The $10M Solo Business That Beats Building a Team

Summary

Colby, a solo gas-station broker, expects about $2 million in commission revenue this year. He wants to reach $8 million, but an earlier attempt to bring on brokers went poorly: training took time away from clients and coincided with a dip in business.

Alex Hormozi framed Colby’s constraint as broker capacity. Colby can keep growing solo as his network and average deal size increase, but that is likely a slower path. Hiring could accelerate growth, at the cost of short-term time and profit.

Strategies and Playbooks

Choose between solo growth and team-led growth

Staying solo can preserve take-home profit while growth comes from larger average transactions. Hormozi shared the example of an investment banker with a four-person team who does $10 million a year, handles roughly the same number of deals annually, and has grown 20–30% per year as average deal size increased.

Hormozi estimated that Colby might take about 10 years to grow from roughly $2 million to $10–15 million by following a similar solo path. This was an estimate, not a guarantee.

Treat recruiting and training as skills to build

The key capabilities Colby needs to develop are recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, and maintaining high-level sales.

He should expect to spend less time selling during the transition. Hormozi suggested considering a 20–30% reduction in selling activity as a potential short-term cost. His principle: keep the goal, change the path. Early hiring attempts may fail, so learn from them and keep improving the process.

Use smaller deals to attract new brokers

Colby currently does little with deals that are too small for him and sometimes refers them elsewhere. Hormozi suggested offering those opportunities to potential brokers and splitting the commission 50/50.

This gives recruits a chance to start closing deals without abandoning their existing pipeline, and may help them build confidence before joining more fully.

Metrics and Timelines

• Current business: About $2 million in annual revenue, all commission, operated solo.
• Stated goal: $8 million.
• Growth to date: Colby has progressed from smaller opportunities to larger portfolios, including eight- and nine-figure sales.
• Illustrative solo-growth path: Roughly $2 million to $10–15 million over about 10 years, according to Hormozi.
• Investment-banking example: Four people, $10 million a year, and 20–30% annual growth, driven by rising average deal size rather than more deals.

Additional Resource

Hormozi promoted Acquisition.com’s free $100 Million Scaling Roadmap. He described it as a 10-stage assessment based on portfolio-company growth patterns, with guidance across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, HR, and finance.

Presenters and Sources

• Colby: Gas-station broker
• Alex Hormozi: Business advice and Acquisition.com roadmap