MTF needs a slumpbuster: Too many swings, no hits.

[Andy Black]

It just takes way too long to get anywhere with content.

I think you're generalising again. Growing audiences is a skill. Some people are better at it than others.

content is just too competitive of a game. Ads are, too.

Be careful of these limiting beliefs @MTF.

But at least you aren't competing with millions of people who value their time at $1 per hour. These people would rather write content and expect 100 visitors over the next six months than pay $50 for an ad and get them all to the website on the same day.

Yep. Lots of people don't value their time.

the content treadmill is something I despise

Whenever I feel I'm on a treadmill I step off immediately.

I look at each business as an extension of MY skills instead of building it from the problem of the customer (and content isn't always the right way to solve it).

Ah. That's interesting. It makes sense to build a business around your skills and motivations though, so how can you still lean into it?

That's something that I want to do going forward. I understand the benefits of content marketing as a long-term play but now I want to focus on testing things fast.

Feel free to post an example of something you might consider. I'll reply with how I'd approach it.

 

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[MTF]

I think you're generalising again. Growing audiences is a skill. Some people are better at it than others.

I meant that content, in most cases, takes way longer to work. Unless you can crack the algorithm, you won't get 1,000 visitors within 24 hours of posting an article (and you can do that easily with an ad).

Be careful of these limiting beliefs @MTF.

Noted.

Ah. That's interesting. It makes sense to build a business around your skills and motivations though, so how can you still lean into it?

I mostly referred to writing. If I start every business thinking how I can use my writing skills, I inevitably always end up with some kind of a content business that's not even a business.

Feel free to post an example of something you might consider. I'll reply with how I'd approach it.

Okay. I'm not looking for any specific ideas now. I'm just resetting.

 

[Tubs]

Freediving, open water swimming, surfing, hiking, walking, running. I also used to rock climb and sometimes do it when there's a chance.

I've seen you mention Freediving a few times in this thread. You also say that you're pretty much covered financially. If I was in your position, I would probably start a business in relation to something I have a real interest in. Say a freediving Youtube channel and blog to build an audience, then maybe an ecommerce store selling freediving equipment.

I'd imagine it's a fairly expensive hobby and not an oversaturated niche. Wouldn't that be a perfect space to create content for and potentially sell products in?

 

[MTF]

I've seen you mention Freediving a few times in this thread. You also say that you're pretty much covered financially. If I was in your position, I would probably start a business in relation to something I have a real interest in. Say a freediving Youtube channel and blog to build an audience, then maybe an ecommerce store selling freediving equipment.

I'd imagine it's a fairly expensive hobby and not an oversaturated niche. Wouldn't that be a perfect space to create content for and potentially sell products in?

I'm extremely protective of my sports passions and will never taint them with any business endeavors. There's too much of a risk of turning a passion into a job and ending up hating both.

 

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[Andy Black]

If I start every business thinking how I can use my writing skills, I inevitably always end up with some kind of a content business that's not even a business.

Another limiting belief?

I really think you should watch how you say things. I'm super protective of my mindset and watch my language like a hawk.

And you came to the wrong conclusion imo. I start all projects asking "How can I use my high ground?"

How can you use your current skills, knowledge, and network to help people while building a business you like?

What's your unfair advantage @MTF?

I'm not looking for any specific ideas now. I'm just resetting.

Yeah, I know. That's my subtle way of getting you back on the horse.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So after 120+ posts, here is a summary in case someone wants to see it...

User: You should try X...
MTF: But I don't like X...

User: You should try Y...
MTF: Yea but, Y don't work because it has low probability...

User: You should try Z...
MTF: I don't like Z...

User: You should try A...
MTF: Yea, but A doesn't work in my experience...

User: You should try W...
MTF: But W requires me to be part of the Twitter country club...

User: You should try B...
MTF: I tried B for 3 days and it didn't work...

User: You should try C...
MTF: I don't like C because it involves X and I hate X...

User: You should try D...
MTF: I looked into D and didn't like it...

User: You should try E...
MTF: I won't dare do E because...

User: You should try F...
MTF: F is not an option because...

User: You should try G...
MTF: G requires A and B and I won't do A and B because...

User: You should try H...
MTF: I refuse to do H because....

User: You should try J...
MTF: My personality won't allow J...

User: OK, then how about JJ? ...
MTF: My identity is THIS and THIS won't do JJ...

User: You should try K...
MTF: I can't do K because I travel...

User: You should try M...
MTF: M is for low-wage 3rd worlders...

User: How about Q, could be fun...
MTF: Yea but, Q is saturated so my chances are really low...

User: How about R...
MTF: R is too slow and what if it don't work?

And this my friend, is why nothing changes.

In fact, I think we went through a similar conversation like this 5 years ago.

And here we are again.

It is very hard to change your results when you refuse to change yourself.

I meant that content, in most cases, takes way longer to work. Unless you can crack the algorithm, you won't get 1,000 visitors within 24 hours of posting an article (and you can do that easily with an ad).

Again, what's the freaking point unless its part of a content marketing strategy with a legit product/service?

If I post an article about goals at GoalSumo.com, its to attract visits which attract trials which attract subscribers.

Article = Visitors = Trials = Subscribers.

Posting articles for visitors with no end game other than hoping Google pays you 9 cents for a random click is the dumbest "entrepreneurial" idea ever.

