Welcome to the third iteration of my weekly Q&A on all things digital. Ask any question below and I’ll answer over the weekend. If I don’t know, I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction or state that I don’t know.
No max on questions. This Q&A will be open for 48 hours and I’ll be answering them intermittently throughout Saturday-Monday.
I did some work creating a smoke test for CBD-related products, before I realized that I couldn't pay for ads on it for google and fb/IG. Also got booted from Shopify. Would you keep looking for ways to get through (careful wording, other platforms), or look at another product entirely?
Great content dude! How do you manage to put down 30-40 hours on your site when building, together with a regular job? Do you recommend finding a less demanding day job when also running a side biz?
Let's think about this for a minute. Let's say you put in 14 hours a day and do a half day on Sunday. Say 7 hours. You're left with 91 hours of work time.
Let's say your normal job is 50 hours a week with 2 hours of commute time per day. That still leaves you 31 hours a week to work on side project. Your job may be more demanding than that or no commute. It'll vary, but even if it is more demanding, there's times that you can work at your job and your side project or find other quick time saving hacks to work.
- Research or write for your side project while using the bathroom, standing in line, during boring meetings (remote work has helped a lot), on the train/plane/bus/Uber, or just slack off and make it look like you're working on your real job, etc
- If you have kids, get to the point that you make enough that your wife/husband can take over all house/kid duties and crank out work. Stay at home spouse is a very underrated work hack.
- Know the value of your time vs outsourcing. I no longer wash my own car, change my own oil, rarely cook, etc. Maximize your work time and spend the money to allow yourself to make more money.
The above is much easier if you make a good amount of money in your day job. I kind of did the reverse of what many advocate. I spent the first part of my life doing 80-90 hours a week at my day job to get to a place where I could implement the above and free up other time to work. (promoted quickly)
To your last question, that's a route to take. I've actually turned down much higher paying jobs to focus on side biz because the initial learning curve (time) would cut too much into side biz. You'll lose money in the first 6 months comparably, but with the side biz compounding, you'll make it up eventually.
If your job is less than 60 real hours of work per week, don't get another job, learn to manage your time better.
Wow, thanks. Really informative and needed that slap in the face. Stupid how much time is spent goofying around when you think you are working hard. I guess it all comes down to paying yourself first - always tempting to accept a promotion with a small pay raise (and much more stress) working for someone else, but in the end your own projects are what matters. Thanks!
Hello Op, thank you for dropping your knowledge. I am just getting into and learning about the process of making sites, AM, and SEO. I am thinking about selling the cache of old technical interviews I have acquired over the years for investment banking, Rx, financial due diligence, etc. originally I was thinking about playing it simple and doing a carrd site with ejunkie. Then I began to think about getting traffic and am now thinking about just doing a Shopify store and bitting the bullet on fees.
Do you think Shopify is better for getting traffic or am I better with my original idea?
I think your best bet is going to be Shopify over a one page landing page. It'll allow you to write more content (more pages/topics/interlinking), target more keywords, and draw in more traffic.
Another option and probably better long term (not for this project though) is to learn WordPress and attach on Shopify light for $9 a month. Haven't done this yet but seems really simple. Probably do it with one of my sites within the next year.
Looking at the backlink analytics and rankings of the site you're trying to mimic, this doesn't seem like that competitive of a space in the SERPs. You should definitely get to work on it ASAP.
Hello, Op! I'd love a post going in depth about your origin story and what led you to start your WiFi money journey. Question wise, I'm 24, full time working construction with zero debt, kids or responsibilities. Discovered the jungle/BTB last month and it opened my eyes. I have a decent paying job but it's time for money & a young man's game + it's just one income stream. Any injury to my body & I'm fucked. Are there any forums/books that aided you in your journey from Day1 that you swear by, especially for someone with minimal online proficiency? Thanks again for your posts.
Won't go too in depth about my origin story since I don't want to dox myself. I will give you some advice that I wish I would have had earlier.
In your off work time, get to building. Not just reading, but building. Not dating, partying, reading news, etc. Building. Build your first site and spend as much time on it as humanly possible. Likely 30-40+ hours a week. It's probably going to be a failure and you're going to screw up a lot. But that's how you learn. When you run into problems building (and you will. a lot of them), learn how to solve your problems with Google. The most valuable skill you can develop is figuring anything out with Google.
