October 2026 brought my third exit, from Blushush, the London studio I co-founded in 2025. It continues with its own team.
Next, I'm going all in on Solo Not Small, an initiative for solo founders and small business owners who want to grow without first growing a payroll.
From two people to 75, then one
Write Right began in 2016 with two of us and no outside money. We were 25 by 2018 and more than 55 by June 2022, and we were 75 when I sold it in 2023, with more than 1,200 clients served over those years. Every hire fixed a problem. Most of them also added meetings, reviews and handovers, and my own day moved further from the work clients paid for.
The lesson
If I could hand my 2016 self one line, it would be this: before a job gets a hire, give it a system. Write the job down, build the system, and run it for a few weeks. If the system covers it, you kept a salary in the bank. If it falls short, you know exactly what the new person should do, which also answers the old question of whether to learn a skill or pay someone for it.
That is the first lesson of Solo Not Small, Solo, not small. You circle every task you did twice last week, and each one gets a system before it gets a hire. I put it first because I spent years doing the opposite.
In practice it takes about a week. On Monday, list the tasks you did twice last week. Pick the one that takes the most hours. Write the steps down as if you were training a new hire, then give those steps to Claude as a project and run the task through it for the rest of the month.
A system is also cheaper to change. When a process is wrong, I rewrite one set of instructions in an afternoon. When a role is wrong, the fix takes months and affects a person who did nothing wrong.
Lesson 06, Look like the expert when they search you, covers the other half. A one-person business has no press team, so the founder's name has to show the right facts on Google and in AI answers: one home on the web, and the same name, title and description everywhere. If nothing comes up when someone searches your name, or AI never names you, that lesson is the place to start. It helps to know what ChatGPT can read on your profile too.
Built to Explore is a short film about what my weeks look like now: the business runs on its systems while I spend time outside, from the hills to the sea.
Behind this lessonThe exits behind it: Dad of Ad (2021), Write Right (2023) and Blushush (October 2026), three bootstrapped exits in all.
If you are a solopreneur thinking about your first hire, take the lesson first. Then decide.
Build the system before the hire
Solo Not Small opens with this lesson, then gives you a system for each of the thirteen jobs.
See Solo Not Small →Questions people ask
How many companies has Bhavik Sarkhedi exited?
Three, all bootstrapped: Dad of Ad in 2021, Write Right in 2023 and Blushush in October 2026.
Is Blushush still running?
Yes. Blushush keeps working with its clients from London on brand, Webflow and marketing projects. I exited in October 2026.
What is the first lesson in Solo Not Small?
Lesson 01, Solo, not small. You list every task you did twice last week, and each one gets a system before it gets a hire.