Why does every business model you pursue involve some circuitousness business model where sales and profits become this nebulous concept?

What ever happened to creating value and selling it?

 

[MTF]

Another limiting belief?

I really think you should watch how you say things. I'm super protective of my mindset and watch my language like a hawk.

And you came to the wrong conclusion imo. I start all projects asking "How can I use my high ground?"

How can you use your current skills, knowledge, and network to help people while building a business you like?

What's your unfair advantage @MTF?

To answer this question I need to think of myself more positively than I'm thinking now. Otherwise my answer will be "I have no unfair advantage." I'll think about it when I'm in a more productive state of mind.

My only question is: what if your unfair advantage is no longer that useful? Because that's how I see writing. It's a cheap skill, soon to be even less important.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

What is it about Google Ads that makes me, personally, feel like it's a donkey business?

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s very similar to a job in a way — your time is still tied to your income.

A service-based business that requires intellectual skills to perform the service is harder to scale and outsource than a service-based business that just requires physical skills to perform.

Also — when you sell a digital service you sell an intangible. You can’t touch it, it has no value in itself, its only possible value is as a vehicle to get you to what you really want — more clients etc.

Whereas if you sell a physical good for example, say land in the case of someone like @Antifragile , even if the said land ends up being a dud and doesn’t get you closer to your goals it still has some intrinsic value.

I've clients who prefer paying for ads than paying for content and getting it SEO'd.

Free isn't free. We always pay in time, effort, money or some other way.

I'm not saying NOT to do organic strategies. Heck, I don't run ads for my own business but instead bounce around online helping people and leaving breadcrumbs all over the place.

The trouble is that paid strategies don’t work for many industries. The most obvious are the ones where you can’t really advertise because the platforms don’t let you — say if I were to sell an anxiety cure, it would be pointless to run ads because they’d get shut down.

Then there are not so obvious ones. Take my industry — agency owners looking to grow via LinkedIn. Those who are at a solid level, let’s say ideally doing $300K+/year in revenue, are unlikely to be out there Google how to get clients from LinkedIn. Not because this isn’t a concern for them, but they wouldn’t expect to be able to find an answer on Google.

I’ve spent about $10K over the past 2 years on ads, across Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google, with virtually no results. Even the meetings we did book tended to be with for lack of a better word “low quality” people.

Some examples: broke guy who worked as a freelancer, someone just trolling, and so on.

My only question is: what if your unfair advantage is no longer that useful? Because that's how I see writing. It's a cheap skill, soon to be even less important.

Writing isn’t an unfair advantage in our positions. Maybe if you’re a broke working a minimum wage job, good writing and communication skills will help you get out of that. But we’re at a different stage now. The guys and opportunities we pursue are already above that — now everyone we compete with has a minimum level of competence on these skills.

I think the big issue here MTF is that despite what you say, you don’t really want to change. Which is fine. So just stop hating yourself and accept that. I feel that your lack of self-acceptance is the cause of both your misery and your supposed faux problem. Wouldn’t it be nice to be someone else, eh?

That’s sort of what you’re doing here. You’re latching onto a false problem to have a reason to hate yourself. But you don’t truly want more money — sure, would be nice to have more, but you’re fine the way you are.

—— AS A GENERAL NOTE ——

Look here: State of the Industry Report 2023

Empire Flippers is one of the biggest digital business brokerages. Naturally if you want to see what digital businesses are doing well, this is the place to look.

If you look at the results over the past 5 years you will notice several trends:
• eCommerce businesses account by far for most of the value of businesses sold.
• Content businesses account by far for the MOST businesses sold, but generally at a lower overall value that eCommerce.
• Service businesses are nonexistant, almost. Same as SaaS.
• Content businesses monetized through display advertising are growing in popularity esp. with the rise of ChatGPT and the possibility to create content “en-masse” using something like Make.com, Airtable and ChatGPT
• Content businesses generally don’t produce BIG revenue or profits, but they have the higheat multiples because they take little to no work to manage once set up.
• The emphasis is on building traffic, not great content. Mass produced content to build traffic. If you listen to interviews with these owners none of them care about quality of content — get cheap freelancers or ChatGPT to do it for you.

So having reviewed this data, my personal conclusion is that if you want to 10x your current wealth, start an eCommerce business selling a physical product. Those are the kind of businesses with overwhelming success rates, which can also generate the kind of value you’re looking for.

Rather than go for content business, where most even if they are successful make $10K/mo and sell for $400K, you go for a massive ecommerce business that makes $5M/mo with $500K profit and sells for $15M.

Don’t forget, these are the cold hard numbers. Me, you or anyone here can have our own opinions, but those are irrelevant to the reality. And you may as well choose a business model that typically produces high value, than one that typically doesn’t. Go where lightning is most likely to strike you.

 

[MTF]

So after 120+ posts, here is a summary in case someone wants to see it...

User: You should try X...
MTF: But I don't like X...

User: You should try Y...
MTF: Yea but, Y don't work because it has low probability...

User: You should try Z...
MTF: I don't like Z...

User: You should try A...
MTF: Yea, but A doesn't work in my experience...

User: You should try W...
MTF: But W requires me to be part of the Twitter country club...

User: You should try B...
MTF: I tried B for 3 days and it didn't work...

User: You should try C...
MTF: I don't like C because it involves X and I hate X...

