In this episode of the eCommerce Podcast, host Matt Edmundson interviews business journalist Elaine Pofeldt, discussing her books Tiny Business, Big Money and The Million-Dollar One-Person Business. Elaine shares insights into the growing trend of million-dollar businesses run by small teams or solo entrepreneurs, exploring how increasing relevance of professional services and eCommerce businesses reaching seven figures, touching on the evolving digital landscape, including the rise of AI, and how entrepreneurs can thrive by going "rogue" and embracing innovation. 

Key Takeaways

1. Rise of Million-Dollar One-Person Businesses: The number of solo entrepreneurs or small teams generating over a million dollars in revenue is steadily increasing. This trend reflects the growing opportunities for individuals to create successful, scalable businesses without the need for large teams or significant upfront investment.
2. Importance of Going Rogue and Innovation: Elaine emphasises the value of going "rogue," meaning that entrepreneurs should be willing to step away from traditional methods, adopt new technologies (like AI), and embrace innovation. Early adopters who are willing to experiment and take calculated risks often see the most success.
3. Self-Employment as a Path to Financial Freedom: Self-employment offers a way to build personal wealth and gain control over one’s career, especially in a shifting job market. Elaine points out that starting a business, even as a side hustle, can be a powerful way to future-proof your income and career in an unpredictable economic landscape.

If this episode of the eCommerce Podcast piqued your interest make sure to check out everything that gets done over here on the eCommerce Podcast, a space dedicated to eCommerce Wow!

[EP] Elaine Pofeldt | Turn Your Small Business into Big Money

Matt Edmundson: Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. This is a show all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow. And to help us do just that today, my very special guest is the wonderful Elaine Pofeld. We are going to be talking about her book and the latest findings and all that sort of good stuff.

But before we get into it, let me say a big warm welcome to all of our new listeners today. Bye bye. A very warm welcome to you if this is your first time here on the eCommerce Podcast. It is great to be connected with you. Make sure you subscribe to the show because I just don't understand why you wouldn't want to be subscribed to the show because I would.

Actually, we've had quite a, a, a good chat already and so I'm really excited about today's podcast. She's a top business journalist featured in Fortune CNBC and Forbes, and she shines a light on seven figure successes with small teams and solo ventures. In her book, the latest book, Tiny Business, Big Money, which is the sequel, if you like, to the million dollar one person business.

Uh, Elaine is a Yale grad and former fortune editor, loves yoga and kickboxing, so watch out, as well as long walks with her four kids in New Jersey. Elaine, welcome to the show. Great to have you on. How are you doing today?

Elaine Pofeldt: Oh, thank you so much, Matt. I'm, I'm doing very well. And hello listeners. I'm so excited to be here.

Well, I only do it on the heavy bag, so nothing to worry

Matt Edmundson: about. To be fair, I've been called worst, but that's okay. So you've, um, let's jump straight into it.

You know, you've got your books, Tiny Business, Big Money, and The Million Dollar One Person Business, which is a great book. Um, and. What's the latest on that? What's the sort of the latest news, uh, if you like, uh, based on this idea of the million dollar one person business? I mean, it's a beautiful title, kind of encapsulates everything that you mean.

Is that still right? Is it still relevant? What's, what's going on in that world?

Right. They

S. for that year that, that were recorded, so this is a tiny percentage of all of the businesses, but these are the businesses that we can all learn from and their numbers are growing. So, I was very excited to see these numbers and interestingly, One of the categories we're told to avoid, Professional Services, actually has the biggest cohort.

Matt Edmundson: Got your spreadsheet, you're okay, yeah, yeah,

Elaine Pofeldt: yeah. It's good news. I, I, I think Programs like this are, it's really important to subscribe to them because they're really on the cutting edge of the knowledge that is allowing people to scale their revenues. This is not being taught in a business school, it's not being taught in a textbook, it's being learned on the ground, day by day, now it's incorporating AI.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because when I, if I think back when I, when I started my business, I started it in the late nineties, right? So this was right back at the birth of the internet, um, to sort of put some kind of an age on myself. I had a full time job. I was designing health spas, you know, saunas and steam rooms and all that kind of stuff.

