Originally appeared in the Sunday Times 13^th July 2025

So-called solopreneurs who run their concern single-handedly can boost efficiency and enable growth by going digital, writes Sandra O’Connell

Not every business owner wants to hire; some wish to remain “solopreneurs”. In a tight labour market, others have no choice. In both cases, technology helps.

Soon after founding her fitness studio in Fermoy in 2003, Sandra Scannell began employing staff. In an industry with a high staff turnover, however, managing churn left her “burnt out”, she says. So, when she retrained and launched the Pilates Barre seven years ago, she took a different approach, building up a network of freelance Pilates instructors instead. “It works. Some have other jobs, some want to do it as a hobby, others have young children. Everybody’s at different phases. But it’s a lovely business in that we’re all as busy as we want to be”, Scannell says

Part of what facilitated this new model has been her success migrating all her business administration a digital platform. Teaching schedules, client bookings, payments – If anything can be done online , it is. If classes are full, clients go on a waiting list and are automatically notified when a place becomes free. 

“It has taken all that noise away from me, of my phone endlessly pinging” she says.

Scannell no longer has to hire administrative help a few hours each week to manage schedules and queries. “The system does all that” She manages her previously paper-based accounts digitally now too, using generative artificial intelligence to analyse them and to set and achieve key performance indicators. 

“Previously I just went with a feeling of how things were going and of course looked at my sales every year. Now I ask AI to compare Q1 this year with last and give me recommendations to improve. It feels like having someone in the board-room with me” Scannell says 

There are multiple reasons why a small business owner may be loathe to hire staff. Some can’t afford to, others prefer not to relinquish control, while others fear the regulatory burden. 

“If you have one employee, it’s the same as having ten in terms of regulation” John O’Shanahan of LeanBPI, a business improvement consultancy says.  “Also, a very good business for one may just not be such a good business if you’ve an employee. What technology is doing is facilitating the option to do more yourself”  

Being a solo entrepreneur does not mean you cannot scale. “You want to grow your revenue and margin without growing the costs, not just grow the revenue and have the same profit” O’Shanahan says 

John Waldron does not even work full time on his business, Mayo Storage Facilities, He already has a full-time job. But it is a good earner part-time and technology is helping him scale it.

The business started more than a decade ago when his family retired from mushroom farming, leaving a concrete yard that was costing money to maintain. When someone asked if they could store insulation while doing repairs nearby, Waldron said yes. More enquiries followed. “People who were moving house started asking if we did domestic storage,” he says.

Today the business generates a consistent revenue stream. “It was all a side-line – I had no intention of setting up a self-storage business- but it has become a good side-line”, he says. As the business grew, so did the administration, particularly as he was writing invoices by hand.

“I knew from the beginning the way I was doing things wasn’t feasible because it was taking too much time,” he says. “I also knew it wouldn’t be a difficult business to streamline but I didn’t have the wherewithal or knowledge to go looking for a solution, and I didn’t want to end up getting the wrong thing”

Through Digital for Business, a Local Enterprise Office scheme, a consultant identified the areas where Waldron could digitise to save time and money. He then applied for a Grow Digital Voucher to help cover the cost. Now, instead of Excel spreadsheets, he manages the business remotely through an app on his smartphone. The next step is to automate bookings, so that the system can allocate empty units and take payments automatically online. 

“The business would never have justified paying someone to do that because it would never be big enough. But going digital has streamlined the operation so much that I can continue to run it solo, and manage a full-time career as well ,“ Waldron says.

Mary Murray from Galway if the founder of JR Games, a maker of sports-related jigsaws and colouring books featuring GAA, rugby and soccer players, and athletes of all abilities, including Paralympians.” It’s a way for people to gift their love of sport to a child in their life,” says Murray, who works part-time in advertising as she develops the company. With the help of Digital for Business, she introduced a digital stock-take system.

“Because I have multiple sales channels – the website, the online marketplace Faire, retailers, email orders and phone orders – I never had one view of my stock level at any one time which wasn’t sustainable,” Murray says.

I’m now in the process of integrating it so that when I generate an invoice, it automatically updates the stock. Next , I will connect my accounting software,” she adds. “It’s about future proofing the business so, when someone does come to work for me, they can access all this information and it’s not just all in my head. “I have great ambition to grow but, before I do, I want to be set up for success by having these systems in place.”

Fiona Corby is the owner and sole employee of Corby Hair and Beauty Supplies, a Leitrim distributor of  salon products set up in 2006. She believes that going digital will finally free her up to take someone on.

“It wasn’t that I never had any plans to employ someone, it’s that when it was all paper based, so much of my time was just taken up with the day to day running of things that I didn’t have time to.” she says. 

“And to be honest, sometimes having to find work to put in front of someone seemed more stressful than it seemed an advantage,” Corby adds. ” I’m also a person who very much likes to be in control. I like knowing everything about my business and, for a period , felt no one could do it as well as me.”

Having digitised everything, she feels differently. “The thought of hiring someone while all the information was up in my head just felt like too much pressure,” she says

 “Going digital will make it so much easier for someone else to see the track.”