User: You should try D...
MTF: I looked into D and didn't like it...

User: You should try E...
MTF: I won't dare do E because...

User: You should try F...
MTF: F is not an option because...

User: You should try G...
MTF: G requires A and B and I won't do A and B because...

User: You should try H...
MTF: I refuse to do H because....

User: You should try J...
MTF: My personality won't allow J...

User: OK, then how about JJ? ...
MTF: My identity is THIS and THIS won't do JJ...

User: You should try K...
MTF: I can't do K because I travel...

User: You should try M...
MTF: M is for low-wage 3rd worlders...

User: How about Q, could be fun...
MTF: Yea but, Q is saturated so my chances are really low...

User: How about R...
MTF: R is too slow and what if it don't work?

And this my friend, is why nothing changes.

In fact, I think we went through a similar conversation like this 5 years ago.

And here we are again.

It is very hard to change your results when you refuse to change yourself.

That's a very unfair summary and I don't agree with it at all.

I carefully consider each post and respond without trying to dismiss it (if anyone feels that I dismissed their post, let me know and I'll do better). I agree with most of what has been said in this thread so far.

The only thing I did dismiss outright is the idea of building a big business as suggested by Antifragile as well as his blockchain idea (which in a later post I admitted that it was due to my limiting belief).

I also did dismiss ideas that are more of the same of what I've been doing unsuccessfully (relying on one platform like Twitter) and the idea of building a business based on my hobby (which goes completely against your most important tenet).

There may have also been an impression that I dismissed some offline ideas. Me wanting the freedom to travel is the most important reason behind not wanting to have an offline business. But also, come to a country next door to a huge conflict that may spill over the rest of Europe and tell me how confident you are in launching a business in such circumstances. I don't want anything local as I need to be mobile in case they start doing something stupid like drafting for war. I know that the US doesn't care anymore but in Europe it's still a huge threat.

As a side note, I do avoid news about it but I have to keep following it every now and then in case the risk of the conflict spilling over increases (for which I have escape plans).

I took notes from many other posts and wrote down some rules I'll follow when I feel ready to start again.

As for the rest, I simply said I'm not looking actively for any ideas now. As pointed out by some people in this thread, I can't take any sensible action now in my mental state.

I acknowledge I need to fix myself and my mental state and that's what I've been doing the past few days:

• I decided to stop all current projects and take off pressure to reduce stress.
• I reached out to an old friend and went to a sauna together for the first time in 4 years. I took an ice bath as well and in general tried to relax and take my mind off any business-related stuff.
• I reached out to another old friend and went on a long walk together. It turns out that he as well has been dealing with burnout and other similar problems so we talked about that.
• I talked with another friend going through something similar and with a similar inner wiring as mine.
• I talked with three other people about it as well. This is all because of a suggestion from a poster or two about changing the environment/people and getting a different perspective.
• I'm prioritizing rest and recovery.

So, just to make it clear again, I'm open to ideas other than:

• Offline businesses - for reasons explained above.
• Businesses that rely on one platform - because this isn't a real business, as explained by BizyDad.
• Businesses that rely on content/writing - because I've done too much of that and it doesn't work for me anymore.
• Businesses that masquerade as businesses but are in reality passion projects - because I've done that already as well and it's stupid.
• Businesses that are "hot trends" or rely on arbitrage - as suggested by you to avoid.

At this moment, if I were to choose a business model, I'd probably go with productized services of some kind as I've had most success with it outside of self-publishing.

Again, what's the freaking point unless its part of a content marketing strategy with a legit product/service?

If I post an article about goals at GoalSumo.com, its to attract visits which attract trials which attract subscribers.

Article = Visitors = Trials = Subscribers.

Posting articles for visitors with no end game other than hoping Google pays you 9 cents for a random click is the dumbest "entrepreneurial" idea ever.

Why does every business model you pursue involve some circuitousness business model where sales and profits become this nebulous concept?

What ever happened to creating value and selling it?

I have an impression that you misunderstood my post. I merely said that content marketing takes longer to work than paid advertising. That's what I meant by an ad - paying for an ad to get those visitors FASTER to a website rather than waiting for content marketing to work. I did not refer to ads as a monetization method.

I don't want to use content marketing for now because I want to test fast, as suggested by Andy Black. That's the only thing I said. This is exactly your advice as well as Andy's. Instead of writing content and waiting 1-2 years for it to work, test faster with paid ads.

So my point is that if I were to start a new business, I would NOT write any content for it. I would buy some ads and test this way and try to scale through ads. Content COULD become a part of the marketing strategy in the future. But my problem is that I take too long to test ideas so it makes sense to avoid marketing strategies that are slower to produce results.

 

[MTF]

I think the big issue here MTF is that despite what you say, you don’t really want to change. Which is fine. So just stop hating yourself and accept that. I feel that your lack of self-acceptance is the cause of both your misery and your supposed faux problem. Wouldn’t it be nice to be someone else, eh?

That’s sort of what you’re doing here. You’re latching onto a false problem to have a reason to hate yourself. But you don’t truly want more money — sure, would be nice to have more, but you’re fine the way you are.

Thanks for food for thought. I'm definitely NOT wired the way you are in that I don't need billions and refuse to sacrifice my life for more money. As for whether in general I want or not want more money, I'd agree that I value freedom above money.

