Niall Doherty's Blog, page 150
April 14, 2022
eBiz Weekly #171
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This week:
8 Months to 6 Figures350k words / 840 days / $100,000Competing With GiantsSelf-Taught Coder Raises $690k$100K/Month Productized Design Service5 Strategies for Idea GenerationFiverr’s Top 6 Trending Searches$7000/Month Rapping On FiverrJay-Z’s Unpaid Internship8 Months to 6 FiguresKar Brulhart writes that she was 9 months pregnant and had just gotten laid off during COVID.
Then…
I took some time and went all in with my business on Instagram.
8 months later, she had apparently cracked almost 6 figures in income 
from a combination of coaching, courses, digital downloads and paid partnerships.
The Tilt has a good write-up on Kar’s story, including some advice to emulate her success…
Learn and get paid first: Kar used the knowledge she gained in traditional full-time jobs to quickly build and grow her Instagram business.
IMO, leveraging “real job” experience like Kar did is one of the most reliable ways to start earning online. It’s what I did as a freelance web developer my first few years after quitting 9-to-5.
What skills did you pick up in past jobs? Could you freelance those skills or use them to land a remote job? 
(Also, check out this fascinating post from Kar revealing how Kim Kardashian charges influencers $15k each to be part of a “loop giveaway.”)
350k words / 840 days / $100,000Michael X. Donovan shares 27 months of data from his blogging journey 
He doesn’t reveal his blog – “too many copy cats in this space” – but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
Highlights…
Took him 6 months to earn his first $1.He published 43 posts his first year and only earned ~$200.Growth exploded at the end of year two: $30k earnings Nov + Dec.Last month he almost cracked $20k.Monetized entirely with display ads.Now at 240 posts, wrote 90% of the content himself.And he’s still holding down a day job.Michael recently tweeted…
I’ll pass $100,000 in total revenue from my #blog this month.
To get here, I wrote ~350,000 words of content over the span of 840 days.
That’s 416 words a day…
Content is a game of discipline. There are no shortcuts, only repetitions.
Fall in love with the reps.
Related: “YouTube is hard… be patient and ride the wave”
Competing With GiantsExamples of startups that have taken on big, established competitors and done well for themselves…
ConvertKit – $2.5 million monthly revenue.Email marketing software, competing with Mailchimp, Aweber, etc.
SignRequest – bootstrapped, recently sold for $55 million.
E-signature software, competing with DocuSign.
Plausible – $68,000 monthly revenue.
Website analytics software, competing with Google Analytics.
The trick to pulling this off seems to be: identify the niche within the niche that isn’t being well served by big competitors, and tailor your alternative to those dissatisfied customers 
For example, ConvertKit focused on being the best email marketing software for bloggers. And Plausible targets website owners who dislike Google’s data mining practices.
Have you seen other successful examples of this?
Self-Taught Coder Raises $690kActually, here is another example of that…
Marie Ng taught herself to code 2 years ago and started building a productivity app called Llama Life 
She has built it to 700+ customers as a solo founder, and recently announced that she raised $690,000 for the project in a pre-seed funding round.
There’s no shortage of productivity apps on the market, but Marie’s seems to have stood out with her mission “to help people achieve calm, focused productivity.”
According to a Nov 2020 post on Reddit, building in public is how Marie got her first customers. Here’s a prime example of her doing that on Twitter 
Resources that helped her learn to code:
Udemy: Jonas Schmedtmann’s coursesYouTube: Wes Bos, Traversy Media, Dev Ed, Academind, Net Ninja, Web Dev SimplifiedWebsites: JavaScript30, freeCodeCamp, Google, Stack Overflow$100K/Month Productized Design ServiceQuentin Gilon is the co-founder of ManyPixels, a design service where clients pay a flat monthly fee (starting at $499/month).
He recently shared all the acquisition channels they have used to grow the business 
and the results of each.
When they launched back in 2018, their early success was “a combination of community building, personal branding, heavy discounts, and Product Hunt launches.”
Nowadays most of their new customers come via SEO and referrals 
My key takeaway from Quentin’s experience is that you never know what acquisition channels will work best for your business; you have to test to be sure. And retest later because the landscape is ever-changing.
Also from Quentin: an interesting counterpoint to my above comments about differentiation…
5 Strategies for Idea GenerationI don’t think you always need to have a comparative advantage. Most of the time the space is big enough for multiple players. Also, your brand can always be the differentiator.
Kevin Conti explains five strategies for coming up with business ideas…
Scratching Your ItchAudience-DrivenAudience-FirstAgency-DrivenMarket-DrivenSome nice real-world examples in there, and I like the distinction between 2 and 3…
Audience-Driven approach requires you to already have an audience, but Audience-First starts from zero.
Related: 47 ways to come up with a business idea
Fiverr’s Top 6 Trending SearchesFiverr has announced the top trending searches on their platform for Q1 
These are the services people are searching for most on there…
NFTYouTube PromotionWebsite DevelopmentVoice OverResumeGraphic DesignThere is a lot of competition on Fiverr, so it can take a while to stand out as a service provider.
But some recent success stories I shared prove it’s possible to win big if you get in early…
I will create chibi pixel nft art collection with 100, 1k, 10k nfts ($300 basic price, 12 orders in queue)I will do unique nft art collection with 100, 1k, 10k nfts ($1450 basic price, 76 orders in queue)With a 14-day turnaround time, the latter gig should be generating well over $100,000 per month
What’s the next NFT-like craze?
Could you get in early on that, offering a related service on Fiverr?
Here’s another trend on Fiverr…
Searches for composing a song grew 5,000% between early 2021 and early 2022, according to a rep from the site.
Michael Burton started on Fiverr back in 2016 and has rode that wave.
Per a recent profile, he apparently earns “between $7,000 and $9,000 per month” selling customized raps on the platform 
Check out his Fiverr profile and Instagram for samples of his work.
Jay-Z’s Unpaid InternshipFinishing up with a story about the world’s first billionaire rapper 
From the book Empire State of Mind, describing a then-19-year-old Jay-Z…
Upon returning to the United States, Jay-Z talked his way onto the tour bus of Big Daddy Kane, a successful rapper from hip-hop’s golden age in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A host of hip-hop luminaries joined Kane on tour, including Queen Latifah, MC Serch, Shock G, and a young Tupac Shakur. As a member of Kane’s posse, Jay-Z would sometimes go onstage during intermissions to entertain crowds with his spitfire freestyle delivery. Though Jay-Z today grosses millions per show, he spent four months in 1989 working the hip-hop equivalent of an unpaid internship—rapping for room and board, which consisted of a spot on the tour bus floor and a free pass at the buffet.
Gotta start somewhere, right?
(Btw, I’m always on the lookout for great biographies of successful people. Any you’ve read and would recommend? Hit reply and let me know.)
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#170 – 1 Month Selling a Course = $53,000#169 – $8 Million A Year Selling Slime?#168 – $8000/Month Advising LEGO InvestorsFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self 
—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts
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April 8, 2022
eBiz Weekly #170
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 22,665 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
$2.5K/Month Selling Resume Templates1 Month Selling a Course = $53,0006-Figure Bird BloggerOnline Solitaire Site = $10K/MonthBest Courses AwardsBlueprint: $600k/Year 1-Person Business#1 Lesson For FreelancersMomentos + Finance ReportAt The End Of The Day$2.5K/Month Selling Resume TemplatesAna Colak-Fustin does that via her Etsy store, including more than $11,000 in two years from this one template
(Check out the slick product images for that template – very well done.)
Per a recent interview, Ana had four years of corporate experience working as a recruiter before launching her business in July 2018. It took several months for her store to start making regular sales, and it now serves as a good source of leads for her coaching business
Ana’s advice for new entrepreneurs…
1 Month Selling a Course = $53,000
I’ve seen so many people asking others for side hustle ideas, then jumping into ‘sexy’ side hustles based on what they think will bring them money fast.