You may not make your first dollar for 2 years, but once you do, it'll be the best dollar you ever made. At that point, you will have learned enough to not only start making wi-fi money but likely be able to get a job in a jr ecommerce/digital marketing role. Only aiding in your learning due to access to agencies, etc.
In terms of books/forums that aided in my journey from day 1. "The Four Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferris. It's very dated and most of the topics will no longer work but it gave me a structure to think about my future and how to think about my time in terms of trading time for money and how to scale your time and outsource. If the lifestyle design interests you, then it's also a good read for that. But likely just ignore the whole "work 4 hours and live on a beach" stuff.
Gotcha. All that's left now is to put my head down, grind, eat shit and do the hard work. Love your work and hope to see you stick around in this community. Thanks again.
Hey Opossum! Great timing on this. Based off your sub, some tips and youtube I have a shopify store set up. I have a sample on order and am working on white labeling a product. I am wondering if you have any resources or advice on testing a market for this product before I commit to the branding and MOQ? Thanks for the content fren!
This makes me think about a tweet from James Camp the other day. There are over 7 Billion people on the planet. There's a market for almost everything and the market is usually larger than you think. For example, I met a person a few years ago that made mid to high 6 figures making/sewing furry costumes. Let that one sink in.
The usual problem is can you adequately find the market, acquire them at a reasonable cost, and is the margin worth your time. The first two are the hard part and probably where you should be spending your time.
So to your original question. You can always go the route of throwing money at ads and seeing if you can convert the traffic before you order MOQ. This can get expensive but it's more about testing your marketing and conversion strategy.
If you're wanted to look if the market is there, there's a few easy and free (or very cheap) places you can look.
1. Create a Google Ads account and go to Tools -> Planning -> Reach Planner or Keyword Planner and check out the search demand for the products.
2. Sign up for a Google Merchant Account and go to Growth -> Best Sellers and filter down to your category and location. Won't give you the demand numbers but popularity in the space for product listings on Google.
3. Sign up for an Amazon Seller Central account and go to Brand -> Brand Analytics -> Amazon Search Terms.
4. Get the SEOquake browser extension and look at your competitors traffic estimates.
I'm unsure on the third one whether you have to have a Pro account or not. Also unsure whether you have to be on the brand registry to have access to those reports. I do so I can't test that assumption without signing up with another account.
I did some work creating a smoke test for CBD-related products, before I realized that I couldn't pay for ads on it for google and fb/IG. Also got booted from Shopify. Would you keep looking for ways to get through (careful wording, other platforms), or look at another product entirely?
Great content dude! How do you manage to put down 30-40 hours on your site when building, together with a regular job? Do you recommend finding a less demanding day job when also running a side biz?
Thanks!
Let's think about this for a minute. Let's say you put in 14 hours a day and do a half day on Sunday. Say 7 hours. You're left with 91 hours of work time.
Let's say your normal job is 50 hours a week with 2 hours of commute time per day. That still leaves you 31 hours a week to work on side project. Your job may be more demanding than that or no commute. It'll vary, but even if it is more demanding, there's times that you can work at your job and your side project or find other quick time saving hacks to work.
- Research or write for your side project while using the bathroom, standing in line, during boring meetings (remote work has helped a lot), on the train/plane/bus/Uber, or just slack off and make it look like you're working on your real job, etc
- If you have kids, get to the point that you make enough that your wife/husband can take over all house/kid duties and crank out work. Stay at home spouse is a very underrated work hack.
- Know the value of your time vs outsourcing. I no longer wash my own car, change my own oil, rarely cook, etc. Maximize your work time and spend the money to allow yourself to make more money.
The above is much easier if you make a good amount of money in your day job. I kind of did the reverse of what many advocate. I spent the first part of my life doing 80-90 hours a week at my day job to get to a place where I could implement the above and free up other time to work. (promoted quickly)
To your last question, that's a route to take. I've actually turned down much higher paying jobs to focus on side biz because the initial learning curve (time) would cut too much into side biz. You'll lose money in the first 6 months comparably, but with the side biz compounding, you'll make it up eventually.
If your job is less than 60 real hours of work per week, don't get another job, learn to manage your time better.
Wow, thanks. Really informative and needed that slap in the face. Stupid how much time is spent goofying around when you think you are working hard. I guess it all comes down to paying yourself first - always tempting to accept a promotion with a small pay raise (and much more stress) working for someone else, but in the end your own projects are what matters. Thanks!