And I set up this business as a side hustle. Um, And started doing websites as a friend of mine, for a friend of mine. And here I am, you know, however many years later, uh, 26, 27 years later. And just, we have a company, we have a whole bunch, you know, we've got a great team. The whole thing has grown way beyond what I thought it was ever going to.

Elaine Pofeldt: it's a real powerful tool for self realization. And I think there, I have four children ages, um, right now, 14 through 20.

And I've had a lot of experience with the public school system in the U S and I feel like it should be taught more because there are a lot of brilliant people who come out of schools feeling like they're not smart, because they're, you know, they're not smart. Intelligence lies more in the area of business and creating something out of nothing.

You could give your all to a traditional career and then all of a sudden the whole industry is disrupted or the company brings in efficiencies or a private equity firm buys them and wants to cut all the jobs, whatever it may be. And all of a sudden you're back to square one. And I feel that self employment should be a mandatory skill for everyone in every country, as long as the country allows it.

Um, And even then they should probably be allowing it. But, but we, I think we need it. I also feel that the employment system is very discriminatory towards a lot of different people for different reasons. They're too young, too old, they're women, they're people of color, whatever it is, it's not stacked evenly in favor of all people.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of power in that, isn't it? It kind of, it goes back to the sort of the pre industrial age where most people were self employed, wasn't it?

And, and then the, you know, the industrial age happened and the Victorians happened and it all went a little bit different. Um, you know, Henry Ford just decided to put a quite genius, you know, methodology in car building, but it's, It is changed how we do things now. So actually for the longest time, um, being an entrepreneur or being self-employed was almost looked down on, you know, it's like, oh, can't you get a proper job?

You know, that, I dunno what it was like in the States, but that's what it was like a little bit in England. Um, obviously that's changed a lot I think with social media and there seems to be some good kudos around it now. And I know we get a lot of people listening to the show who are just starting out or who are thinking of starting an e-comm business.

What's, what are some of the things that we should be thinking about ourselves to ensure success going forward?

Elaine Pofeldt: Well, one key The one thing that's really important is to go rogue and what I mean by that is last night, the reason I have shadows under my eyes a little bit is because my children and I were having dinner with Gary Lim, who was the founder of the entrepreneurship education program at Prince, at Syracuse University.

Right.

Elaine Pofeldt: It was seen as a, as sort of a lesser discipline. The only corporate business was the thing you should be teaching. And I think in part that was because in the MBA programs, companies were sending their workers there to get an MBA. So maybe it would have offended. um, so, I think being an early adapter of the new information that's out there is really important, because if you waited 30 years for it to be mainstream, you would have missed out on a lot, And interestingly, I had to do an article about the history of entrepreneurship in New York City.

But in terms of more everyday people starting businesses, it's only really been the last 25 or 30 years. So we are on the front lines of something new. And what I've seen, because a, a good part of that time, I've been writing about entrepreneurs, the people that do things early, that experiment early. Make new connections all the time and learn from each other will always do better.

So that's one thing I would encourage people to. Embrace, um, and if you do that, you'll have a much greater chance of success.

Matt Edmundson: That's super powerful. I love the phrase, Go Rogue, uh, I, I, I, I, it's a t shirt slogan in many ways, isn't it? I love that and I think I can see that, that one working quite well. I actually have t shirts with the Rogue brand on from, uh, the CrossFit and, um, um, yeah.

Yeah, I, I, I should just write the word go above it, I think that's quite, because I think going rogue or going off the beaten path, becoming an early adopter, going out meeting people, figuring out problems, trying to solve them, that kind of lies at the heart of entrepreneurship, right?

Elaine Pofeldt: It really does, and also being willing to risk social disapproval, because so many entrepreneurs have told me their stories, and there was always somebody in their life who was worried about them.

So if you're saying, Oh, I have to wait till the day that I can quit everything. I have no financial responsibilities. You'll be in a very elite few, people that are in that situation usually don't even have to work, so most people do start it on the side. That gives you some runway, because let's face it, it's hard to come up with the amount of startup capital people say that you need, it's, you know, they'll say, oh, you have to have one year's worth of living expenses, and one year's worth of business expenses.