So having reviewed this data, my personal conclusion is that if you want to 10x your current wealth, start an eCommerce business selling a physical product. Those are the kind of businesses with overwhelming success rates, which can also generate the kind of value you’re looking for.

Rather than go for content business, where most even if they are successful make $10K/mo and sell for $400K, you go for a massive ecommerce business that makes $5M/mo with $500K profit and sells for $15M.

I do have one such business idea that I've been pondering since last year. I may reconsider that once I'm ready to get back into it.

Lots of challenges for sure but I agree that e-commerce can be very lucrative. In fact, that's the industry I recommended a friend to enter and offer productized services. She found her first client almost immediately.

Just to add to that, SaaS may be underrepresented on Empire Flippers because there are other platforms for selling SaaS and probably way more private deals (because of many small funds acquiring small SaaS companies).

 

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[Antifragile]

I don't know your business, but you mentioned earlier it's PERE. So your commercial loans were collateralized by real estate though right?

Yes and no. All loans are always backed by underlying RE but you need additional collateral for construction loans.

Think 10 to 30% of your costs is land. That leaves 70 to 90% of other costs, which leveraged far exceed any value of land itself by a 3x factor or more.

Where do you get this extra "coverage" for the loan?

Outside of that, pretty difficult to get non-PG corporate debt with business under a certain size. Or have you found otherwise?

Bingo. You need scale, deeper pockets. But who said it has to be YOUR pockets?

You can pay groups to guarantee your loans (expensive but possible).

For us, I felt that partnering with the right capital sources was the best formula and that's how we did it.

It's also why hating on investors seems so foreign to me. They are part of someone's business model. @Kak and I discussed it in great depth, that to one person 8 figures is an exit number, others can cut that $ cheque in a heartbeat.

And with that, I agree with @MTF that having investors adds responsibility. With my own money, it's 10x easier to "let it go". The minute I am responsible for someone else's money, I can't do anything less than my absolute best and there is no quitting.

But here's the thing. People who have capital often don't have the desire or other needed resources to build yet another business. Why would they? Some have very successful businesses that are fully functioning. Investing with others is a solution for them to get bigger yield AND it's a solution for people like entering a mega capital intensive industry with skinny pockets.

Whereas if you sell a physical good for example, say land in the case of someone like @Antifragile , even if the said land ends up being a dud and doesn’t get you closer to your goals it still has some intrinsic value.

This is off topic tot his thread ... but...

"Land has intrinsic value" is a very common misconception that I try to correct whenever someone joins our business. We are not in a tangible business. Sure, we produce tangible products, but their value is based on future use/cash flow.

Put it another way, I know some people who think you buy RE because it has intrinsic value and therefore will always have some value (or worse, It will always go up). Nonsense, just see the graveyard of those who went bankrupt thinking that way. The value starts with a NEED, just like every single other business out there. If no one needs office today, the office building that you can buy for "cheap" may actually be worth less than $nil - as you need to pay interest on debt, property taxes, insurance and other costs to keep that empty building. Let that sink in...

I am convinced that all businesses are basically similar. All fail for similar reasons, and all succeed for similar reasons. And there are no easy businesses in existence. Some people just make it look easy. And yet it's the only reliable method I know to get to financial freedom.

 

[Andy Black]

At this moment, if I were to choose a business model, I'd probably go with productized services of some kind as I've had most success with it outside of self-publishing.

Look for interviews with Hunter Hammonds. He's growing "creator-led" productised services, where he partners with people with a big audience who then generate the leads for the service.

If you could figure out how to create the audience then maybe you could partner with an operator who's already got a service?

Here's an interview I listened to. Maybe you can find the video version if you prefer.

Google Podcasts

With Google Podcasts, you can find and listen to the world's podcasts for free.

podcasts.google.com

 

[MTF]

Look for interviews with Hunter Hammonds. He's growing "creator-led" productised services, where he partners with people with a big audience who then generate the leads for the service.

If you could figure out how to create the audience then maybe you could partner with an operator who's already got a service?

Here's an interview I listened to. Maybe you can find the video version if you prefer.

Google Podcasts

With Google Podcasts, you can find and listen to the world's podcasts for free.

podcasts.google.com

Thanks. That's a super creative and very smart business model. I browsed through his Twitter to learn a bit more about the basics quickly. This post explains this quite well:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1719698541621153839

View: https://twitter.com/_hunterhammonds/status/1719698541621153839


This reminds me of Jay Abraham's JV approach who also identifies existing resources and taps into them instead of building his own.

 

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[Andy Black]

Thanks. That's a super creative and very smart business model. I browsed through his Twitter to learn a bit more about the basics quickly. This post explains this quite well:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1719698541621153839

View: https://twitter.com/_hunterhammonds/status/1719698541621153839


This reminds me of Jay Abraham's JV approach who also identifies existing resources and taps into them instead of building his own.

Exactly. It's also that Jay Abraham favourite of "Who already has your clients?"

Keep this top of mind @MTF ... You can partner with someone who already does the part you don't want to. If you don't want to build the productised service then focus on how to grow audiences and generate leads.

And you don't have to already be a creator/influencer to grow an audience and/or generate leads. You could run ads, JV, produce short-form video, etc.

And you don't need to be a personal brand. Remember that "Leadership First" LinkedIn page that annoyed you?