Hello Op, thank you for dropping your knowledge. I am just getting into and learning about the process of making sites, AM, and SEO. I am thinking about selling the cache of old technical interviews I have acquired over the years for investment banking, Rx, financial due diligence, etc. originally I was thinking about playing it simple and doing a carrd site with ejunkie. Then I began to think about getting traffic and am now thinking about just doing a Shopify store and bitting the bullet on fees.
Do you think Shopify is better for getting traffic or am I better with my original idea?
For reference I’d be trying to mimic something like restructuringinterviews.com
Thanks,
Bowtiedcollie
I think your best bet is going to be Shopify over a one page landing page. It'll allow you to write more content (more pages/topics/interlinking), target more keywords, and draw in more traffic.
Another option and probably better long term (not for this project though) is to learn WordPress and attach on Shopify light for $9 a month. Haven't done this yet but seems really simple. Probably do it with one of my sites within the next year.
Looking at the backlink analytics and rankings of the site you're trying to mimic, this doesn't seem like that competitive of a space in the SERPs. You should definitely get to work on it ASAP.
Thank you fren! Yes, I’ll get rolling on it.
Hello, Op! I'd love a post going in depth about your origin story and what led you to start your WiFi money journey. Question wise, I'm 24, full time working construction with zero debt, kids or responsibilities. Discovered the jungle/BTB last month and it opened my eyes. I have a decent paying job but it's time for money & a young man's game + it's just one income stream. Any injury to my body & I'm fucked. Are there any forums/books that aided you in your journey from Day1 that you swear by, especially for someone with minimal online proficiency? Thanks again for your posts.
Won't go too in depth about my origin story since I don't want to dox myself. I will give you some advice that I wish I would have had earlier.
In your off work time, get to building. Not just reading, but building. Not dating, partying, reading news, etc. Building. Build your first site and spend as much time on it as humanly possible. Likely 30-40+ hours a week. It's probably going to be a failure and you're going to screw up a lot. But that's how you learn. When you run into problems building (and you will. a lot of them), learn how to solve your problems with Google. The most valuable skill you can develop is figuring anything out with Google.
You may not make your first dollar for 2 years, but once you do, it'll be the best dollar you ever made. At that point, you will have learned enough to not only start making wi-fi money but likely be able to get a job in a jr ecommerce/digital marketing role. Only aiding in your learning due to access to agencies, etc.
In terms of books/forums that aided in my journey from day 1. "The Four Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferris. It's very dated and most of the topics will no longer work but it gave me a structure to think about my future and how to think about my time in terms of trading time for money and how to scale your time and outsource. If the lifestyle design interests you, then it's also a good read for that. But likely just ignore the whole "work 4 hours and live on a beach" stuff.
Also, the below.
https://bowtiedopossum.com/the-basics-of-your-first-website/
Gotcha. All that's left now is to put my head down, grind, eat shit and do the hard work. Love your work and hope to see you stick around in this community. Thanks again.
Hey Opossum! Great timing on this. Based off your sub, some tips and youtube I have a shopify store set up. I have a sample on order and am working on white labeling a product. I am wondering if you have any resources or advice on testing a market for this product before I commit to the branding and MOQ? Thanks for the content fren!
Hey hey Grouse!
This makes me think about a tweet from James Camp the other day. There are over 7 Billion people on the planet. There's a market for almost everything and the market is usually larger than you think. For example, I met a person a few years ago that made mid to high 6 figures making/sewing furry costumes. Let that one sink in.
The usual problem is can you adequately find the market, acquire them at a reasonable cost, and is the margin worth your time. The first two are the hard part and probably where you should be spending your time.
So to your original question. You can always go the route of throwing money at ads and seeing if you can convert the traffic before you order MOQ. This can get expensive but it's more about testing your marketing and conversion strategy.
If you're wanted to look if the market is there, there's a few easy and free (or very cheap) places you can look.
1. Create a Google Ads account and go to Tools -> Planning -> Reach Planner or Keyword Planner and check out the search demand for the products.
2. Sign up for a Google Merchant Account and go to Growth -> Best Sellers and filter down to your category and location. Won't give you the demand numbers but popularity in the space for product listings on Google.
3. Sign up for an Amazon Seller Central account and go to Brand -> Brand Analytics -> Amazon Search Terms.
4. Get the SEOquake browser extension and look at your competitors traffic estimates.
I'm unsure on the third one whether you have to have a Pro account or not. Also unsure whether you have to be on the brand registry to have access to those reports. I do so I can't test that assumption without signing up with another account.
This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks again fren. Have a great weekend!
You're welcome fren!