eBiz Weekly #164
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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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In case you missed em, here are the last three editions of eBiz Weekly:
#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 
—
Niall Doherty – Tbilisi, Georgia
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