Here are my notes from that podcast:

• Partner with a subject matter expert
• who has a B2B audience
• They recommend or mention service
• Add people to waitlist
• Deliver with a productised service
• Maniacal obsession on quality of experience and service delivered
• Earn Referrals and Recurring Revenue (R+R=Profit ... as per Blaise Brosnan)
• Cross-sell between services
• Turn cost centers into profit centers

Examples:
• HeyFriends!
• ViralCuts
• Off Menu
• Bitesized

E16. Video: Building To $100m in Creator-led brands: Sahil Bloom's and Hunter Hammond's Assembly - Sequel | Listen here

EP 16: Sahil Bloom, Codie Sanchez, Ali Abdaal, Sam Parr and Dan Koe have one thing in common. They all co-founded a business with Hunter ...

podcast24.co.uk

 

[Andy Black]

Maybe go listen to those podcasts I linked to before. Sahil Bloom is a smart guy. So is Nathan Barry.

 

[MTF]

Maybe go listen to those podcasts I linked to before. Sahil Bloom is a smart guy. So is Nathan Barry.

I'll investigate Sahil Bloom (I saw this tweet of his and now I know we're on the same page regarding time freedom) and Nathan Barry. Anyone else you'd recommend checking out?

I just signed up for Sahil's newsletter and will explore his content more.

I saw there's a transcript of one of the podcasts you shared before so I'll read that:

078: Sahil Bloom – Using Flywheels to Build Longevity in the Creator Economy

In today’s episode, I sit down with investor, entrepreneur, and content creator, Sahil Bloom (in front of a live audience) to unpack the key strategies and lessons

nathanbarry.com

 

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[Andy Black]

Just those three are enough to study I'd say.

Bear in mind Sahil's Twitter and LinkedIn accounts aren't him talking about how he's growing his business. That's his consumer-facing content. The podcasts where people interview him is where you'll learn what he's doing, why, and how.

 

[MitchC]

I'll investigate Sahil Bloom (I saw this tweet of his and now I know we're on the same page regarding time freedom) and Nathan Barry. Anyone else you'd recommend checking out?

I just signed up for Sahil's newsletter and will explore his content more.

I saw there's a transcript of one of the podcasts you shared before so I'll read that:

078: Sahil Bloom – Using Flywheels to Build Longevity in the Creator Economy

In today’s episode, I sit down with investor, entrepreneur, and content creator, Sahil Bloom (in front of a live audience) to unpack the key strategies and lessons

nathanbarry.com

Just those three are enough to study I'd say.

Bear in mind Sahil's Twitter and LinkedIn accounts aren't him talking about how he's growing his business. That's his consumer-facing content. The podcasts where people interview him is where you'll learn what he's doing, why, and how.

Sahil Bloom: Left Private Equity To Make Millions As A Content Creator And 3 Profitable Businesses To Start Now

Episode 384: Sam Parr ( @TheSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( @ShaanVP ) talk with entrepreneur, creator, and investor Sahil Bloom ( @SahilBloom ) about three business ide…

www.mfmpod.com

These guys are friends with him and have had him on a couple times, you'll probably get a little more behind the scenes from these episodes

They also talk about him on the pod randomly sometimes, about how he grew his twitter etc

 

[Andy Black]

Maybe this will help too...

I'm figuring out how to grow newsletters with Google Ads and writing it up on LinkedIn. I'm considering posting the same content to Twitter now I see premium members can have longer posts.

Here's the first post from a week ago:

Andy Black on LinkedIn: Started growing a newsletter with Google Ads. Hoping to get €0.03 or even…

Started growing a newsletter with Google Ads. Hoping to get €0.03 or even €0.01 CPCs. If we can spend €5/day and get 200-500 visitors a day then we could use…

www.linkedin.com

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

"Land has intrinsic value" is a very common misconception that I try to correct whenever someone joins our business. We are not in a tangible business. Sure, we produce tangible products, but their value is based on future use/cash flow.

Thanks for adding to this. What I meant was simply that there is a big difference between buying a piece of land, and buying a marketing service.

Yes, most of the value is determined by “need” as you call it. Suppose you buy that piece of land knowing it’s in a perfect location for an oil processing refinery, and you have the exact buyer in mind already, you’ve even spoke to them and the deal is “sealed” almost so to speak. Easy flip right? But then for whatever reason it doesn’t happen and you struggle to sell it. Still, you’re left with a piece of land. Whereas if you buy a marketing service and it doesn’t pan out, you’re left with nothing. That land will still register as an asset on your balance sheet, the marketing service will register as a big fat zero (in fact, worse, it will go down with a negative lol). That isn’t to say that the land will be a “guaranteed” safe bet or you’re sure to turn a profit. No, maybe you’ll lose. Maybe worst comes to worst you even lose 50% of your investment (assuming you’re not leveraged). But you surely won’t lose 100%.

There clearly is a difference between those two. Which is why selling land is usually easier than selling marketing. And why selling physical products is easier than selling intangible services.

Do not underestimate the difficulty of selling — that is a huge criteria in “what business shall I start”. My business, for example, has high difficulty of selling. To sell a ton, you need to speak to a ton of people not to mention have overwhelming social proof.