For example, some people start blogging even though they hate writing; some start managing social media accounts, even though they dislike spending time on social media. Then, they quickly give up if things don’t go as planned.
So, don’t go after a shiny object. Instead, make sure that by building a business you’re also creating a job you love. Figuring out what it is for you will help you persevere and succeed when times get tough.
Randall Kanna also helps job seekers.
She apparently earned $53,000 in February alone 
with a course that helps developers prep for job interviews.
Two years earlier, Randall spent months creating another course. She gave that one away for free and ended up with only a couple of students.
The difference between that product and my course generating $53,000?
I spent time actually building an engaged audience and asking what they wanted me to create. I created quality content on the subject. I grew rapidly on social media, I created tons of free resources and guides, and I helped people 1-1.
Randall now has 55K followers on Twitter, and it sounds like she’s invested a ton of time and effort building up that following
So while she may have earned $53k in one month, her “overnight success” was years in the making.
Also from Randall: Ultimate List of Sites to Job Hunt for Developers
6-Figure Bird BloggerScott Keller worked as an insurance agent for many years before getting into blogging. Initially he blogged about finance, but soon got bored of that and turned to blogging about his passion: birding 
Scott’s site is called Bird Watching HQ, and according to a recent profile…
In 2018, the blog made over $30,000. In 2019, it made over $70,000. Then, in 2020, when everyone was suddenly stuck at home, his traffic exploded. He was making more than enough money to quit his job.
Looks like Scott monetizes in several ways:
Display ads on the siteAffiliate marketing (example of an article with affiliate links)Selling physical productsSelling a $15 ebookAds on YouTube videosRelated: 37 affiliate marketing website examples
Online Solitaire Site = $10K/MonthHolger Sindbaek reveals that his Online Solitaire website is now earning $10,000 per month
The site apparently receives 1 million visits per month and seems to be monetized solely via display ads.
Holger launched the first version more than 10 years ago as a Mac app. But he didn’t decide to build a solitaire game because he enjoyed playing solitaire. His decision was based on a careful analysis of the earnings, downloads and ratings of other apps at the time
He earned $32 the first day he launched his game, which encouraged him to keep going and eventually turn it into a website.
Just goes to show: while “following your passion” can work well for some people, it’s not essential for success.
Related: 3 reasons why “follow your passion” may actually be bad advice
Best Courses AwardsHere’s a new thing we’re doing every 3 months: announcing the best Affiliate Marketing and Amazon FBA courses, based on our own 31-factor review process plus survey responses from 250+ students.
We have several awards in each category. See them all here.
The best overall courses for this quarter:
Affiliate Marketing: The Authority Site System (review)Amazon FBA: Proven Amazon Course (review)Blueprint: $600k/Year 1-Person BusinessInspired by the success of Nomad List – a $770k+ per year 1-person business – Ben Tossell lays out the blueprint in this thread.
A rough summary…
Pick a topic you like, with a big and growing audience.Figure out what info that audience wants.Provide with no-code / low-code tools.Get social and start building an audience.Test paid product/service ideas with your audience.Automate repetitive tasks.Persist.However, as the founder of Nomad List notes, “only 4 out of 70+ projects I ever did made money and grew.”
So knowing when to quit vs persist is key 
Seth Godin has some good advice on that topic.
#1 Lesson For FreelancersLots of great takeaways for consultants and freelancers in this article by Patrick McKenzie
Patrick is a programmer, but stopped calling himself that once he realized it made his services sound like a commodity.
Now he chooses to frame his services in a much more lucrative way…
“I solve business problems — occasionally a computer is involved.”
Also an interesting story in there about how Patrick thought he’d provided $300 of value but the client pegged his contribution at $15,000+ 
My latest personal ramblings are here 
And feel free to check out my March finance report, detailing everything I earned and spent in the business last month 
Closing it out with words from billionaire investor Charlie Munger
Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.”
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In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:
#169 – $8 Million A Year Selling Slime?#168 – $8000/Month Advising LEGO Investors#167 – Sold Her Website for Mid-6 FiguresFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts
By the way...
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Have you ever taken a course that promised to help you make money online? Share your experience with that course and we’ll donate $5 on your behalf to educate a girl in rural Africa.
How To Make Money Online
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Recommended Resources
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Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
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April 1, 2022
eBiz Weekly #169
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 22,546 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
$8 Million A Year Selling Slime?Building A Local Newsletter BusinessStaying In Touch With 100’s Of People10,000 People Paying Him $1/Month5-Year-Old Website: $500,000/Year$0 Revenue SaaS Sold for $4.5KWhy It Costs That Much$1 Million From These Daily ActionsYour Story of Resiliency$8 Million A Year Selling Slime?A 20-something-year-old named Andrea could be earning as much as $8 million a year selling slime via TikTok (4.4M followers), Instagram (1M) and YouTube (1M)
That’s according to some public math by Codie Sanchez, who includes a quote from Andrea…
“My business would not exist if it wasn’t for social media marketing. We haven’t spent a penny on paid ads, which is very unusual in the e-commerce world. It’s not that we’re against it, but for now we’d rather spend our money on expanding our content creation!”
I mentioned another person crushing it with a slime biz in a previous newsletter: Jacob Karram told his story via CNBC Make It on YouTube.
He started the business at age 17 with $100, and now sells 4000 jars of slime online each week. Took him years to get to that point though, and apparently he still works 65 hours per week
Nathan Barry writes about the first year launching and growing From Boise.
It’s a local newsletter for Boise, Idaho (population ~230k) that goes out twice weekly. Here’s a recent edition 
Nathan has outsourced pretty much all the work, spending $62k to grow it to 10,000+ subscribers. Though he estimates he could have saved $34k if he had done most of the work himself, and even more if he hadn’t used paid ads to attract subscribers.
Revenue mostly comes from sponsorships. But that’s only amounted to $4,500 to date, plus another $635 from reader donations.
So it’s still far from being a profitable business, but I really like local newsletters and root for them to succeed 
Andrew Wilkinson once tweeted that his nascent local newsletter (in Victoria, Canada) had already captured a bigger audience than the 100-year-old local newspaper. He later commented on a podcast that he believes a great local newsletter could pull in $1-2 million in annual revenue. And last May it was announced that his company is aiming to add 250 staff and 50 more newsletters by 2023
I’m pretty bad at staying in touch with friends and building relationships with new and interesting people 
Jakob Greenfeld was pretty bad at this too, until he created a solid system for it using Airtable.
Only takes him about 15 minutes per day to manage, and it sounds like the ROI is massive.
10,000 People Paying Him $1/MonthI’ve been using this screen capture Chrome extension for years and only recently saw that it pulls in $10,000/month
The premium version costs $12/year (ie. $1/month), so it’s got about 10,000 paying customers.
Peter Coles launched the extension way back in 2012 – originally to scratch his own itch – and only monetized it years later when it had amassed 3 million users.
Now the extension has 5 million users, which means only 0.2% of them – that’s 1 in every 500 – go premium.
(Hat tip for this story: the Extendo Newsletter, a newsletter about Chrome extensions.)
5-Year-Old Website: $500,000/YearI occasionally link to interviews on Starter Story in this newsletter, and did an interview on there myself 2 years ago.
Simon Owens recently broke down how Pat Walls launched Starter Story in 2017 and grew it to $500,000 in annual revenue today 
What I admire most about Pat is how he relentlessly optimizes and automates repetitive tasks in his business…
Like when the interview goes live, I would have an automated email go out to the founder that would ask them to share it on social media, all that kind of stuff… Or I built this integration between Google Docs where the founders would write the content, and then it would convert with one click from Google Docs to my article format.
What time-consuming and repetitive tasks could you automate or optimize in your business?
Or could you be the person who helps other businesses do this, like this guy on Reddit?
Related: I automated my job over a year ago and haven’t told anyone 
Richie McIlroy launched Recover.so last November
It’s a SaaS to “recover abandoned Stripe checkouts.”
