Surviving Solo: Building a $25,000 One-Person Copywriting Agency from Scratch

Two years ago, I launched a one-person copywriting agency.
I started with some experience in content creation and management, specifically 4.5 years of freelancing and in-house work. I also had a decent following on a Telegram-based financial channel. I initially launched it in a language other than English, targeting the local EMEA market.

Now, I'm thinking of launching a similar English version, AI-powered to boot 🙃

I’ll pull back the curtain on what has been done, and you suggest how it could have been done better ✨

Launch

I operated a Telegram channel with 25K beginner investors, where I announced my idea for "subscription-based copywriting services". My Telegram audience was familiar with my writing style and this gave me a pool of potential leads.

Pricing

Initially, I did not set a fixed price, offering only an indicative list of potential tasks. I was set on providing any kind of marketing texts and taking on only one task at a time. With the average salary of a copywriter on the local market being around $1000/month, I began negotiations.

Negotiation

Qualifying leads turned out to be challenging. Different clients had different expectations. Some sought copywriting with strategic advice in between tasks, while others required a full suite of services including market analysis and design. A few subscribed for a couple of months with the secret hope of hiring me full-time thereafter.

This led me to contemplate. Should I increase my prices and open a content strategy consultancy? Or launch a full-service digital agency? Or start training junior copywriters? A year of constant juggling later, I had 9 subscription clients for up to 3 months and had earned approximately $25,000 in total. The average subscription fee was $1449/month.

You can see here, that the monthly subscription fee differs from $667 to $2143. Seems chaotic. Three reasons for that: 1) I was experimenting to find a balance between the list of tasks and prices, 2) local currency was fluctuating, and 3) I was not very firm in negotiations.

Here is the list of the most popular tasks, NPS results, and reasons to churn.

Expectations vs Reality

I initially expected to spend 20% of my time understanding tasks and 80% completing them. Simple as it should be.

However, the actual work involved was much more complex. In reality, it turned out to be 20% on understanding and completing tasks, and 80% on:

I realized I needed help with paperwork and repetitive tasks. I was thinking of hiring an assistant. I started to train junior copywriters. So the picture started to look like this.

At around this time, I burned out, declined a full-time offer from my last client, wrapped up other tasks, and moved on to another venture (a startup that automates the process of hiring a freelancer for companies, haha). But now, a year later, I see successful examples, that claim doing all on their own in other fields (design for example).

So I find myself wondering:

• Is it possible to run a successful subscription-based one-person agency at all?
• If so, how can I ensure its success?

Any ideas? 🙂