🎯 3 Moves That Helped Me Land First Clients as a Solopreneur

Real lessons from my first months of building a one-person business after 6 years at Miro.

Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates.news — the newsletter where we explore growth stories to inspire your professional and personal growth. Join the community of 7,000+ Product, Design, and Growth people from companies like Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.

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If we haven’t met before, I run a one-person business from Amsterdam 👋

Stepping into solopreneurship wasn’t a sudden or easy choice. For years, I was genuinely happy in my corporate chapter — it gave me a stable 6-figure salary, a role I loved, an incredible team and mission, and a clear, predictable path ahead. Everything about it made sense. At least on paper.

But quietly, a new energy was growing within me — a pull toward more freedom, creativity, and meaningful work. Solopreneurship has its own rhythm: some months you’re behind, others everything clicks, but most of the time you’re just laying tiny bricks, unable to see the full structure.

For a long time, that uncertainty held me back. I told myself to wait for the right moment, the perfect plan.

Yet with each month, the inner call grew louder, urging me to build something of my own — something that truly aligned with how I wanted to live.

In today’s issue of the monthly rurbric “The Creator Path 💫”, I’m pulling back the curtain on that uncertain but rewarding rhythm — and invite you to reflect on what your own version of building could look like.

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Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

Stop chasing titles. Create your own.

Let me share a small story. When I was at Miro, leading Growth Design, I received a counteroffer from Frame.io — relocation to New York, a big role, a “dream opportunity.” At the time, I was living in a small city called Perm, so everything about it felt shiny and exciting.

Me in Los Angeles (for the first time 😍)

I said no to that offer because I was on track for a promotion at Miro. And because I believed that identity came from titles, the corporate ladder looked like the safe and socially approved path. I even had a neat career vision chart:

• Manager → Head of design → VP → Independent Advisor.

But the higher I climbed, the more something shifted.

I became Head of Growth Design — the title I worked so hard for — and suddenly it didn’t give me the fulfillment I expected. The nature of the work changed. The part of me that loved building and creating felt more distant. Somewhere along the “right” path, I drifted away from what actually energized me.

Admitting that to myself was uncomfortable.

• I wanted slow mornings for yoga, reading, creativity.

• I wanted the freedom to travel, to work from anywhere, to spend real time with my husband, my cat, my friends — simple human things that make life feel like life.

To get that, I had to buy back my time. And that meant letting go of the ego-safety that titles provide.

So I started asking a different question:

How do I want my days to actually feel?

And I began reverse-engineering my decisions from there. Now it’s been two years since I stepped off the corporate path.

I work as a solopreneur. I don’t really have a title — some days I’m a founder, some days a facilitator, some days an advisor — and honestly, I don’t need one. I’d rather build my life around who I am and how I want to live, than try to prove who I am through a label.

Because at the end of the day, we’re all more than our job titles.

P.S. Do you still believe in hustle culture?

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3 strategies that helped me find first clients.

When I left Miro to go solo, I didn’t have a plan, a website, or an audience.
But within a few months, I had my first three paying clients — without cold outreach or ads.

Here’s what genuinely worked 👇