Welcome to Business of One, the biweekly read for people running the whole show, solo.
Each issue connects what’s happening in the world to what it means for your business and your wallet- the financial concepts worth knowing, what’s coming on the tax calendar, and what’s actually worth your attention online.
Good to have you here. Let’s get into it.
The Brief
What’s happening and what it means for your business
- The Fed’s Jackson Hole retreat: Central bankers, economists, and reporters head to Wyoming next week for the Fed’s biggest economic symposium of the year. Whatever tone the Fed chair strikes on interest rates tends to ripple into everything from business credit card APRs to the yield on your savings account.
- Deadline coming: Q3 estimated taxes are due September 15, 2026. That’s four weeks out. If you haven’t set aside your quarterly payment, start now- 25-30% of what you’ve earned is a safe rule of thumb.
- Ask the accountant: No employer 401(k)? Here’s how self-employed retirement accounts work.
- Tool we’re testing: Tired of chasing invoices and receipts across five apps? We tried a free tool built for businesses of one.
- The number: 22%. That’s the number of self-employed workers that actually had a retirement strategy (as of 2025)
The Big Idea
Why a Speech in Wyoming Could Move Your Bottom Line
Next week, the world’s most powerful central bankers trade boardrooms for a mountain resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the Fed’s annual economic symposium. It sounds far removed from your day-to-day, but the headlines coming out of it are one of the more reliable market movers of the year.
Solopreneurs feel these ripples more directly than most- without a corporate treasury team hedging risk on your behalf. If you carry a business line of credit, a credit card balance, or you’re weighing a loan to cover slow months, the direction the Fed signals here often becomes real in your own interest rate within weeks.
It cuts the other way too. If you’re holding cash reserves in a high-yield savings account, rate moves affect what that safety net earns you. A softer tone from the Fed can mean lower borrowing costs, but it usually also means lower savings yields- so it’s worth checking both sides of your balance sheet, not just the one that feels urgent.
You don’t need to trade on the headlines or predict what’s said. The useful move is to know what you’re paying on any variable-rate debt right now, know what your cash reserve is earning, and revisit both after the news cycle settles down next week.
Markets will spend days parsing a single sentence from a Wyoming stage. You just need five minutes to see how it applies to your own accounts.
Ask the Accountant
Q: I keep hearing I should be saving for retirement, but I’m self-employed and don’t have a 401(k). Where do I even start?
A: This is one of the most overlooked parts of running a business of one- there’s no employer benefits team setting this up for you, so it’s easy to keep putting it off.
The two most common options built for the self-employed are a SEP IRA and a Solo 401(k). Both let you contribute significantly more than a regular IRA, and both lower your taxable income for the year you contribute.
A few basics:
- SEP IRA: Simple to open and maintain, funded entirely by the business, with contribution limits based on a percentage of your net self-employment income.
- Solo 401(k): More paperwork upfront, but it lets you contribute as both employee and employer, which can mean higher limits if your income allows it.
- Traditional or Roth IRA: Lower contribution limits, but easy to open alongside either option above if you want to save more.
None of these are set-it-and-forget-it decisions. The right one depends on your income, whether you have employees, and how you want to handle taxes now versus in retirement. Talk to your accountant before you open anything.
Tool We’re Testing: Ubiquity Retirement + Savings
Since we’re talking about retirement, we’ve been exploring Ubiquity, which makes it easier to actually open the Solo 401(k) we just walked through. Instead of fees that grow with your balance, you pay a flat monthly cost, and their system handles the paperwork, contribution limits, and compliance reporting that usually keep solopreneurs procrastinating.
It won’t tell you which plan is right for you, that’s still a conversation with your accountant. But if you’ve been putting off opening an account because the setup felt like a project, this removes most of the friction.
Worth testing if: You’ve decided a Solo 401(k) or SEP IRA makes sense for you and just need a low-cost way to actually set it up.
Around the Web
Your next watch: We found 5 free tools to save solo business owners 10 hours per week
Your next listen: A hype playlist for the next time you really need to get things done
TechCrunch may have said just what you needed to hear to finally launch your brand
Solopreneur Event Highlight
Collective is proud to be sponsoring the 10x Your Freelancing Summit! Register here for free and discover how to consistently land high-value clients, confidently raise your rates, and eliminate the bottlenecks holding your income back.
Member Spotlight
Alyssa Nazario Psychotherapy, LCSW
Alyssa built her practice around trauma-informed psychotherapy, helping adults work through transitions and relational stress with a foundation of cultural humility and evidence-based care. Like a lot of solo practitioners, the business side came second to the clinical work- insurance billing, quarterly taxes, and bookkeeping weren’t exactly what drew her to the field.
After joining Collective, Alyssa got her books in order and her tax strategy dialed in, which meant less time stressing about the business side and more time with clients, and building toward the mental health collective she’s envisioned since day one.
Look out for Alyssa’s full story in an upcoming Faces of Collective highlight.
Want to receive Business of One in your inbox? Sign up here.