u/Ok_Albatross_4198

Have been trying to find an meetup event for mid-career solopreneurs in London, ideally something informal with lower risk of being pitched some product or service.

While there are quite a few events happening for "entrepreneurs", I have found that they seem to attract more of the tech company founders than small business owners.

There must be quite a few of us out there?!

Anyway, I then came across an abandoned Solopreneur meetup group that was about to close unless someone steps up as an organiser, and I took the plunge and stepped up. Now wondering what have I done but being conscientious and responsible, I want to organise a get-together soon.

Anyone like-minded who would be up for this? (please say yes!!)

About me: I'm a former NHS doctor who has changed direction a few times, including executive search (headhunting), career advisory for a university, independent career coaching practice, working in financial services, YouTube consulting (which didn't work but gave me valuable lessons). I am now starting over in my mid-40s again, and I'd love to be able to meet regularly and exchange ideas in person with others who are navigating the ups and downs of building a one-person business or independent expert practice.
Thinking also to get some speakers for these get-togethers, if there's enough interest.

I am one of those eager solopreneurs who started building something based on a eureka moment I had at a conference one day when someone said something and I thought "I have experience and expertise in this - I'm going to consult [my ideal client] about this and which will be life changing for them". Riiiiight.... 🙄

Anyway, I never "validated" that idea and then after 12-14 months of tweaking my offer I had to be honest with myself that my (admittedly very narrow) ideal client just didn't feel the pain badly enough to want what I was offering. Luckily it was a service based business and the "worst" that happened was I ended up providing the actual service that I was hoping I would just teach/train/consult about (it turned out my ideal client was too busy to do that thing themselves and I ended up slaving away 24/7 doing it for them because I couldn't say no to income - but totally hated that).

Now reflecting back and wondering what I could have done differently? I mean, I did a lot of "market research" and spoke to a few people who I'd considered "ideal clients" and they all said "Yes, such a great idea!" but then nobody wanted to actually pay for it. Was that a solid enough signal rightaway? Somewhere during that process, a subsegment of my ideal audience (a couple of people who seemed to actually want to do themselves the thing I was teaching but didn't know how) did pay for the "Power Hour" consultation and I thought "Yes! So it IS a good idea after all", but I never understood what it was that made them pay and whether those 2 people were enough as a validation test.

How do you set parameters for idea (in)validation in terms of how many people you need to speak with and what proportion of yes/no you need to get, and for how long, before you know for sure that you've done your due diligence?

When going through the posts of some big Linkedin influencers, I've noticed that they have the same post coming up on that list twice and sometimes several times. I think it's because they repost the same post to come up in the feeds of people in different time zones. Does it not come across desperate? Does it really work?

In practical terms, one one reposts the same post a few hours later, would the impressions and engagement count restart from zero?

I am a former doctor who has been mentoring other doctors how to start YouTube channels, based on my personal experience and learnings. UK based. I have a potentially paid opportunity that accidentally presented itself when a doctor saw value in my informal mentoring and is now asking me to send a proposal to help him optimise scripts for 10-20 x 5min videos he'll be shooting in a studio in a few weeks. He has his own editor but he also wants to me write notes for the editor as to what B-roll to include and where. He also wants me to help with the titles, video descriptions and a sequence of release of the videos, with a cross-referencing plan (e.g. end-cards) to the other videos on the channel. I can confidently do all this and have so far been doing this sort of work for free / out of passion (I know, I know), but this guy is prepared to pay. I just don't know how much each of these items are likely to be priced at (I am UK based and so is he). Could anyone please help with some ballpark figures?

Thumbnails I am not that confident with but roughly, how much do thumbnail creators charge?