It’s Our 20th Birthday!🎉
Solo Build It!, “The Solopreneur Incubator,”
Now Has Its Own Social Home 👉@SoloBuildIt
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It all started with a single book. Make Your Site Sell! (“MYSS!”) became “The Bible of Internet Marketing” from the late 90s to 2002 (150,000 copies sold).
That turned into 20 years of total focus on solopreneur success. Of course, “solopreneur” only became a “word” a few years ago. Heck, even “content marketing” didn’t exist. We introduced that concept as a precursor to the engine of the SBI! Process in 1999 (it became “content marketing” years later).
Books: 1997-2002
MYSS! grew into a line of branded “Make Your _____ Sell!” books. Most are long since out of print, but all were popular. Make Your Words Sell! (MYWS!) became another hit. It’s still one of the best books ever on writing sales copy.
For being here today, we’ve got a gift for you. Check it out for yourself…
If you sell anything (from software to hard goods to services), this download gift to you will prove invaluable. Simply enter your email address in the form and we will send you it.
Our publishing business grew rapidly. And then, one day, our world changed…
A customer survey told us that everyday people didn’t use the books to build successful businesses. They loved them, they said. But they did not use them to grow online businesses.
We loved them, too. But would-be solopreneurs needed much more than book-form information. Our goal was not “edutainment.” We had been focused on enabling success. With trepidation, we said goodbye to “books.”
We “pivoted” from a profitable model to one that held promise but was far from guaranteed to catch on. We had no idea how unique, and uniquely effective, it would remain to this day….
A Risky Change
Why not combine, we reasoned…
- a step-by-step process, aka an Action Guide
- all the tools to execute the steps
- guidance from a like-minded community where everyone works together
- 24×7 support when needed
- constant updating (to avoid ever going out of date).
We called it Site Build It! (aka “SBI!”).
The theory was simple and logical. Forced book chapters became practical, ordered-in-time and action-oriented steps. Here are the 4 major steps…
At a time when SEO was page-focused, we became site-focused. A theme-based site, loaded with high-value and original niche content, should succeed, we reasoned. It would become recognized, by searchers and engines alike, as an authority in its field.
This was a game-changer. The premise was simple and logical. Search engines did learn to recognize and reward those who knew their stuff. SBI! delivered a large edge then, and delivers (bigger than ever) now to solopreneurs.
The best news of all? Solopreneurs, both beginners and those who knew a ton but had never succeeded (too many trees obscure the forest), used SBI!. And saw success with it.
It has evolved continuously, integrating such major Internet developments as RSS (until then, used only by blogs), user-generated content (before others did), sitemap generation (first to market), social media, mobile-friendliness, and more.
SBIers had no need to “keep up” with an ever-growing firehose of information. We added what was important and we left out all the rest. New info was edited into the Action Guide (“AG”), which delivers the same, but ever-evolving, process.
Today?
Solo Build It! works in the same way in 2017!
“We do it all for you.”
And SBIers are lovin’ it!
The C
TPM process is a big part of every SBIer’s success. Enabling solopreneurs to focus 100% on that process is just as big — a double whammy of efficiency. “Just follow the AG” is the mantra of every successful SBIer to those who are just beginning.
No false starts. No major mistakes or distractions by the “latest and greatest.” The Action Guide provides the complete process: from early-days preparation to maximal monetization, it’s all covered. The tools enable execution. The forums provide a unique “help and be helped” environment.
It’s all that any serious solopreneur needs.
The Results?
SBIers succeed at unheard-of rates and levels of success.
In fact, SBIers contribute 100X more successful solopreneur sites per capita than any other sitebuilder. No one else shows proof of success such as these results, along with case studies and Solopreneur Success Lessons.
They would if they could!
That’s not to say it’s easy. We can (and do) simplify it by boiling it all down into an all-in-one, step-by-step process with tools, guidance and updating. So, yes — it is possible to make business-building doable.
But it can never be easy. After all, if building a profitable business with equity was easy, everyone would be rich!
The Future?