Find a way to do it. Because it's worth doing. And it gives you a lot of staying power in your career, especially as you get older, because I don't know if this is true in the UK, but in the U S in certain fields, if someone's over 45. The companies don't even want them, like in the tech industry, and they have so much knowledge and value to give.

Plus, you don't have to compromise yourself as much. I think there are a lot of people that are in jobs that literally are killing them with stress. And they're being asked to do so many things that maybe don't even make sense to them. If you know you can start your own business, it gives you a lot of courage.

So even if you never start a business that goes full time, you can bring something different to your job where you can just be a little more firm and independent when you're making recommendations, because you know you would quit if you had to and start the business.

And

Elaine Pofeldt: I think that's very empowering today because of the world that we live in business wise, it's a very weird world right now.

Matt Edmundson: It's really, really powerful. I, I, it's something I just want to pick up on there. I read a stat and Elaine, I don't know how true it is. Maybe you can speak to this. That the average age of an entrepreneur starting their first business is actually in their early to mid forties. And this surprised me that, um, it was sort of this late.

In life that actually I kind of expect if someone had said to me, you know, how, what's the older, the age of a typical entrepreneur? I'd have said 12, I don't know, you know, maybe 18 or something like that. But apparently it, it, it seems to be that as we get. Further on in life, we're more likely to start a business.

Elaine Pofeldt: One of the fastest growing groups in the US of business owners is actually over 50. So that number actually rings true to me. I think the reason is people reach a certain point in their careers where they have a point of view. And I noticed this because I'm a ghostwriter also. And I find that generally speaking, not always, but generally the majority of my clients At age 45 and up have started to form a point of view where they can be a thought leader in their field.

Before that, they're still kind of learning

the

Elaine Pofeldt: basics and becoming proficient in it. But at a certain point, you'll have a, an area of friendly disagreement with your industry where you realize there's a better way to do things. And that's usually where the innovation comes or the book comes or the new system comes.

Whereas someone who is just out of college in the U S I don't know if this is true all over, but we have a lot of student debt. And so. It could take someone until their mid thirties to pay that off, or maybe even later. So it's harder for them to start a business when they're paying off these huge bills for tuition.

But there may be things in other countries, you know, similar to that, where it, it's hard. Plus people have to become proficient in their field.

Yeah,

Elaine Pofeldt: I mean, sometimes people, I have written some articles recently about some very young entrepreneurs, sometimes. They can become proficient as teenagers, so it's not always true.

And they're more proficient than we'll ever be. So . I don't wanna stop anyone of any age from doing this. Mm-Hmm. . Because a lot depends on the business that you're starting too.

Right. And, and I think some people discount themselves because of age and actually. I think in your 40s and your 50s, you, you not only know stuff, which you didn't know when you were younger. Um, but actually I think life has a different, I'm just thinking about, I mean, I mean I'm in my early 50s now and I think back to my 20s, you know, um, I was very much about success.

I wanted success in my 20s. And then sort of in my 40s and 50s, I think I transitioned more to Wanting more significance rather than success is maybe a word that I'd use, you know, and I think, um, I think your outlook on life begins to change, doesn't it? And so it's stuck, and you, you start to think there's got to be more than the, the rat race that I'm in, and, and somehow starting your own business brings with it an, an element of, Fear, but an element of freedom at the same time, isn't it?

Elaine Pofeldt: Well, there's definitely an element of risk to it. And although I'm a big champion of starting a business, there is some fear, but there's also self mastery. I look at a business as a practice. I do yoga and until the pandemic, I was doing a lot of martial arts, not the kickboxing, but the real Taekwondo.

I mean, as you get older too, you might have children or dependents where you can't just Say sink or swim because they won't have a roof with kids, or there will be no groceries in the refrigerator. You have to be mindful of that if, if you have dependent. So the showing up gives you that chance of, you know, even if you spend one hour a day and just buff up your LinkedIn profile or reach out to one person, if you do one thing.

But I think As your life deepens, you start to look for deeper, more spiritual validation or internal validation, and you realize a lot of the external things are so subjective anyway.

Yeah.

Elaine Pofeldt: They mean less to you. I'm not saying they don't mean anything, but There are a lot of great people that don't get recognized.