Two months later, the business had $0 revenue and Richie wanted to focus on other projects, so he listed Recover for sale on MicroAcquire. Within a couple of weeks he’d sold it for $4500.
Takeaway: don’t underestimate the value of a “failing” business. Even though he wasn’t able to generate revenue with his SaaS, Richie gained some valuable experience building/launching/selling it, and still ended up with some decent for his efforts.
Also, if you’re not into starting something from scratch, there are lots of businesses like Recover.so listed for sale on MicroAcquire, including 500+ available for $5000 or less.
Why It Costs That MuchNext time you have a client or customer complaining about price, soothe your frustrations by looping this explicit little ditty
First thing I thought when I heard that: this song would crush on TikTok.
Sure enough, a few TikTok videos have used it and racked up millions of views
Alexander Cortes writes about how he’s “made $1 million through Twitter, an email list, & ebooks.”
His key habits…
Tweet every day, for 5 years
Write every day, for 5 years
One video a week, for 5 years
One hour a day devoted to a skill, for 5 years
Success is built on the compounding returns of these daily actions
No short cuts. No secrets. Stop wasting time looking for them
Alexander mainly sells ebooks about fitness and nutrition. See them all here
Jim Harmer writes in Work Energy about building his photography blog up to $30k/month. But then revenue declined sharply, and he had to lay off employees.
It was an especially tough time for Jim because he’d let his company’s success become a core part of his identity. Accordingly, when the company struggled, he became “truly depressed” 
His takeaway…
Don’t let success or failure define you… every life will see both… I needed to rewrite my story to be a phrase I once heard: “I’ve come through some tough spots in the past, but somehow I always seem to make it through.” It is neither success nor failure—it’s a story of resiliency.
Whether you’re experiencing success or failure right now, try not to let either one define you. Think of yourself primarily as a resilient person, who can make it through whatever challenges life throws at you.
Jim’s resiliency paid off: working without employees, he knuckled down and did $150,000 in digital product sales the week of Black Friday
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In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:
#168 – $8000/Month Advising LEGO Investors#167 – Sold Her Website for Mid-6 Figures#166 – Death to Affiliate MarketingFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts
By the way...
Rate and Review an Online Course
Have you ever taken a course that promised to help you make money online? Share your experience with that course and we’ll donate $10 on your behalf to educate a girl in rural Africa.
How To Make Money Online
A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.
Recommended Resources
Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.
Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
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March 24, 2022
eBiz Weekly #168
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 22,458 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
Flipbook Software Makes How Much?Bad Marketer Earning $2000/MonthDeal of the Week: AISEO.aiAI-Powered Productized Service$8000/Month Advising LEGO InvestorsAffected by the war in Ukraine?The $500K Productivity CourseTraffic Ticket Hustle to $210M ValuationFreelance > Agency > SaaSFlipbook Software RevenueFlipbook Software Makes How Much?Check out Flipsnack
It’s a tool for creating a digital flipbook. Which is basically a PDF hosted online with a page-flip effect that makes it look like a real-life book or magazine.
Sounds simple enough, but how much revenue do you think the company earns each month?
a) $10,000
b) $100,000
c) $400,000
d) $800,000
Answer further down 
Fernando Pessagno reveals how he earns $2000 per month from ResumeMaker.Online, despite the fact that he’s “far from being a good marketer”
Fernando launched the site 3.5 years ago, and has mainly worked on it on weekends while holding down a full-time job.
His main traffic source is SEO and at first he was struggling to generate quality backlinks to boost his site’s ranking in search engines. But then he changed the angle of the story he was pitching to news sites…
Instead of making it about the product, I made it about my personal journey. During that time, Argentina (my home country) was suffering harshly the economic effects of the pandemic and it was under one of the most strict set of restrictions in the world. The story about an Argentinian that fled the country, landed a job overseas, and was helping others do the same was much more interesting to a mainstream audience than just talking about a website.
Pitching his story that way landed Fernando an interview – and backlink – on a big South American news site. Many smaller sites then picked up on the story, resulting in plenty of bonus backlinks
Pretty good for a bad marketer.
Deal of the Week: AISEO.aiAISEO.ai is another AI-powered content tool with tons of positive reviews 
One reviewer writes…
“It’s an AI-based writing assistant that helps you generate an SEO optimized blog post with just a couple of clicks. I’m not the best writer, so this was really helpful for me. The best part is that it’s really easy to use and it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it.”
Right now you can get lifetime access to AISEO.ai for only $59. That lets you generate 25,000 words of content each month.
Or you can test it out first with a 7-day free trial
Interesting use of AI-powered content tools: Blogbeagle is a productized blogging service that promises “AI quality ensured by humans.”
No clue how well that particular business is doing – it only launched a few weeks ago – but I like the idea.
What other productized services could you offer with the help of AI tools?
Check AppSumo for deals on several such tools… might spark some ideas.
$8000/Month Advising LEGO InvestorsYou’ve heard of B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-customer).
Well, Jakob Greenfeld has come up with a list of successful B2Side-Hustle businesses: basically businesses that help people generate some side income
For example, PrettyMerch Pro is “a Chrome extension that improves the Merch by Amazon seller dashboard” … and pulls in about $30,000+/month.
Among several other examples, the most fascinating to me is All Things LEGO, a monthly subscription for people who invest in Lego “as an alternative asset class to buying stocks” … and earns an estimated $8000+/month
Jakob goes on to break down “three types of B2Side-Hustle subscription products”…
Research-as-a-service – sell monthly reports, leads, or data.Community and coaching – sell access to a private community and regular coaching sessions.Tools – automate common powerseller processes.
Check out the full article for some new B2Side-Hustle ideas worth exploring.
Affected by the war in Ukraine?Building Remotely has a list of 25+ companies that will prioritize your application for a remote job 
Back in 2015, Khe Hy quit his high-level job in Wall Street and took off traveling with his wife and toddler, trying to figure out what he wanted to do next.
He’d started a newsletter a few months earlier, recommending some interesting articles to 36 friends 
As that newsletter slowly grew, Khe began including stories from his life and travels. After a few months, some of his subscribers were asking him to coach them. Coaching became a way for Khe to pay the bills and keep doing his own thing. As his audience continued to grow, he booked speaking gigs and launched a podcast.
Then, with tens of thousands of people on his email list, Khe launched a productivity course that focused heavily on Notion. That course has gone through several iterations and earned Khe more than $500k in the last 18 months
Note how Khe’s business evolved over the years: he didn’t start out creating a course and then trying to find an audience to sell to. Instead, he built up his newsletter over time, first monetized with a simple service business (coaching), and only went to the trouble of creating a course once he had a big and engaged enough audience to ensure it would be successful.
Parking Ticket Hustle to $210M ValuationAnother great example of starting small and simple is DoNotPay.com, which recently hit a $210 million valuation
Today the site is touted as a “robot lawyer” service; basically a chatbot that provides legal services, such as refunds on flight tickets, filing small claims, and notarizing documents.
But it was started by 18-year-old Josh Browder back in 2015. He had successfully appealed several traffic tickets for himself, and decided to start a website showing other people how to do the same. Two weeks later, the first version of the site was online.
A few days ago, Josh reported that the site earned $118,496 net profit in February
Josh’s words from a 2020 interview…
Freelance > Agency > SaaSI could never have imagined that DoNotPay would ever become any sort of company when I was just fighting my parking tickets. I would say to just pursue an idea; you don’t need anyone’s permission.
Check out Molly Wolchansky’s business journey
She started out as freelance marketer. Her first client was her mother, a real estate agent. Molly gradually took on more clients and evolved her business into an agency.
Eventually, feeling “overworked, overwhelmed and underpaid,” she leveraged her deep knowledge of marketing for the real estate industry to launch a SaaS called The Agent Nest.
Two years later, that business is pulling in more that $8000 MRR
Doubtful Molly could have built her successful SaaS without first putting in those several tough years in the trenches doing freelance and agency work.
