About Lean Solopreneur
Lean Solopreneur is a set of tools for independent professionals, practitioners, and entrepreneurs.
Why Lean?
Lean is a proven framework for business and innovation that has respect for humans at its core.
My particular approach is inspired by the relentless curiosity and experimentation embodied by Lean Startup and the ultimate scientist-explorers: kids.
Why solopreneur?
Entrepreneurs create new kinds of value out of raw materials. This is an amazing creative act.
Solopreneurs do this incredible feat with even greater constraints, autonomy and responsibility. I am endlessly fascinated by them.
About Bianca van der Meulen
I’m a Personal Innovation Partner to solopreneurs. I’m also a poet, mother and wife.
My story
I’m a multi-passionate creative and systems thinker. I spent my 20s serving entrepreneurs in NYC as a freelance writer, branding agency owner and business educator.
Then motherhood and the pandemic hit. After a few rollercoaster-y, semi-nomadic years, I settled in a small town near Seattle and dedicated myself to the types of business owners I love most: creative solopreneurs.
Growing up, I was a “third culture kid” who loved painting, poetry and psychology and was slightly terrified of math, money and loud sounds.
I graduated NYU with an English degree and no clue where I fit in the world, much less the economy. All I knew was that I wanted to use my brain, feel free and be useful.
During a series of rapid experiments, I stumbled upon world of entrepreneurship & small business. Watching real people create new jobs, products and organizations out of thin air was a thrill.
So for 8 years, I freelanced as a writer, ran a hyperlocal creative agency and taught branding at Columbia University’s business development center. All told, I worked pretty closely with over 300 business owners, most of them solopreneurs. It was fun and fulfilling. And I was slowly but surely burning out.
Then I became a mother, turned 30 and entered the pandemic. Questioning everything, I left NYC to design a life in which I was not tired all the time. In the process, I’ve developed a unique framework for solopreneurship that balances the needs of creative humans and the people they serve in a sustainable way.
After 3 years of a living a semi-nomadic lifestyle, I’ve (hopefully?) settled down in North Bend, Washington with my husband and son. I continue to experiment with ways to show up, make meaning and create value in the world.
1990: Born in South Africa (but never lived there)
1990 - 2000: Lived in 5 countries (attended French, German, American and international schools)
2008: Graduated high school in Northern Virginia
2011: Gradated New York University with a BA in English & American Literature
2011 - 2013: Worked at a high school, tutoring center, kung fu school, non-profit, gym & community college
2013: Started freelancing as a writer and editor
2014: Got married
2015: Co-founded a branding agency (Sunbird Creative)
2018: Started teaching at Columbia University’s small business development center
2019: Became a mother
2020: Left NYC for Virginia; bought a house
2021: Did a 180, leaving Virginia to explore nomadic living in Spain, Costa Rica and Honduras
2022: Settled temporarily in Alaska; got certified as a Continuous Innovation coach by Ash Maurya
2023: Launched Lean Solopreneur; moved to North Bend, Washington
2024: Launch Solopreneur Playground
How I work
I focus on solopreneurship because it requires a unique blend of pragmatism, creativity, and resourcefulness.
I’m fascinated by how free agents find sustainable ways to be their full human selves and produce value in the global economy at the same time.
When I work with others, I like to have a lot of psychological safety and just enough order to enable a productive kind of chaos.
- Continuous Innovation Framework / Lean Startup
- Design Thinking / Human-Centered Design
- Conscious Capitalism
- Business Model Canvas / Lean Canvas
- Value Proposition Canvas
- Customer Factory
- Customer Journey Map
- Storytelling & communications
- Business model innovation
- Process and product innovation
- Copywriting
- Brand design
- Web design
- Experimentation > convention
- Trust > money
- Ethical marketing > effective persuasion
- Healthy ecosystems > efficient systems
- Whole-brain thinking > rationalism or experientialism
- Inherent human value > productivity
- Notion
- GSuite
- Canva
- Squarespace
- Loom
- Grain
- Typeform
- Tally
- Loops
- Substack
- Medium
- Gather