Forget about millions. Get your first 720 customers instead.

How much money do you need to quit your 9–5 or to simply make a living as a solopreneur?

If you ask most people, they’ll throw out a random number like a million dollars.

But it’s not based on anything.

Such a big number seems daunting. Where do you even start?!

Suppose you took a minimalistic approach to your life. How much do you need if you get rid of unnecessary spending and perhaps even downsized?

Remember, your primary goal shouldn’t be to become rich, it should be to be able to make enough so you can support yourself and your family.

Let’s say it’s $3,000 a month.

Let’s call that your Minimalist Income (MI).

MI = $3,000/m

You can’t pay yourself 100% of what your business makes so let’s assume you pay out 50%.

That means we need to double our MI. This give us our Minimum Viable Company amount.

MVC amount = $6,000/m

Let’s multiply that times 12 months to get what we need to bring in as revenue per year.

$6,000 per month x 12 months = $72,000/year

Cool. $72K per year is the threshold of what we need.

Now, let’s say we’re selling a $100 product or service.

That means that we will need $72,000 / $100 = 720 sales per year.

So in conclusion, if we can find 720 “True Fans” who’re willing to pay us $100 just one time in an entire year, we can make enough to make a living.

This sounds much more doable, doesn’t it? Now you have a strategy. Create enough value for 720 people such that they’re willing to give you $100 one time in the span of 12 months.

Of course, you’re not going to stay there. Once you hit your MVC, you’re going to want to look at offers at different price points as well as get more customers.

But as long as you’re not making a living as a solopreneur yet, this is a terrific north star.

Liked this? I write about solopreneurship daily here.

Edit: Forgot to note that the true fans idea comes from Kevin Kelly (KK). It’s such a well known idea that it didn’t occur to me that not everyone has heard of it/him.

The only caveat you should be aware of is that there’s really no such thing as a true fan in business.

None of the marketing literature we currently have supports it.

While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, everything seems to point in the direction that heavy buyers (true fans) become light buyers and vice versa.

Bottom line, no matter how good a job you do, expect churn.

That being said, it’s still a useful mental model and gives you something to focus on in your business.