Like we look at that movie Hidden Figures, you know, and so

you

Elaine Pofeldt: realize it's not a level playing field anyway. So if you didn't get the awards, but you deserve them, well, in your business, you can have a chance to get the prizes anyway. But it's not just about that. You know, money is fleeting. It goes up and down.

Um, and you realize that I think, you know, as you get older, but it also makes running a business more exciting because you're open to the journey and you also have the life skills and the scaffolding in your life to support you in it in whatever form it takes. And you have the network too. I, I want to say something about that because.

I usually, in the mornings, I go on a walk and I brainstorm with my friend Diamond Michael Scott, who runs Great Books, Great Minds, which is, if you love reading, he's a great curator of books, and we were talking about how Connection is going to be one of the most important resources for people in the future with all the AI driven systems and tech driven system to get anything done.

Literally. I forgot that I even called and it was, it was on for an hour. Then I hear this voice. I'm like, who did I call? And I'm like, Oh, that was like an hour ago, but, but. The people that are going to be successful are not going to be hijacked by all of these systems as they get through their daily life.

They will have human connections where they can say, I'm not going through that stupid system. I'm calling a real person and getting this done in one minute the way it's supposed to take. And I think tools like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all of those are valuable because if you have genuine relationships with people and you have a question about something, You can reach out to them and just bypass all of these tools that are really tools for efficiency to allow the owner to build profits.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's fascinating. Fascinating. How long did you, I'm just curious, Elaine, going back to the book, how long did it take for you to write the book?

I came across these stats on the Census Bureau site when I, I write a blog for Forbes and you write five a month as part of your requirement and I was getting towards the end of the month Googling for inspiration for something I could write about and I had kind of run through all the interviews. That I did for the month and I saw this data and I started poking around and I love data and I noticed that there were people breaking 1 million in these self-employed businesses, which is far from the norm.

What was the name of their business? And, and, um, I, when I wrote it, it went viral and people started writing to me and saying, this was a cliffhanger, Elaine. Why did you write about it and not tell us who the businesses were? So. I wrote to the readers of Forbes, and I said, if you're one of these businesses, please tell us who you are, and they started writing to me, but it was very slow, and each time I, I found one, I would interview them, and then I did this post, um, it was about a year later, about the rise of the million dollar one person business, and I had five businesses, um, one was Alan Walton, an eCommerce entrepreneur who runs Spy Guy, it's a, um, like a nanny camera store,

Okay.

Um,

Um, there was somebody, Peter Leeds, who did a finance newsletter. Uh, Dan Mezaritsky, he was a fitness trainer who licensed his methodology and, um, they were all breaking 1 million. There was, there was one other. And. It went even more viral. So then I saw there was a real interest in this topic and much more than anything I ever wrote about startups.

out in the marketplace like that can be a good idea because you see what people are curious about. But anyway, that led to the million dollar one person business. And what was very interesting was that many of them were inspired by Tim Ferriss, the author of the four hour work week. And so when they celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the four hour work week, I co hosted that podcast with him a couple of times with some of the people from the book.

And

it

Mm-Hmm. .

Elaine Pofeldt: And he was an e-commerce entrepreneur. I don't know if people know this, he may, if they follow him, but he was doing supplements.

Um, that's

right. Yep.

Elaine Pofeldt: And he had a million dollar one person business basically. And so we took an excerpt from the book, but we added material like that into the piece because there was a requirement at Fortune Small Business Magazine that you had to be breaking one million. And it was so interesting to see how his ideas evolved, but Not only that, how real people interacted with them and applied

them

Elaine Pofeldt: and fine tuned them to their unique needs over a 10 year period, and I would say probably more than any other person on the planet, he probably influenced the creation of more of the million dollar one person businesses than anyone else.

but

Elaine Pofeldt: how do you, when you do have to kind of be a boss, maybe it's a team of contractors, but you have to tell people what good looks like, what you want them to do, how do you hold on to all the good stuff without turning back into the company that you didn't want to be.

as a

Elaine Pofeldt: one person business. He had contractors, um, and he runs his whole team on Notion. He has contractors, uh, you know, maybe ten that are recurring, but he's not an employer, and, um, Think about that.

He doesn't like meetings, so he doesn't have them. You can actually do that.