The evergreen concept that underlies all of Solo Build It! has evolved enormously over time. It will continue to do so, incorporating new developments that are important and that will stick — while excluding fads and other time-wasters…
No false alarms such as push technology or .mobi (mobile versions of sites) ever distract SBI! members from the business-building actions that matter most.
This spares solopreneurs from wasting their most precious asset… time! By definition, every solo entrepreneur has a limited amount of time. SBI!’s core philosophy is to focus that non-renewable resource on the single most important business-building action at any given moment.
SBI! members don’t spend time figuring out what to do about mobile or converting to “https” security. They don’t wade through tons of info to find (maybe) a good idea nugget. We do that, and we’ve made every call correctly.
This auto-updating is a core part of SBI!. It is as important, in the long run, as the combination of process, tools, community guidance and support.
It’s all about saving time, using it in the most productive way possible. It’s about enabling solopreneurs to pour 100% of every available hour into the highest priority business-building action. SBIer do not worry about keeping up with the daily firehose of information, nor are they distracted by tempting Get Rich Quick schemes (including the “it’s easy” claims of gigantic site-building software companies promise).
We can’t do the actual work for them, though. All credit for their success goes to them. They are the ones who, freed to focus, use their individual skills, intelligence, and persistence to build online businesses on their own.
In short…
They “just do it.”
And they do it right.
Why The New Name, “Solo Build It!”?
There has been a proliferation of sitebuilders (e.g., Wix, Yola, Weebly, etc.), as well as web hosts that offer their own sitebuilders (e.g., GoDaddy and 1&1). All have massive marketing budgets. Some even use Super Bowl ads.
More recently, though, they increasingly lean on the implication that “Site = Business.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s a disservice to solopreneurs.
Building a “stunning website” (Wix’s emphasis) is merely part of the 6th stage of the 10-stage SBI! Action Guide. Sure, pointing and clicking to a pre-designed site template is easy. But, as you will learn in more detail in SBI!, “stunning” may not even be the right choice…
“Site Build It!” made sense in 2002, when the radical concept was that a “site with great content” would do better than heavily SEO’d pages. SEOers doubted it at the time. The name made sense back then.
Over time, however, many perceived our business-building product as just another sitebuilder. So, in 2011, we shortened the name to “SBI!” and left the “site”-building out. In 2017, now that “solopreneur” is a widely known term (and intuitive to those who still don’t know it), it became time to complete the change.
We announced the new name, “Solo Build It!,” in January. Now it’s time to introduce you to @SoloBuildIt for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and YouTube (hey, we’re even on SlideShare!).
(FYI: Our @SiteSell accounts will continue to post, tweet and pin about company news and other “solo-issues” that are relevant to you. The new @SoloBuildIt becomes the main force that focuses on helping solopreneurs succeed online.)
This final name change also represents the final morph from books ➡️️ sitebuilder ➡️️ business-builder ➡️️ the only “business incubator” for solopreneurs.
The term is best known in reference to dotcom entrepreneurs. Incubators provide everything from funding to physical space to mentoring. The best ones develop close, nurturing relationships with those who are accepted (strongest attitude and highest motivation). Entrepreneurs often arrive with one idea but end up going in a different direction!
Bottom line: incubators significantly increase the odds of success.
You really could not have a closer analogy to Solo Build It!. Its combination of proven process, all-in-one tools, community guidance, SBI! support, and auto-updating virtually defines the phrase “solopreneur incubator”…
- Consider how SBI! nurtures while providing everything you need.
- Consider the friendly, helpful forum interactions — everyone from successful SBIers to the SiteSell CEO come by to help you out and share their accumulated wisdom and experience (applied to your specific question or problem). In short, you may be “solo” but you’re never alone.
- Consider the staggering success rates compared to anywhere else. The results speak for themselves. And it’s only going to get better…
Each year, the Internet brings new developments. Leveraging the ones that matter by blending them into the SBI! Process increases the SBIer’s edge. 2017 promises to be the most exciting year yet. Get to know us…
Talk to us, work with us, play with us — we can’t start the party without you! Follow us at the @SoloBuildIt account of your favorite social channels…
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Try it. Simply follow the Video Action Guide. 
No strings. Better, actually...