The ideal business is a business where selling is easy. For example, masks at the start of the pandemic. It didn’t matter who you were. It didn’t matter what reputation you had or didn’t have. It didn’t matter what social proof you had or didn’t have. It didn’t matter if two days ago you were selling sausages. You didn’t need to speak to anyone. Sufficient to put up a Google Ad, and sales came through the door. Now THAT is the ideal business. I cannot just put ads and get sales. Hell, I can’t even just put ads and get meetings. I need an outbound team to get meetings. And then a sales team to close clients. That’s painful. It adds a lot of difficulty in scaling to $10M.

Sahil Bloom

Sahil Bloom is the son of David E Bloom, tenured Harvard Professor who earns $250K salary plus loads of other benefits in the form of consulting fees and so on. What this means is that he comes from a very wealthy family — not just wealthy, in fact, but extremely well connected. This gives him a series of advantages that most other people don’t have access to.

The flywheel effect is nothing new — it’s the invention of Jim Collins in Good to Great, and has been behind Amazon’s strategy. Of course, nice as an idea, but the bitch is in the execution. And in fact, I still have no clue if Amazon really succeeded because of the flywheel strategy, or maybe inspite of it. Strategies don’t always work out for the reasons we think they do. I think one of Amazon’s huge and often unspoken of advantages is its distribution excellence and innovation — the ability to deliver packages really quickly. That is one of the biggest reasons why people prefer buying from Amazon even if sometimes they pay a premium. And because people prefer it, sellers flock to Amazon.

I'm figuring out how to grow newsletters with Google Ads and writing it up on LinkedIn.

I hope you are successful Andy, but I personally doubt it. Ofc don’t let what I think stop you. It’s nice as a concept right? If you could get subscribers at breakeven by running ads you’d have the holy grail of any online business. The holy grail. That business could not fail. Whatever sales it makes after will incur almost 0 costs since they are through email.

But, something tells me it’s not that easy. If it were, anyone could replicate it. But the truth is most online businesses can’t.

 

[Andy Black]

I hope you are successful Andy, but I personally doubt it. Ofc don’t let what I think stop you. It’s nice as a concept right? If you could get subscribers at breakeven by running ads you’d have the holy grail of any online business. The holy grail. That business could not fail. Whatever sales it makes after will incur almost 0 costs since they are through email.

But, something tells me it’s not that easy. If it were, anyone could replicate it. But the truth is most online businesses can’t.

Don't businesses do this all the time though? They run ads to either be profitable immediately or breakeven on the front-end with the goal being to acquire new long-term clients and get profitable in the longer run?

 

[Antifragile]

Thanks for adding to this. What I meant was simply that there is a big difference between buying a piece of land, and buying a marketing service.

Yes, most of the value is determined by “need” as you call it. Suppose you buy that piece of land knowing it’s in a perfect location for an oil processing refinery, and you have the exact buyer in mind already, you’ve even spoke to them and the deal is “sealed” almost so to speak. Easy flip right? But then for whatever reason it doesn’t happen and you struggle to sell it. Still, you’re left with a piece of land. Whereas if you buy a marketing service and it doesn’t pan out, you’re left with nothing. That land will still register as an asset on your balance sheet, the marketing service will register as a big fat zero (in fact, worse, it will go down with a negative lol). That isn’t to say that the land will be a “guaranteed” safe bet or you’re sure to turn a profit. No, maybe you’ll lose. Maybe worst comes to worst you even lose 50% of your investment (assuming you’re not leveraged). But you surely won’t lose 100%.

There clearly is a difference between those two. Which is why selling land is usually easier than selling marketing. And why selling physical products is easier than selling intangible services.

Do not underestimate the difficulty of selling — that is a huge criteria in “what business shall I start”. My business, for example, has high difficulty of selling. To sell a ton, you need to speak to a ton of people not to mention have overwhelming social proof.

The ideal business is a business where selling is easy. For example, masks at the start of the pandemic. It didn’t matter who you were. It didn’t matter what reputation you had or didn’t have. It didn’t matter what social proof you had or didn’t have. It didn’t matter if two days ago you were selling sausages. You didn’t need to speak to anyone. Sufficient to put up a Google Ad, and sales came through the door. Now THAT is the ideal business. I cannot just put ads and get sales. Hell, I can’t even just put ads and get meetings. I need an outbound team to get meetings. And then a sales team to close clients. That’s painful. It adds a lot of difficulty in scaling to $10M.

I am convinced that you are a very smart guy and clearly overthink everything in life. That's your superpower and also your weakness.

1. Selling land isn't "easier" because your values aren't even in the ballpark the same. Typically you are talking about selling marketing services at 10s of thousands of "dollars" and land in 10s of millions of "dollars". They offset in difficulty. 99% done deal in RE is a 0% done deal. Yet based on your volume of calls/chats your close rate even at abysmal low will not be 0%.
2. Marketing has no value, but... maybe... - it depends. If you created something that educated people on how marketing works that has value. And guess what, again your balance sheet (-ve) number for money spent on marketing is but a rounding error compared to the fictional example you showed of a refinery backing out of a potentially $100MM deal. 50% loss there could wipe out a company, $5k loss on marketing... meh...
3. We finally agree. Ideally you serve a NEED that no one (yet) is serving or no one (yet) is serving well. This way customers come to you and you don't need to do heavy lifting "selling". The ideal is to pull sales, not push them onto others. Masks are a temporary example but a bad one, it's a commodity that everyone will drive down in price to a zero profit. Worse yet, once pandemic is over, so is your mask company. That's why I like businesses like yours and mine. We can stand the test of time. But we must create value-skews (see, MJ has a word for all of this! Ha!) that attract customers. For me it's not the land, trust me. We don't buy land for it to go up in price, we buy real estate to do something to make it go up in value because of the very thing we do.