That sort of rise of the lifestyle, self employed business, where you're making money, but you have not as much responsibility as you would if you went down the traditional route, is seemingly becoming more and more popular.

Elaine Pofeldt: Matt, you're raising a very important global issue, because think about what the average person's biggest expense is.

It's housing. So people that cannot find the money to run a business. Can easily hack their housing costs if they have the mobility. Now, if you have children in a school system, it's very difficult unless you're homeschooling them. And I have done homeschooling. It's a big commitment. Um, and I was not able to sustain it because I work a lot.

And what I find is entrepreneurs are a special breed and they're so similar in every country in the world, you know, just their whole mojo and their vibe. And. Being a digital nomad is such a great way to tap into that and just cross pollinate with all the people around the globe that share that passion for entrepreneurship and doing things your way and, and basically it's freedom.

and

Elaine Pofeldt: would make no sense to someone my son's age who's 14 because they do everything digitally.

They don't understand. I think this is why there is so many conflicts about why do I have to work in the office when I could do it just as well from my balcony. And we, we we're working in so many new ways. And the old systems are kind of self defending. Commercial real estate, for instance, they want us in those buildings.

Yeah.

Elaine Pofeldt: But do we need to be there? Is it good for us? Is it good for the planet for all these people to be in cars and trains and everything else? I think younger generations and even older people that just think differently are questioning these things.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right and quite rightly so too.

It can get tough and so could you just maybe in closing to speak to that what what would be some advice that you've learned You know in all the interviews and in writing the books that just helps people to keep going when times get tough

Elaine Pofeldt: Well through safety in numbers. There's one Event that I've been covering for a while called the seven figure Seller Summit, Gary Huang runs it.

Amazon may change its algorithms. I mean, there's so many and Amazon isn't the only place that people are selling. So sharing that information can help insulate you from the impact of the changes, I would say, be a student of automation, of using contractors, of outsourcing, because sometimes you have to put in an upfront investment of time in learning these things and there's time on the setup, but you can sometimes pay someone to set you up and save you that time.

Matt Edmundson: That's fantastic. I love that. I love that get together in community or find people that you like, you know, where I'm, I'm part of four or five groups like that in the different things I'm involved with. And it is just priceless, um, absolutely priceless. And of course, it's a nice segue, Elaine, not that we planned this.

Uh, if you are an eCommerce and would like to join a said group, uh, like that, get in touch with us because we do actually have something like that, which you could join, but. Uh, just contact us through the website or on social media, we'll send you more information. But Elaine, listen, uh, if people want to reach out to you, if they want to connect, if they want to find out more, maybe even get the copy of the book, what's the best way to do that?

My books are in Amazon or Barnes Noble, any major bookseller. I'm on Instagram under million dollar one person business. So you can basically reach me anywhere. I do write back. Please do write to me because I'm a journalist and it makes me a better journalist. And. Um, I'd love to hear what's on your minds and how I can be more helpful in my coverage.

I do want to say something about the groups. A lot of times people are hesitant to invest in themselves with these groups, but what I always think about is what if you got one new customer from being part of these groups? What is the lifetime value of the customer going to an event? When I'm talking myself out of, myself out of doing something, you know, Oh, I'm going to spend 2, 000 on this.

So if there's any parting word, I would say that that it is so important. I've been thinking a lot about connection and community. And I think if you spend 20, 25, Just building community and connection. Your business will be so much bigger than you ever imagined.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Very powerful words. Elaine, thank you so much for joining us, uh, on the eCommerce Podcast.

Keep going, keep listening. Uh, keep persevering because it, it, it pays off. So, Elaine, thank you. Thank you so much.

Elaine Pofeldt: Thank you so much, Matt.

Matt Edmundson: Wow. What a fantastic episode. We will of course, link to Elaine's info in the show notes, which you can get along for free with the transcript@ecommercepodcast.net. And it will be winging its way direct your inbox if you have signed up for the newsletter now.

Great, a great conversation. Just love that. Now be sure to follow the eCommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because we have yet more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss any of them. And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are.

Theme music was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I mentioned, if you'd like to read the transcript or show notes, simply head over to the website or just scroll down actually on your podcast app. They're also there as well. Uh, but that's it from me. That's it from Elaine. Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.