Related:
Nathan Barry’s Ladders of Wealth Creation19 types of online business (and how they relate to each other)Flipbook Software RevenueAccording to a recent interview with the CMO of Flipsnack, that business is currently pulling in $800,000 per month
Granted, they’ve been around a while, launching in 2011. And they apparently have 70 employees, so it’s no small operation.
Regardless, it’s a good example of a “boring” business that generates a ton of cashflow.
Know another business that fits that description? I’d love to hear about it 
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#167 – Sold Her Website for Mid-6 Figures#166 – Death to Affiliate Marketing#165 – $7500/Month Hunting Gear WebsiteFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
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Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
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How To Make Money Online
A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.
Recommended Resources
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Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
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March 17, 2022
eBiz Weekly #167
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 22,361 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
$1.2 Million While In College$85K/Month Explainer VideosEasy Way To Start A Podcast$700 to $8500 MRR in 15 MonthsThe Changing World Order$5,800/Month in 7 MonthsSold Her Website for Mid-6 FiguresFailing Forward To $100 MillionLatest Momentos$1.2 Million While In CollegeJohnny Robinson calls it a “Remote Home Service Business,” which is essentially a lead generation business for local services like…
House CleaningWindow CleaningJunk RemovalLandscapingPaintingYou basically generate the leads and book the jobs – all from home – then subcontract the work out to local service providers.
Johnny did this recently with Mary & A Mop house cleaning, and reported $4000 profit his first full month, with little startup cost. He also has a window cleaning business that has “allowed me to make over $1.2M in the last 3 years while in college”
He has an excellent thread breaking down the business model and how to get started…
The main skill you need to learn in this model is bidding/quoting jobs. In order to do this effectively, you need to know everything there is to know about the service.
Think about the industries you’ve worked in before and know quite well – could you apply this business model to one of those?
Here’s a more high-tech version of the above concept: Animation Explainers.
They make animated explainer videos for business clients (examples).
The company was started by two Irish guys in 2018, who identified the opportunity while working as research interns for a SaaS in Dublin. They found their first clients via LinkedIn and hired local animators to create the videos.
Citing one book that inspired their business philosophy…
The E-myth Revisited, from my perspective, showed us the importance of working on the business instead of within it. Creating a business that doesn’t require you for it to function (which is still a work in progress) but this will help us with scaling further into 2022
Btw, they’re currently hiring remote sales reps.
Easy Way To Start A PodcastCheck out this lifetime deal for Listnr.fm.
It’s an all-in-one tool that lets you easily record, edit, host, distribute, and monetize high-quality podcasts and audiobooks
Listnr has lots of rave reviews on Trustpilot and Product Hunt
Like this one…
Lots to like about this tool. I checked out several other more familiar, yet more costly options. While they are certainly good, none match the overall value and multiple uses of Listnr.
This is the kind of deal I’d snap up if I was starting a podcast. You could also use it to provide a podcast production and co-hosting service like the one I mentioned from Wendi McGowan-Ellis a few weeks back.
Right now you can get lifetime access to Listnr.fm starting at $79, even though their Alpha Plan usually costs $190/year
Back in December 2020, Norbert Hüthmayr went on Flippa looking for a business he could buy and grow 
He ended up buying AutoForward SMS for about $10,000. It’s an app that can automatically forward SMS messages to an email address.
It was earning $700/month when Norbert bought it. Now, some 15 months later, he has grown the business to $8590 in monthly recurring revenue
Norbert shared some details of his journey in an interview back in October. Some great insights there on how he chose which business to buy, and what he’s done to boost revenue.
A good reminder that it can be easier to buy and grow an existing business than trying to create one from scratch.
The Changing World OrderBillionaire investor Ray Dalio recently published a book called Principles for Dealing with the The Changing World Order.
It’s based on a massive study of human history and details “the big cycle” of the rise and decline of nations, and where the USA currently is in that cycle 
Watch this excellent 45-minute video where Ray condenses everything in the book… it’s racked up 6+ million views in 2 weeks.
From the comments…
Why isn’t this being taught in the public education system? I’ve gathered more relevant information about how society functions in this 45 minute video than in my 16 years of attending school.
(Btw, if you’re interested in the book, you can listen to it for free with a 60-day trial of Scribd. Same with The E-Myth Revisited, mentioned earlier.)
$5,800/Month in 7 MonthsThat’s Ticker Nerd, a paid newsletter about trending stocks.
The two co-founders reached 300 subscribers and $5800 MRR in only 7 months, then sold to a $500 million fintech company. The sale price wasn’t disclosed, but “part of the deal was getting equity in the acquiring company.”
One of the co-founders posted about the messy origins of the business, detailing how they came up with the idea, quickly validated it via Subreddits and Facebook Groups, then engineered a successful launch on Product Hunt.
Love this part…
Sold Her Website for Mid-6 FiguresI think most people focus way too much on having a slick fancy website before they even know if people will pay for their product. Validation > perfection (at least when you’re just starting out).
Our initial landing page that we used to test the idea was super ghetto. We didn’t have any testimonials or examples of the product but we still managed to make $1,000 in presales.
Alexis Grant started The Write Life, a website for writers, back in 2013 and recently sold it for “mid-six figures” 
Digging into the details, apparently the site earned only $10,000 profit in all of 2018 and Alexis almost gave up on it a year earlier…
I’d just had my second baby, and we were preparing to move from D.C. to Florida for my role [as Executive Editor] at The Penny Hoarder. Between taking care of an infant and a toddler, not getting much sleep, going back to work full time and setting up our life in a new town, I was pretty overwhelmed.
(Btw, The Penny Hoarder – a personal finance website – sold for $102.5 million at the end of 2020.)
Alexis stuck with her website and almost doubled the traffic in 18 months, working on it “just a few hours each month, without any full-time employees.”
Unclear how much revenue the site was earning when she sold it, but Alexis notes that content businesses tend to sell for 2.5x-4x annual revenue. That would put the monthly revenue of The Write Life roughly between $10,000 and $15,000
Nathan Barry recently announced that his company ConvertKit has passed $100 million in lifetime sales
He goes on to list all the businesses he tried before hitting it big with ConvertKit…
Budget web hosting company – $0Local business marketplace – $0Sign language web app – $10k up front then $300/monthPremium WordPress themes – $70App for kids with non-verbal autism – $50,000+ (over 4 years)Language-learning flashcards app – $75Habit tracking app – $20,000+Design-focused email newsletter – $0App design ebook – $90,000+Designing web applications ebook – $200,000+ConvertKit – $102 million (and counting)Nathan also notes that it took a while for ConvertKit to take off. He was working on it for two years before it reached $2000 MRR, using the proceeds from his other projects to fund development until it became profitable
He writes…
MomentosIt’s okay if your first product flops. Earning a living online is a combination of a thousand little skills that take time to learn. The only thing you can control is to create every day for a long time. Stay consistent, keep learning, and you’ll eventually win.
My latest personal ramblings are here if you fancy a look
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#166 – Death to Affiliate Marketing#165 – $7500/Month Hunting Gear Website#164 – Million Dollar Sudoku SolversFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
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Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
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How To Make Money Online
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Recommended Resources
Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.
Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
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March 10, 2022
eBiz Weekly #166
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 22,193 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
$5K/Month Simple Tools Site6 Skills To Be A Successful YouTuber$250k/Year Sorority SaaSDeath to Affiliate Marketing$80K/Year Airtable PluginRamen Profitable Notion SaaSFind a High-Impact Career$420k/Year One-Person BusinessMomentos + Finance Report$5K/Month Simple Tools SiteThe site is RandomTools.io, recently rebranded from FindmyFbid.in.
Founder Shashikant Vaishnav writes that he launched in 2016 and within 3 years the site was earning $5000 per month
About 60% of revenue comes from display ads, and the remainder from paid subscriptions to their API.
Shashikant notes that this kind of site is in contrast to a regular content website…
The power of tools is you do not need to keep adding updated content, they grow naturally – higher session rate, high engagement, and low bounce rate, and these are the win-win for your website from google’s perspective.
