Five new guides for solopreneurs: from idea to invoice

Last week we published seven guides for UK businesses already running. They answer the questions we get on every discovery call: where does AI help, how do I test it, is my data safe, what do I ask the vendor.

This week we published five more. These ones are for a different person: someone at the very start. No product yet. No customers. Maybe not even a company name. Just an idea and a suspicion that AI might help them get to the first invoice faster.

They are on the guides page, they cost nothing, and the deal is the same as before: enter your email, we send you the download link, that is the end of the transaction. No spam, no newsletter, no follow-up sequence.

Why a second series

The first seven guides are horizontal. They cut across a running business: here is where AI helps, here is how to pilot it, here is how to keep your data safe. You can read them in any order because they answer independent questions.

The new five are vertical. They follow a journey, and they only work in order. You validate the idea before you build the thing. You build the thing before you try to get found. You get found before you try to get conversations. You get conversations before you try to close the deal. Skip a step and the later guides stop making sense.

The series is called Idea to Invoice. It covers the five stages every solopreneur goes through, and it is honest about the fact that most people should stop at stage one. The first guide includes a worked example that ends in "stop" — because sometimes the right answer is not to build.

What is in the five

Guide 08 — Is This Worth Doing? is the validation framework. Market research prompts you can run in twenty minutes with free AI tools. Competitor analysis you can do in an afternoon. How to talk to ten people and get honest answers instead of polite ones. And a five-question go/no-go checklist that tells you whether to build, pivot, or stop. Twelve pages.

Guide 09 — Build the Thing covers the build/buy decision, AI-assisted copywriting for your offer, no-code prototyping with v0 and Bolt, pricing without guessing, and the boring admin (contracts, T&Cs, privacy policies) that AI can draft but a human must check. Twelve pages.

Guide 10 — Get Found is marketing for people who hate marketing. Pick one channel and ignore the rest. Write content that does not sound like AI wrote it. SEO basics that actually move the needle. And an email list you own, because followers are rented. Ten pages.

Guide 11 — Get the Conversation explains why your first ten customers will not come from a website. Cold outreach that is not spam, with a three-sentence email template. LinkedIn without the cringe. And a one-person CRM that does not collapse after week three. Ten pages.

Guide 12 — Close the Deal is the last one. Proposals that get signed. The pricing conversation that does not end in discounting. Onboarding without dropping the ball. And turning one client into three through testimonials and referrals. Ten pages.

How the two series fit together

If you are already running a business and trying to work out where AI fits, start with Guide 01 and work through the first seven. They are about AI in a business that already exists.

If you are at the start — idea stage, no product, no customers — start with Guide 08 and work through to Guide 12. They are about getting from nothing to your first paying client, with AI helping at every stage.

The two series cross-reference each other. Guide 08 points you to Guide 01 if you need to understand where AI helps in general. Guide 12 points you to Guide 02 if you want to pilot a system once you have clients. They are designed to work as one collection of twelve, or as two separate journeys depending on where you are.

Same rules as before

British English. Plain language. No exclamation marks. No fabricated testimonials. Every tool mentioned has a free tier or costs less than twenty quid a month. Every guide is a print-ready A4 PDF you can write in the margins of.

And the same honesty about limits. Guide 08 tells you when to stop. Guide 09 tells you when not to build. Guide 10 tells you which marketing channels to ignore. Guide 11 tells you when cold outreach is the wrong move. A guide that only tells you what to do is a brochure. These are field guides.

What this means for you

If you are thinking about starting something, read Guide 08 first. If the checklist says stop, stop. You have saved yourself six months and a few thousand pounds, and we have earned a bit of trust. If it says go, read the next four and get to your first invoice.

If you read all twelve and decide you do not need us, that is a good outcome. If you read them and want a named person to build the first system with you, that is what we do — and we will tell you on the first call if the guides are all you need.

The full collection of twelve is on the guides page. Free, print-ready, and yours to keep.