Question I have to you for your business is this - what would a business like mine LOOK FOR YOU? How can you pull sales from others? What would have to be true for that to be your reality?

Believe me, I look for marketing teams and it's beyond rare that I'd accept a call or cold email from an unknown group.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

I am convinced that you are a very smart guy and clearly overthink everything in life. That's your superpower and also your weakness.

1. Selling land isn't "easier" because your values aren't even in the ballpark the same. Typically you are talking about selling marketing services at 10s of thousands of "dollars" and lad in 10s of millions of "dollars". They offset in difficulty. 99% done deal in RE is a 0% done deal. Yet based on your volume of calls/chats your close rate event at abysmal low will not be 0%.
2. Marketing has no value, but... maybe... - it depends. If you created something that educated people on how marketing works that has value. And guess what, again your balance sheet (-ve) number for money spent on marketing is but a rounding error compared to the fictional example you showed of a refinery backing out of a potentially $100MM deal. 50% loss there could wipe out a company, $5k loss on marketing... meh...
3. We finally agree. Ideally you serve a NEED that no one (yet) is serving or no one (yet) is serving well. This way customers come to you and you don't need to do heavy lifting "selling". The ideal is to pull sales, not push them onto others. Masks are a temporary example but a bad one, it's a commodity that everyone will drive down in price to a zero profit. Worse yet, once pandemic is over, so is your mask company. That's why I like businesses like yours and mine. We can stand the test of time. But we must create value-skews (see, MJ has a word for all of this! Ha!) that attract customers. For me it's not the land, trust me. We don't buy land for it to go up in price, we buy real estate to do something to make it go up in value because of the very thing we do.

Question I have to you for your business is this - what would make a business like mine LOOK FOR YOU? How can you pull sales from others? What would have to be true for that to be your reality?

Believe me, I look for marketing teams and it's beyond rare that I'd accept a call or cold email form unknown group.

I appreciate your response, but I feel this conversation is derailing the thread, so I will answer you via DM. Hope that’s OK.

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s very similar to a job in a way — your time is still tied to your income.

A service-based business that requires intellectual skills to perform the service is harder to scale and outsource than a service-based business that just requires physical skills to perform.

Also — when you sell a digital service you sell an intangible. You can’t touch it, it has no value in itself, its only possible value is as a vehicle to get you to what you really want — more clients etc.

Whereas if you sell a physical good for example, say land in the case of someone like @Antifragile , even if the said land ends up being a dud and doesn’t get you closer to your goals it still has some intrinsic value.

The trouble is that paid strategies don’t work for many industries. The most obvious are the ones where you can’t really advertise because the platforms don’t let you — say if I were to sell an anxiety cure, it would be pointless to run ads because they’d get shut down.

Then there are not so obvious ones. Take my industry — agency owners looking to grow via LinkedIn. Those who are at a solid level, let’s say ideally doing $300K+/year in revenue, are unlikely to be out there Google how to get clients from LinkedIn. Not because this isn’t a concern for them, but they wouldn’t expect to be able to find an answer on Google.

I’ve spent about $10K over the past 2 years on ads, across Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google, with virtually no results. Even the meetings we did book tended to be with for lack of a better word “low quality” people.

Some examples: broke guy who worked as a freelancer, someone just trolling, and so on.


Writing isn’t an unfair advantage in our positions. Maybe if you’re a broke working a minimum wage job, good writing and communication skills will help you get out of that. But we’re at a different stage now. The guys and opportunities we pursue are already above that — now everyone we compete with has a minimum level of competence on these skills.

I think the big issue here MTF is that despite what you say, you don’t really want to change. Which is fine. So just stop hating yourself and accept that. I feel that your lack of self-acceptance is the cause of both your misery and your supposed faux problem. Wouldn’t it be nice to be someone else, eh?

That’s sort of what you’re doing here. You’re latching onto a false problem to have a reason to hate yourself. But you don’t truly want more money — sure, would be nice to have more, but you’re fine the way you are.

—— AS A GENERAL NOTE ——

Look here: State of the Industry Report 2023

Empire Flippers is one of the biggest digital business brokerages. Naturally if you want to see what digital businesses are doing well, this is the place to look.

If you look at the results over the past 5 years you will notice several trends:
• eCommerce businesses account by far for most of the value of businesses sold.
• Content businesses account by far for the MOST businesses sold, but generally at a lower overall value that eCommerce.
• Service businesses are nonexistant, almost. Same as SaaS.
• Content businesses monetized through display advertising are growing in popularity esp. with the rise of ChatGPT and the possibility to create content “en-masse” using something like Make.com, Airtable and ChatGPT
• Content businesses generally don’t produce BIG revenue or profits, but they have the higheat multiples because they take little to no work to manage once set up.
• The emphasis is on building traffic, not great content. Mass produced content to build traffic. If you listen to interviews with these owners none of them care about quality of content — get cheap freelancers or ChatGPT to do it for you.

So having reviewed this data, my personal conclusion is that if you want to 10x your current wealth, start an eCommerce business selling a physical product. Those are the kind of businesses with overwhelming success rates, which can also generate the kind of value you’re looking for.