Some of the most visited tools on the site according to Ahrefs…
Random Word GeneratorYoutube Random Comment PickerWhat niche or industry are you familiar with?
What simple tools could be useful for that audience?
A few weeks back I mentioned Aprilynne Alter’s NFT-focused YouTube channel, which was earning $100/day only 6 months after she began uploading consistently.
She recently posted a thread with 40 tips that helped her succeed on YouTube, including a list of the 6 main skills required…
Writing
Filming
Editing
Storytelling
Branding
Public Speaking
Check out the full thread for tips on monetizing a YouTube channel, how to title videos, common thumbnail mistakes, and much more.
(Btw, Aprilynne credits Ali Abdaal’s Part-Time YouTuber Academy for much of her success. If you’ve taken that course yourself, consider reviewing it here.)
$250k/Year Sorority SaaSAccording to a recent write-up…
The company was Select-A-Sis, a web-based voting and data management system that helps streamline sorority recruitment processes. It was founded in 2011 by [four college friends], and sold in February 2018.
The business was apparently pulling in $250,000 to $300,000 in annual revenue before selling for $1.2 million. The four friends continued to build and run the business on the side after they left college and got day jobs.
Impressive that such a niche software aimed at college kids was pulling in more than $20k per month
A quote from Chelsey Roney, one of the founders…
Death to Affiliate Marketing“Usually, small businesses aren’t overnight successes. It took seven years, and it takes a longer time than people think. If you want something to work, you can’t give up.”
Matt Giovanisci earned $284,009 from affiliate marketing in 2019, and still earns more than 6 figures a year as an affiliate
But now he writes…
Affiliate marketing is dying a slow and painful death. And I won’t be dragged down with it! … Affiliate marketing is dead to me. I’m no longer making it a priority in my business. And I want to share the reasons why.
In short, Matt is deprioritizing affiliate marketing due to lack of control. Three of his biggest affiliate partners have either slashed their rates or closed their affiliate programs in recent years, significantly hurting his revenue overnight each time.
So he’s gradually been shifting focus to creating and selling his own digital and physical products. And it’s working: last year he earned almost $450,000 from digital product sales alone
However, in the podcast version of Matt’s blog post, he notes that affiliate marketing can still be a good way to start monetizing a website…
[Affiliate marketing] is dying, but it’s not dead. I think it’s a great way to get your feet wet in online business. You create a website, you don’t want to make a product right out of the gate because you don’t know what product to create but you know what to recommend. And so you recommend somebody else’s product and you see if it has legs. And if it does, then you create your own version, and you sell that.
I agree.
Before you dive into affiliate marketing yourself, read Matt’s full article and my primer so you’re fully aware of the pros and cons.
$80K/Year Airtable PluginAndy Cloke describes Airtable as “basically Google Sheets on steroids.”
And in this interview he shares how he created a plugin called Data Fetcher that helps import data into Airtable 
Just over a year after launching, Data Fetcher has reached 190 paying customers and $6500 in MRR. I’m really happy with this consistent growth and it seems to be speeding up!
A self-taught coder, Andy has launched several products over the years…
The first one to make any money was Influence Grid, a directory of TikTok influencers. I bootstrapped it to $3k MRR and then sold the app to another company for $55k.
Andy’s framework for coming up with business ideas…
1. Find a platform that is growing massively.
2. Look at successful tools for more mature platforms.
3. Build equivalent tool for the new platform.
4.
Some resources to help you find growing platforms…
Exploding TopicsFastest Growing SubredditsGlimpseGoogle TrendsRamen Profitable Notion SaaSSimilar to the above is HelpKit, a 5-month-old $1000/month SaaS built off the back of Notion.
Notion is basically Google Docs on steroids, and another platform that has been growing super-fast
Dominik Sobe, the founder of HelpKit, recently posted about his success (here and here) and shared how he came up with the idea…
HelpKit is a no code tool that allows you to easily turn your Notion docs into a professional help center / documentation page. I started it because I was fed up with the existing knowledge base solutions and I am absolutely loving Notion.
In terms of marketing, Dominik has so far been “focusing solely on building in public [on Twitter] and engaging with the Notion community.”
Find a High-Impact CareerWith the rise of remote work, there are increasing opportunities to pursue high-impact careers from home.
80,000 Hours is a website and podcast that aims to help you find such a career
See this page for a quick overview of what they’re all about.
Main reason I bring them up: they offer free career planning consultations
Consider applying for one if you’re eager to make a positive impact with your work but aren’t sure where to direct your focus.
$420k/Year One-Person BusinessThat was Makerpad, a “no-code education and community” that sold to Zapier a year ago.
Ben Tossell writes that he got Makerpad’s revenue to $35,000 per month as a solo founder working on the business part time, and without being able to code
His costs were apparently less than $500/month.
Ben’s advice to other entrepreneurs…
Get customers before worrying about scalability… It’s better to start small and be profitable than to build for scale.
In other words: don’t think too far ahead when you’re starting out. Getting your first customers is hard enough. Make sure you can do that consistently before planning months or years ahead.
Also from Ben…
Momentos + Finance ReportThinking your first startup idea will succeed is like walking into a gym and hoping for a six-pack when you leave.
My latest personal ramblings are here if you fancy a look
And feel free to check out my latest finance report, detailing everything I earned and spent in my business last month
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#165 – $7500/Month Hunting Gear Website#164 – Million Dollar Sudoku Solvers#163 – $400/Day Blockchain Video GameFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
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Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts
By the way...
Rate and Review an Online Course
Have you ever taken a course that promised to help you make money online? Share your experience with that course and we’ll donate $10 on your behalf to educate a girl in rural Africa.
How To Make Money Online
A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.
Recommended Resources
Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.
Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
Facebook + Twitter
If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.
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March 3, 2022
eBiz Weekly #165
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 22,054 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
Automated IG Account: 100K FollowersBrowser Extension Earned $250k Last Year$800K/Year Lofi Music ChannelSimple Formula For New Product Ideas$100k salary > $100k freelancing?Best Way To Start A Service Business6 Years, $1 Million SaaS$60K/Month Done With You Service$7500/Month Hunting Gear WebsiteAutomated IG Account: 100K FollowersThe @mindofastoic account on Instagram was created 3 years ago and is nothing more than nicely styled quotes from famous philosophers and historical figures.
Bryan Maniotakis owns the account and recently shared how he has grown it to 100K followers with some clever automation 
The tools he uses:
Placid.app (image generation)Airtable (content)Integromat (scheduling)Bryan monetizes the account by linking followers to his website, where he sells books, prints, t-shirts and wallpapers.
Another (and likely much faster) way you could monetize this is by offering to create and maintain a similar setup for established businesses that have a weak or non-existent presence on Instagram
I mentioned something like this a few weeks back, pointing out that James Clear has amassed 770K+ followers on Instagram with content that could be created using a setup similar to Bryan’s.
Browser Extension Earned $250k Last YearThe extension is Mate, which lets you click any word in your browser and instantly translate it into one of 103 languages.
The first version of it was created in 2012 by Alex Chernikov, then a 16-year-old Ukrainian 
high school student.
Alex revealed in an interview that he built the extension to help himself learn English…
After uploading it as an extension on the Chrome Web Store, he went to university and forgot about it for two years. When he checked how it was doing, it had reached 130,000 customers despite zero updates. He decided this was the perfect time to monetize.
Alex took on a co-founder, built a premium version of the extension, and put together a small team that helped them earn $250,000 in 2021
My takeaway from Alex’s story is the importance of building and shipping small projects. Put a bunch of them out there in the world, see which get the best response, then focus relentlessly on whichever emerges as a golden ticket.
Related: list of software built and/or marketed by a Ukrainian team
$800K/Year Lofi Music ChannelAccording to Codie Sanchez, the 7-year-old YouTube channel Lofi Girl earns about $800,000 a year just from ad revenue.
