How to Write OKRs as a Solopreneur:Outcome First
How to write OKRs as a solopreneur: start from the outcome, work back to the number, find the baseline, and kill the disguised tasks before you commit.
How to write OKRs as a solopreneur: say what would be different in three months, in one plain sentence. Then pick the number that proves it. Then find where that number stands today. Outcome first, metric second, baseline before target. One objective, three key results.
How to write OKRs as a solopreneur: start with the outcome, not the metric
Most people open a blank page and write a number. Signups. Revenue. Open rate. It feels rigorous. It's backwards.
To write OKRs that work, begin with the sentence. What would be genuinely different in three months if this went well? Plain language. No jargon. Something a stranger would understand without context.
Only then ask which number would demonstrate it.
Why the order matters: if you start from the metric, you pick whatever's easy to measure. You get goals that are precise and pointless. The most measurable thing in your business is rarely the most important one. Availability is not relevance.
That sentence is your objective. It should be a direction, not a task. Memorable. A little uncomfortable to commit to. If you could complete it by ticking items off a list, it's a work plan wearing a goal's clothes. If you're unsure which is which, the difference between an objective and a key result is worth five minutes.
Write OKRs that turn the outcome into numbers you can read
Now the key results. A key result is evidence that the world changed. A state, not an activity.
The guide's own contrast is the cleanest I know. "Publish twelve articles" is an activity. You can do it perfectly and change nothing. "Grow signups from forty to a hundred and twenty a month" is a changed state. The twelve articles might be how you try. If they don't work, you do something else, and you haven't failed the goal.
Run every draft through two tests:
- The so-what test. If I achieved exactly this and nothing else, would the business be meaningfully different?
- The would-we-know test. Is there a specific number, with a baseline and a target, that I can read at the end of the quarter without arguing about what it means?
Fail either and the draft goes back. No exceptions for ones you've grown fond of.
Free guide · 23 pagesGoals that change your Monday.The OKR Playbook: how to make a goal change what you do on Monday.Get the free guide →Fix the drafts that look fine and aren't
When you write OKRs, your first draft will contain at least one of these. Spot them on the page, before they cost you a quarter.
| Bad pattern | What it looks like | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Disguised task | "Launch the new onboarding." Work with a deadline attached. | Ask what changes when it's live. Write that. The launch becomes how you try. |
| Baseline-free metric | "Reach five hundred weekly users." No starting point. | Find today's number first. Five hundred means one thing at four hundred and fifty, another at fifty. |
| Sandbagged target | A number you're sure you'll hit. | That certainty is the signal. Check your own incentives and raise it. |
| Unownable result | A number you can't meaningfully influence. | Swap it for one you can move. Watching isn't working. |
A task can be delivered in full while nothing changes. That is the exact outcome this whole method exists to prevent, and a task list in goal formatting brings it straight back.
Here's the rewrite in motion. Say you sell a productised audit and your draft key result reads "Launch the new sales page". Ask the so-what question. If the page goes live and nothing else happens, is the business different? No. So ask what you'd expect to see if the page worked. More people booking an audit, say. That is the state. The page is merely your first attempt at moving it, and if it doesn't move the number you're free to try something else without failing the goal.
Notice what happened there. You didn't add work. You changed what counts as success. The same Monday looks different, because now you can see when a week of effort produced no change.
That's why the writing is worth doing slowly, once. It's where good intentions become either an instrument you use or a document nobody reopens.
Get the baseline before you set the target
A key result with a target and no baseline is not measurable, whatever it looks like. Full stop.
If you don't know today's number, finding it is your first key result. That's a perfectly legitimate goal. It's often the most valuable one a young business sets, because it reveals that nobody actually knew. You'd be surprised how often "nobody" turns out to mean "you".
Two more checks while you're there. Agree where the number comes from before the quarter starts, and make sure you can reach it. And ask yourself whether you'd report the same figure from the same data on a different day. If not, the measurement is the problem. The detail is in how to set a key result baseline.
Name an owner and attach the work
Every key result gets one owner. Yes, it's always you. Do it anyway.
The owner knows the number's current state, raises it when it's stuck, and says so early rather than late. Naming it matters less alone than it will later. The habit is the thing. The moment there are two of you, shared ownership is the most reliable way to produce a key result neither drives, because each of you reasonably assumes the other is on it.
Then the mechanical detail that decides everything. Connect the goals to the place you actually work.
If the goals live in one document and the work lives in a task list somewhere else, the goals are forgotten by week three. Not through laziness. You work where the work is, and you won't open a separate file at nine in the evening to be reminded of your priorities.
Keep the link light. Pin the outcome sentence and the numbers at the top of the list you open every day. Before adding anything to it, ask one question: which number does this move? None? It goes on the not-now list.
Free assessmentHow trapped are you, really?Take the Corporate Suffocation Index, the free solopreneur readiness assessment.Take the assessment →Decide how hard to aim, and what you are leaving out
Label each goal. A committed goal is one you expect to deliver fully, and anything less is a real problem. An aspirational goal is set deliberately beyond comfortable reach, and getting most of it is a success. Both are fine. Mixing them without saying which is which is not, because you won't be able to tell whether seventy per cent was good news or bad.
Then write the paragraph almost nobody writes. The significant things you're deliberately not doing this quarter.
It turns the goals from a statement of intent into a record of a decision. It stops you re-arguing with yourself at midnight. And it gives you a clean way to raise something later without relitigating the plan: that was on the not-now list, has anything changed?
How many goals to put above that list is its own question. The short answer is fewer than feels comfortable.
One more thing about writing for yourself. You will be tempted to write a goal you know you'll hit, so the quarter feels like a success. Resist it. There is genuinely nobody to impress, and a goal you can't fail buys you a comfortable quarter that taught you nothing. Write the one that makes you slightly nervous.
Free guide · 23 pagesGoals that change your Monday.The OKR Playbook: how to make a goal change what you do on Monday.Get the free guide →One session on Monday
You don't need a retreat. You need one sitting, in this order:
- Write the outcome in one sentence. Plain words.
- Draft up to three key results. States, not activities.
- Run each through the so-what and would-we-know tests.
- Find the baseline for every number, or make finding it a key result.
- Label each committed or aspirational.
- Write the not-now list.
- Pin it at the top of the list you open.
- Put the weekly check in your calendar for the whole quarter, not just next week.
Last step is not optional. Without the weekly rhythm, don't bother writing the rest.
If it all felt too easy, check the pain. If you write OKRs and it didn't hurt, you probably made an inventory, not a choice. Cut one thing you actually wanted. Then, before you commit, skim the mistakes to avoid and see which one you've just made.
Free assessmentHow trapped are you, really?Take the Corporate Suffocation Index, the free solopreneur readiness assessment.Take the assessment →Frequently asked questions
When I write OKRs, should I start with the objective or the key results?
The objective, as a plain sentence about what would be different. Starting from a metric tends to give you goals that are precise and pointless, because the easiest number to measure is rarely the most important one.
How many key results should an objective have?
No more than three for one person. One objective with three key results is right. Two objectives is the absolute outside, and only if leaving things off the list still hurts.
What if I don't know my starting number?
Make finding it your first key result. It is a legitimate goal, and often the most valuable one a young business sets, because it exposes that nobody knew the number.
Can a project be a key result?
No. A project is a way of trying to move a number. If the work can be fully delivered while nothing changes, it is a task in goal formatting, and it belongs on your list.
The full method, with the checklists, is in The OKR Playbook, a free 23-page playbook.
How trapped are you, really?
Take the Corporate Suffocation Index, the free solopreneur readiness assessment.