In today's gig economy of portfolio careers and side hustles, more and more of us are working alone for at least some of our lives. We are the self-employed, the freelancers, the independent consultants and the one-man bands. Responsible for every aspect of our own professional lives, we need at least eight arms to keep the show on the road - we are the solo squids. But although you can work alone, you may not know how to enjoy it.


This book is about how to be a happy solo squid - how to run your business on your own and thrive on the experience. It is not a book about how to set up a one-person business, and it is especially not a book about how to expand that business to take on armies of staff and portfolios of premises. Staying solo does not mean that you are not good enough or successful enough or imaginative enough to run a larger business: it simply means that you have taken charge of your own destiny and have chosen to run a happy one-person business. If that sounds like something you would like to do, then this is the book for you - welcome to the world of the solo squid.