Codie claims there is easy money to be made with lofi music 
The Indie Opportunities newsletter has a more sober take, IMO. They show how interest in lofi music is growing and list several potential opportunities you may be able to jump on.
Two that stood out to me:
Create info products around Lofi music creation… There’s currently just one course that teaches how to make Lofi music on Udemy and it has quite bad ratings.
Leverage AI to create lofi music & art. As Lofi music tends to be highly repetitive and low tempo, it is a good fit for current AI tools available for content generation. Here’s a tutorial.
SOUNDRAW is one such AI tool. Pricing is $16-20/month but they may do another lifetime deal on AppSumo at some point
(Btw, that Indie Opportunities newsletter is packed with good stuff. Check out the same edition for business ideas around due diligence + exploding subreddits.)
Simple Formula For New Product IdeasAndrew Hutton breaks it down on Twitter 
1) Go to product review pages of categories you’re interested in
2) Look for 3-star reviews (these people are sane/want to like the product, but can’t)
3) Find a common gripe
4) Make a product and fix that
Related: 47 more ways to come up with a business idea
$100k salary > $100k freelancing?The TL;DR of an article by Caleb Porzio…
A freelancer would have to make $140k (charge $70/hr) to take home the same amount as an employee with a $100k salary.
Of course it’s much more complicated than that and there are a lot of variables, which Caleb dives into 
The point is that it’s not a straightforward comparison; depending on your goals and values, earning $100k one way may be far better than the other.
Best Way To Start A Service BusinessJack Butcher is convinced that the best way is to leverage the “Permissionless Apprenticeship” model.
He elaborates on Twitter
The basic idea is that you find someone you admire and start doing stuff for them without asking.
6 Years, $1 Million SaaS
Video editor? Cut up their best talks into shareable clips.
Writer? Organize their tweets into a book outline.
Designer? Illustrate their ideas.
Etc, etc, etc…
Worst case scenario you get some experience and add a ton of free value. Best case scenario they do your marketing for you, put you infront of a ton more people, and maybe even give you a job themselves.
Jason McCreary did this with Shift, “a SaaS which automates upgrading Laravel projects.”
(Laravel is a free, open-source PHP web framework.)
Jason recently posted the short and long version of his journey.
You could say that he started it by following the “Permissionless Apprenticeship” model…
I built Shift during a conference hackathon. Earlier in the day, I gave a talk on upgrading Laravel. In attendance was Taylor Otwell, the creator of Laravel. Afterward, I talked to him and asked if he knew of any scripts for upgrading Laravel applications. He said, “No, but I’d use it.”
So Jason went ahead and built an MVP, posted about it on Twitter, and Taylor retweeted it. That helped drive the first few sales
Still, it sounds like it was a grind for Jason in the early days: he earned just $220 from the project in the first few weeks.
10 months later he was up to $4000 a month, and only 3 full years after he began the project did Jason quit his day job to work on Shift full time.
Now he’s riding high at $30,000 per month
Patrick Walsh is the founder of Publishing Push, which has helped authors polish, self-publish and market 3000+ books in 10 years and now earns $60,000+ per month 
You can read more about that business in a recent Bootstrappers profile.
Note the similarities between this and the podcast production and co-hosting service I mentioned a couple of weeks back.
Both are essentially “done with you” service businesses, delivering expertise and proven processes to their clients.
If you’ve already developed expertise and processes in some area, how about packaging and selling that as a “done with you” service?
The site is Hunting Gear Deals
Camron Stover bought the site for $100,000 a few years back and says in a recent interview that he earned that amount back in 14-15 months. Last year the site pulled in $90,000, primarily via affiliate marketing.
Lots of great stuff in the interview and accompanying text, but something that really stood out to me is how Camron repurposes other people’s YouTube videos into written content for his blog…
Another outreach tactic Camron has found success with is reaching out to YouTubers who are reviewing hunting gear but do not have blogs. He asks if he can turn their review into a blog post and will embed their video into the post.
This is a win-win as it generates Google traffic for Camron and also puts more eyeballs on the video and the owner’s YouTube channel.
Also worth noting that Camron has built up the site while working a 9-to-5 job with a daily 1 hour and 40 minute commute
Related: 37 affiliate marketing website examples (+ how much they earn)
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#164 – Million Dollar Sudoku Solvers#163 – $400/Day Blockchain Video Game#162 – $7K/Month SaaS Sold For How Much?Full archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
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Rate and Review an Online Course
Have you ever taken a course that promised to help you make money online? Share your experience with that course and we’ll donate $10 on your behalf to educate a girl in rural Africa.
How To Make Money Online
A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.
Recommended Resources
Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.
Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
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February 25, 2022
eBiz Weekly #164
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 21,880 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
$5,000/Month On AutopilotMillion Dollar Sudoku Solvers$1500/Month Chrome ExtensionFormula for a $1 Billion CompanyHe Landed A $100k Freelance Client$10k MRR in 18 MonthsOnline Course: $330K in Year 112ft Ladder$7000/Month Spreadsheet$5,000/Month On AutopilotSimon Høiberg reveals how he does it in a 20-minute YouTube video, with accompanying notes.
Basically he creates and sells ebooks – like this one about JavaScript – mainly via paid ads on Facebook and YouTube 
I have been using this simple setup for almost 6 months now, and I make a $5,000 profit (on average), and have been peaking at around $10,000 in good months.
If you already have an ebook that you’ve been struggling to sell, test out the funnel Simon recommends and see how you get on.
Million Dollar Sudoku SolversYesterday I stumbled across a YouTube channel called Cracking The Cryptic.
They’ve pumped out almost 2,500 videos since 2017 – that’s about 3 videos every 2 days – mostly of the hosts live-solving tricky sudoku and crossword puzzles
Their most popular video has almost 8 million views and the channel has racked up about 108 million views total.
Looks like they monetize in 4 main ways…
YouTube ads: estimated at $98 per video ($245K total) by one calculatorPatreon: 7,178 patrons paying at least $2 per month ($172K+ per year)Kickstarter: $191K recently raised to create a puzzle bookPuzzle apps: several on multiple platforms, selling for $5 a pop (links in description of YT vids)The Guardian did a story about the channel almost 2 years ago, noting that one of the hosts had “quit his lucrative but miserable job at a London investment bank to solve sudoku puzzles on YouTube.” So presumably they were already making good money back then.
I expect they earned at least $500,000 from all their income streams in 2021, but quite possibly more than $1 million
That’s Blurweb.app
It lets you quickly and easily blur sensitive information on your screen when recording or screen sharing. (Try the demo here)
Starter Story has an interview with 21-year-old founder Sanskar Tiwari, where he reveals how he came up with the idea…
One day I had to make a screen share video for a google sheet full of emails. I spent hours learning how to add blur buying video editing tools. I thought to myself: there had to be a better solution than this.
Also lots of details in the interview about how Sanskar validated and launched the product, how he found his first customers, etc.
Keep an eye out for annoyances of inefficiencies in your own work… could you come up with a solution?
Related: a free weekly newsletter about Chrome extension ideas
Formula for a $1 Billion CompanyEvan Williams is the co-founder of Twitter, currently a $13 billion company
Several years ago he said the following at a conference…
Here’s the formula if you want to build a billion-dollar internet company. Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time… Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps.
Apps like Uber and Tinder are great examples of this.
Think about the industry you’re already in, or a topic you know a lot about. What desires already exist there? What steps could be removed with technology?
Actually, the tech might not even be necessary to build a thriving business: simply provide a manual service that takes care of those steps for clients
Related:
47 ways to come up with a business ideaLifetime deal on no-code app maker MobirollerHe Landed A $100k Freelance ClientDeveloper Jovan Cicmil reveals how in this article.
In a word: networking
Jovan has been freelancing since 2011 and it seems he’s always made an effort to build his network of clients and peers (ie. other developers).
The more clients he served and served well, the more referrals he would get. And the more he helped other developers, the more they would send work and recommendations his way.