Rather than go for content business, where most even if they are successful make $10K/mo and sell for $400K, you go for a massive ecommerce business that makes $5M/mo with $500K profit and sells for $15M.

Don’t forget, these are the cold hard numbers. Me, you or anyone here can have our own opinions, but those are irrelevant to the reality. And you may as well choose a business model that typically produces high value, than one that typically doesn’t. Go where lightning is most likely to strike you.

What I meant was more along the lines of asking, "What's the choice I could make in this situation that I have been overlooking? What's the obvious skill set that I don't think is a real possibility because I'm too busy sizing up things that look cool to me?"

Here on the forum we're familiar with shiny object syndrome (centaurs or unicorns in my original metaphor) but we don't have a strong phrase for the Humble Skill Set.

Everybody thinks they need to sit around looking for the perfect horse (the business they'll be able to ride off into the sunset on) but nobody wants to be willing to get on a donkey. This is why SOME of the threads about cleaning windows, copywriting, cleaning houses and lawn care were so inspiring. We got to watch in real time as people stopped searching for a thoroughbred (that they wouldn't have been able to control at all anyway) and instead found and rode a reliable donkey. That choice got them out of the canyon of despair. They escaped analysis paralysis.

The "donkey business" is the choice to gain knowledge in something that we normally wouldn't choose. I'm NOT saying those skills are worth less. In truth, they're worth a lot more because they move us from inaction to action.

My point was it's all personal. Your donkey business might not be mine, at all. Hell, I'd love to go clean houses or wash windows or mow lawns. If I could go do those right now my pride wouldn't take a hit at all. I love hard work. For me, a person who has publicly loathed and mocked Google for years (while actively encouraging everyone I know to use ANY search engine besides Google) trying to learn how to sell Google Ads would be a MASSIVE hit to my pride.

My point was that --pride-- which naturally comes after success tends to freeze us into a kind of trapped strung out immobility. We can't go backwards to who we were, ignorant and brave, but we can't seem to go forwards either, because to do so would mean we'd have to be willing to sacrifice the Who We Are Right Now.

(I'm a Christian. Jesus rode in on a donkey. There's literally no higher compliment than I can give someone than to say that they're a humble human being.)

 

[amp0193]

You can pay groups to guarantee your loans (expensive but possible).

Interesting, hadn’t heard of this concept before.

I’ve got some PG debt right now, and once paid off I hope to not take any again in the future.

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

Don't businesses do this all the time though? They run ads to either be profitable immediately or breakeven on the front-end with the goal being to acquire new long-term clients and get profitable in the longer run?

Sorry, somehow I missed your post @Andy Black, just saw it now.

Physical product businesses yes.
Local service businesses sometimes.

Digital service businesses? Not really.

Digital product businesses? Not really, but it does happen in some rare cases esp for very low priced products. But usually they are loss-leaders.

I don't know any digital service biz that gets clients via ads at less than say $2.5K+/client acquisition cost, and even those businesses target mostly local service businesses (B2C, say plumbers), rather than B2B. Maybe you have some examples you can share?

 

[Vas87]

I think if you came back to Sunshine Coast or somewhere else hot and healthy, you’d get your health and business sorted pretty quickly. And I’m not saying that to brag about living here or whatever, I’m saying that as someone who moved from a cold unhealthy place who moved here and suddenly was healthy and successful. It has a much bigger impact that you can even imagine or realise at the time when you are in those environments.

As someone living in Adelaide where it's either 40C degrees or cold during winter, visiting the Sunny Coast always boosts health, happiness and creative juices. I think a lot of it is also due to the people that area naturally attracts - outdoorsy types with positive energy which itself is uplifting. Shame about the drivers though...

 

[MitchC]

As someone living in Adelaide where it's either 40C degrees or cold during winter, visiting the Sunny Coast always boosts health, happiness and creative juices. I think a lot of it is also due to the people that area naturally attracts - outdoorsy types with positive energy which itself is uplifting. Shame about the drivers though...

I love our drivers, suits my style of driving No manners, no indicating, no giving way, just go

And yes it's amazing here, hopefully it doesn't get too big and change

 

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[Fox]

Just based on us working together before you could easily...

- Work with creators and influencers
- Help them write a book based on their skills/story
- Could be sold directly and/or a lead magnet
- Easily could charge $10k-$50k+ per book to do this

And you already have all the personal experience and a case study (my book) to back it up.

Also, you don't have to rely on any algorithm, platform, or outside system. That is all the creators problem.

It is a massive growth industry and people highly recommend people who do good work. Once you landed one big name you could easily get a bunch more.

Maybe not the dream business... but 100% doable and 100% would be profitable.

 

[MTF]

Just based on us working together before you could easily...

- Work with creators and influencers
- Help them write a book based on their skills/story
- Could be sold directly and/or a lead magnet
- Easily could charge $10k-$50k+ per book to do this

And you already have all the personal experience and a case study (my book) to back it up.

Also, you don't have to rely on any algorithm, platform, or outside system. That is all the creators problem.

It is a massive growth industry and people highly recommend people who do good work. Once you landed one big name you could easily get a bunch more.

Maybe not the dream business... but 100% doable and 100% would be profitable.

Yes, if I don't come up with anything better this is a good plan assuming I can charge much higher prices. The last time it didn't work because I was charging way too little.