their businesses to this level?
EP: Expose yourself to all the free learning resources there are. Podcasts. YouTube videos. They're filled with people that are doing this. The more you can pay attention to these. Inputs, the more you'll learn. There might be just one little thing they say that resonates with you that will change your whole business.
Growing Your Own
After my conversation with Pofeldt, I reflected on the limits that we accept in virtually every area of life. After reading the book, I realized that many of these successful solopreneurs simply changed the way they approached their businesses. They didn’t have limits in their minds about what they could earn or what they were worth. I think that’s an important lesson in business—and in life.
Are you running a successful side-hustle or one-person business? I’ll be writing a lot more about self-employment in the coming months, so I’d love to hear about it. Send your story to me at connect@bloomanywhere.com.
Bloom Drops
Things I want to share with you.
Celebrating SMBs: It’s National Small Business Week, and Inc. is hosting some of the Sharks from ABC’s “Shark Tank” in a series of informative video sessions about growing a business in uncertain times. Be sure to register, and benefit from their wisdom.
Reading: I’m finishing up The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis, an intriguing story that is especially fun if you’ve spent time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We spent many hours in the area that houses Temple of Dendur when my daughter was little, so revisiting it through the book was entertaining.
Remembering: Over the past few weeks, I’ve been having conversations with people who wish they had learned more about a late loved one’s life before they died. So, if you have a loved one whose stories you’d like to capture, this piece I wrote a while ago offers some tips and ideas for capturing those precious memories.