This combination of experience and referrals from both previous clients and colleagues resulted in me blowing all the other candidates out of the water (client’s words, not mine) and landing the sort of client freelancers dream about.
How can you go the extra mile on a client project or help out another freelancer today?
Tally is a simple form builder created by a couple based in Belgium 
One of the founders – Marie Martens – recently announced that they’d reached $10,000 monthly recurring revenue
Impressive that a 2-person team has done that in such a crowded and competitive niche. Even more impressive that the product is less than 2 years old and born from a crisis…
In 2019, we launched Hotspot, a marketplace for hotels and travel influencers, but when COVID hit we quickly lost half of our clients. A couple of sleepless months later we decided to pivot, and Tally was born.
Back in November when Tally was at $6k MRR, Marie shared that their monthly costs were $526/month.
Online Course: $330K in Year 1That’s Lenny Rachitsky’s live online course about product management, which he launched and ran twice in 2021.
A recent interview with Lenny provides a good argument for working at a big company 
before launching your own business.
Lenny spent 7 years as a product manager at Airbnb, and leveraged all he learned there to start a paid newsletter that now earns him more than $500,000 a year.
Once he’d built an audience of 100,000+ newsletter subscribers, it was easy enough for Lenny to figure out what kind of course he could teach that people would pay $1000+ for
Check out the most popular editions of Lenny’s newsletter here.
12ft LadderThis is a free service that lets you read paywalled articles on many sites.
You simply put https://12ft.io/ in front of the URL that’s paywalled 
If it’s a site you read regularly though, consider paying them to help keep the lights on.
$7000/Month SpreadsheetAlex West recently announced that he’s up to $7000 MRR with cyberleads.co.
CyberLeads is essentially a spreadsheet listing contact info of companies that just raised funding and are probably looking to hire help. The service is aimed at agencies on the hunt for new clients.
In his Twitter bio, Alex writes that he “prev built and failed 19 products” over the past 5 years 
He also tweeted…
Sign up for more tips and insights to build your online business 🚀If you feel like you are progressing slowly, don’t worry. Your progress won’t be linear. Most people (and almost myself) give up in year 1 or 2.
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#163 – $400/Day Blockchain Video Game#162 – $7K/Month SaaS Sold For How Much?#161 – $100,000 with 2 Google SheetsFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
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Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
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How To Make Money Online
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February 17, 2022
eBiz Weekly #163
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 21,720 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
Quit Job, Booked $250k Freelance Work$100K/Month Selling NFT Services$400/Day Blockchain Video GameDeal of the Week$1 Million Hyperlocal Website$$$ From Other People’s Podcasts?7-Figure Test Prep Website$100K Productized Service In 12 MonthsMomentos + Finance ReportQuit Job, Booked $250k Freelance WorkBrooklin Nash quit his $90k/year full-time job back in October.
3 months later, he’d already signed $250k in freelance gigs, mostly 6-month contracts
Brooklin’s jam is long-form content marketing, and he shared plenty of advice for other freelancers in an AMA on Twitter.
Specific answers from Brooklin…
How do you recommend getting started?Is there one big lever you attribute to your success?How do you structure your packages?Tips on effective cold emailing?Do you work more or less now?I particularly like his advice for first-year freelancers…
$100K/Month Selling NFT ServicesDon’t stop: saying yes to things you’re not quite comfortable with (I didn’t write a case study until I got paid to write a case study. I didn’t put together a full SEO strategy until I got paid to.)
In an 8-minute video, Vasily Kichigin shows how some Fiverr sellers are cashing in on the NFT craze 
Two gigs in particular he highlights:
I will create chibi pixel nft art collection with 100, 1k, 10k nfts ($300 basic price, 12 orders in queue)I will do unique nft art collection with 100, 1k, 10k nfts ($1450 basic price, 76 orders in queue)With a 14-day turnaround time, the latter gig should be generating well over $100,000 per month
Great example of selling shovels during a gold rush.
$400/Day Blockchain Video GameAnother way to make money with NFTs without buying them directly is via the game DeFi Kingdoms
Chris Guillebeau – a respected author and entrepreneur who I’ve been following online for 10+ years – recently wrote about his experience with the game, and how he was earning $400/day in interest within a week, just from buying tokens.
Chris offers plenty of cautions about the game…
Even with good security, digital currencies often experience extreme volatility. What goes up usually comes down, and sometimes it goes back up, but not always… The recent market crash that took Bitcoin and everything else down didn’t spare DeFi Kingdoms; the price of Jewel [the game’s main token] went from ~$21 to ~$7.
But he’s optimistic about the play-to-earn landscape overall.
Read his full write-up on DeFi Kingdoms to get your head spinning 
Mobiroller is a simple platform that lets you create monetized apps without writing a single line of code.
Use it to build and publish your own Android and iOS app. Then add ads, charge subscription fees, or design an ecommerce store
It has excellent reviews on all the top review sites. One reviewer on AppSumo wrote…
“If developing an app was on your todo list, and you don’t want to pay thousands for a developer, do yourself a favor and get this.”
Even if you don’t want to develop your own app, you could use Mobiroller to quickly develop apps for freelance clients. (IMO, you’re far more likely to build a profitable business doing this)
Right now you can get lifetime access to the Mobiroller for only $79, even though their Pro Plan usually costs $30/month
Ever heard of a city called Frisco?
It’s the 14th biggest city in Texas with a population of ~200,000 people.
8 years ago, a husband and wife – Scott Ellis and Wendi McGowan-Ellis – started a website about the town: LifestyleFrisco.com.
Per a recent podcast interview, it seems the site has bloomed into a 7-figure business
Scott and Wendi spent the first 3 years growing the audience before monetizing, mainly with sponsored content.
At about the 20-minute mark of the interview, Wendi reveals the core content package that they initially sold to local businesses for $575/month: a series of feature articles, a podcast interview, and a short promo video. She also mentions a local home builder that paid them $6000/month for more content
See the bottom of this page for Lifestyle Frisco’s current packages and prices, including $350 for a post + story + link on their Instagram account (19k followers).
Later in the interview, Scott and Wendi say they would produce less website content if they were starting over, and focus more on newsletter content. They also reckon they could have started monetizing a year earlier than they did.
$$$ From Other People’s Podcasts?Wendi also talks on the aforementioned podcast about her own podcast production and co-hosting service.
She says at the 50-minute mark…
A lot of people who start their podcast don’t know that they need a written transcript in support of their audio episodes for ADA compliance… lawyers are looking for people who are doing audio-only and not supporting that with text… they’re like ambulance chasers… you’re violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by not providing a text transcript to go with your audio episodes.
Assuming that’s true, and given that there are over 1 million active podcasts, here’s an idea: you could reach out to active podcasts that DON’T have transcripts for their episodes, tell them about ADA compliance and ambulance-chasing lawyers, and link them to transcription services like Rev, GoTranscript or Fiverr.
All of those platforms have affiliate programs, so your links can be affiliate links and you would earn a commission for every sale you refer
(Just be sure to disclose to the podcasters that you’re an affiliate for those services.)
7-Figure Test Prep WebsiteCheck out test-guide.com
According to a recent profile…
Dave Evangelisti launched it in 2009Earned $250/day in ad revenue within a yearGot deindexed from Google for spammy link buildingDave was able to get it reindexed within a few monthsAhrefs estimates it now gets 495,000 organic visits each month.
Looks like they monetize specific pages with affiliate marketing and no ads (prime example). Then on pages with low buyer intent – eg. Free IQ Tests – they go heavy on the display ads
Side Hustle Nation has an interview with Timmy Bauer, who leveraged his knowledge and skills from writing kid’s books into a book production company
This new path has taken Timmy from “just over the poverty line” to running a 6-figure business in the last 12 months.
The books are super niche – aimed at kids, explaining what different jobs are like – but the most interesting part to me is how Timmy initially priced his service at $500 a pop…
Timmy has raised the price of his service several times since then. Today he’s charging $6,000 for his standard service and has a team he works with.
His hourly rate at that $500 price probably worked out very low, but it was necessary to land those first customers, gather feedback, and see if the idea had potential.
Reminds me of that billionaire who started out selling chewing gum and delivering newspapers 
So if you’re wondering how to earn $100,000 online in 12 months… start by figuring out how to earn $1, then $100, then $500.
Momentos + Finance ReportMy latest batch of personal ramblings are here
And feel free to check out my latest finance report, detailing everything I earned and spent in my business last month
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#162 – $7K/Month SaaS Sold For How Much?#161 – $100,000 with 2 Google Sheets#160 – $100/day from 3759 subscribersFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
eBiz Facts
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Have you ever taken a course that promised to help you make money online? Share your experience with that course and we’ll donate $10 on your behalf to educate a girl in rural Africa.
How To Make Money Online
A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.
Recommended Resources
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Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
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February 11, 2022
eBiz Weekly #162
eBiz Weekly is a free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business. We send it out every Friday to 21,552 legendary subscribers. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
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This week:
He Built 100+ Shopify Stores$10k/Month Productivity TimerThis Made Julius Caesar CryHe Made $10M From A WheelchairNew Daily Crypto Newsletter$12K/Month Site About BackyardsNigerian Twins’ $5K/Month Blog$7K/Month SaaS Sold For How Much?Brad Pitt’s Simple MathHe Built 100+ Shopify StoresItay Haritan tells his story here, detailing how he grew and sold a web development agency, and leveraged his experience with that to build other Shopify-related businesses.
Itay is from Israel, a country of only 9 million people. But he still found plenty of clients for his agency by focusing on his local area…
My agency mainly served Israeli clients initially, which began to fill out our client base. One of the tasks we were repeating was adjusting the Shopify themes to RTL layout (Hebrew is written from right to left), which turned later to be an app we developed to do it automatically, RTL Master.
He notes that his agency “ranked #1 for most Shopify searches in Hebrew within a few months, and with only 6 to 7 SEO-optimized blog posts.”
I reckon there’s plenty of opportunity to build this kind of agency in other places where English isn’t the first language 
Btw, Itay’s super-niche RTL Master app launched in January last year and is already pulling $2.8k per month.
$10k/Month Productivity TimerWeb developer Philip Young started building this Pomodoro app in mid-2020, and recently announced that it’s earning him $10,000 per month in profit
He did an AMA and interview a few months back.
What stands out most to me is how Philip has succeeded as a solo developer in a crowded market. There are tons of other Pomodoro apps available, but Philip didn’t like any of them, so he decided to scratch his own itch.
Sales were slow at first, but took off once he launched on ProductHunt
Now his sales are split about 50/50 between the Apple App Store and SetApp (“basically Netflix, but for Mac and iOS apps”).
This Made Julius Caesar CryJulius Caesar is one of the most accomplished leaders in history. But there’s a famous story about him as a 33 year old, weeping because he’d accomplished so little compared to Alexander the Great at the same age 
In case you can relate, here are a couple of lists of entrepreneurs who had accomplished “nothing” by age 30.
Including…
Jack Dorsey, Twitter – 30 years oldJ.K. Rowling, Harry Potter empire – 32 years oldJan Koum, WhatsApp – 33 years oldCaterina Fake, Flickr – 33 years oldSam Walton, WalMart – 44 years oldArianna Huffington, The Huffington Post – 55 years oldHenry Ford, Ford Motor Company – 40 years oldClara Barton, American Red Cross – 60 years oldMark Cuban, MicroSolutions – 32 years oldRelated, from the Harvard Business Review: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45
He Made $10M From A Wheelchair
This 13-minute video about Jon Morrow is a must-watch when you’re going through a tough time.
Jon has been confined to a wheelchair all his life and can only control a computer with his face. But he still became one of the highest paid bloggers in the world.
A powerful message in the video about turning disadvantages into advantages…
In boxing, when the opponent throws a punch, the bigger and more powerful the punch they throw, the bigger the opportunity for a counter punch because they leave themselves unprotected… Whenever bad things happened to me, I noticed that there was an equal opportunity always to find something good that would happen.
For Jon, being confined to a wheelchair led him to read thousands of books and hone his writing ability to a high level.
What’s your opportunity for a counter punch? 
Milk Road is a free newsletter that shows you “1-2 cool things about crypto, in less than 5 minutes a day.”
I’ve been scanning the latest issues and finding lots of juicy stuff
Such as: NFTs Outsold the Entire Movie Industry in January
Also this recent tweet from 0xngmi…
Putting a bug bounty on my identity. If anyone DMs me with my real identity along with an explanation of how you found it I’ll send you 1 ETH
1 ETH is currently worth about $3200, but a week ago Milk Road broke down how it could be 3-5x undervalued
That’s MyBackyardLife.com
This video breakdown by one of the owners shows that the site did over $10,000 last June and over $12,000 last July, all from display ads.
The owners also run a site called Passive Income Unlocked, where they share their progress and income on six different niche sites. According to a recent report, those sites did a combined $49,382.21 in December but dropped quite a bit in January (as expected due to seasonality).
From that same report, you can see that they started My Backyard Life just over 2.5 years ago and have 642 published posts on there.
Nigerian Twins’ $5K/Month BlogIgbo Clifford Chimaizuobi reveals how he and his brother built InfoGuideAfrica.com into a $60,000 a year business 
Rather than focus on a specific niche – which most blogging experts recommend – the Chimaizuobi bros went multi-niche and that seems to have worked out well for them. They monetize the site with ad networks, affiliate marketing, and sponsored posts.
Note how Igbo gained blogging experience as a freelance writer (a Level 2 business) before starting his own authority site (Level 4).
$7K/Month SaaS Sold For How Much?It was a bootstrapped, one-person business called XmartClock, founded in 2017 by Juan Fernando Rivero, who hails from Uruguay 
According to They Got Acquired…
XmartClock is a time and attendance platform that enables employers to set schedules, track from where employees clock in, and leverages facial recognition to verify workers’ identities…. At the time of its sale, XmartClock had more than 4,000 active daily users and 200 paying customers that generated the company about $7,000 in monthly recurring revenue, Rivero said, most of which was profit.
$7000 in MMR, and it sold for…
$250,000
Juan is now publishing a series of articles detailing how he built his SaaS from zero to $7k MRR without investors, employees, or paid ads.
Brad Pitt’s Simple MathI’ve been rereading The Psychology of Money and there’s a great quote in there from one of my favorite actors
“I’ve been banging away at this thing for 30 years. I think the simple math is, some projects work and some don’t. There’s no reason to belabor either one. Just get on to the next.”
That was Brad Pitt accepting a Screen Actors Guild Award in early 2020 – watch his full speech here – but it might as well have been a seasoned entrepreneur talking.
Some projects will work and some won’t.
Don’t belabor either one.
Just get on to the next 
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#161 – $100,000 with 2 Google Sheets#160 – $100/day from 3759 subscribers#159 – $30k/Month Podcasting as a ServiceFull archiveUntil next week, rock on with your legendary self
—
Niall Doherty – La Seu d’Urgell, Spain
eBiz Facts
By the way...
Rate and Review an Online Course
Have you ever taken a course that promised to help you make money online? Share your experience with that course and we’ll donate $10 on your behalf to educate a girl in rural Africa.
How To Make Money Online
A deep article laying out all the possibilities for making money online, based on the 6 levels and 19 types of online business.
Recommended Resources
Check out our collection of the best tools and resources for building an online business. Web hosting, email marketing, productivity, top-rated courses, etc.
Free Courses
A massive list of FREE Udemy courses to help build your online business. We only list top-rated courses – minimum 50 ratings – and update every 24 hours.
Find A Remote Job
See our list of the best ways to find a remote job, based on 100+ hours of research and testing.
Start Earning Online
A free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos shot in Spain, Russia and Montenegro.
Facebook + Twitter
If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content regularly on Facebook and Twitter.
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