Coming up with my first online business idea was hard. I had a ton of fear. But eventually, I knew I just had to jump. When I first started out, I was going to be a content producer. I had already had a few high profile brand partnerships on social media, and I had a couple of different websites that were paying me to write for them. It wasn’t much, but I knew that living in my van or living out of my suitcase would be relatively cheap. I also knew I’d have travel opportunities to go to places and experience things these brands and outlets would be interested in. It helped that I had some money saved up in my bank account.
So with low monthly expenses, a few paying clients, and a lot of confidence that I would grow quickly, I quit my job and set out into the great unknown.
But choosing that first idea to be a content creator was FUCKING. HARD.
The fear of choosing wrong
The fear of choosing wrong almost kept me from trying anything altogether. How would I know if this was the right idea? Why would people pay me for this? What if I struggle and struggle and struggle to grow and throw away a lot of useful years pursuing a bad idea?
Settling on that first idea was emotionally draining. But I did it.
Learning to choose correctly
Shortly after trying out the whole content creator thing, I realized this wasn’t really going to be for me. Getting paid $150/article was pretty sweet when I could knock one out in 30 min. It was really sweet when I’d get approved for 4 of them in a month and make $600 for about 2 hours of work.
Shares and Likes are great, but do you actually know if generated any revenue?
Buuuuutttt, getting 4 per month only happened a couple of times. And in order for me to have the content for those 4 things, it also meant I was doing a lot of traveling to go to 4 different places — i.e. fuel and time (I originally forgot to account for my time spent outside of the actual writing) — and was spending a lot more than the $600 I was making.
I knew this wasn’t going to work long term so I quickly grabbed an online course that taught me how to choose a winning idea and grow the business.
I still didn’t get it right on my first try after buying the course. Actually, not even the 2nd or 3rd. But I spent less time chasing success, and more time on coming up with better ideas and quickly moving on when they wouldn’t work. I’m now to the point where I have so much work that I outsource some of it.
Too many ideas, not enough time
Now that I’m able to look back and learn from my 3 previous failures, and combine it with the success that I’m having now, I see nothing but winning ideas all around me. So much that I can’t possibly pursue all of them all, even though any one of them would make me a sustainable business.
If days were 36 – 48 hours long and I were raging coke addict, I’d:
- double the size of my freelancing business
- get my informational products into your hands faster
- drive massive amounts of traffic to my sites for affiliate sales
- start a completely separate drop shipping site
- develop at least 2 or 3 ideas I’ve had for apps and programs
I get SO EXCITED thinking about them that I even get distracted from the two I’m currently working on (expanding my freelance and creating digital products). I find myself daydreaming about all the different ads and marketing campaigns I can run for selling cheese instead of focusing on the $4,000 website I’m building.
You see, the principles of making any one of those ideas successful are exactly the same.
- Know yourself:
- What you like doing, hate doing, what interests you, what you’re good at, and what you’re bad at
- Know your audience
- Know your product
- Know the market for your product
- And have solid, all-around marketing skills
Literally, no matter what you choose, as long as you can accomplish those 4 things, you’ll have a winning idea. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. There is a massive amount of work that goes into each of those points, especially the last one. But if you can master them, you will see nothing about winning ideas all around you, day in and day out.
Where do you struggle?
If you struggle with coming up with ideas altogether or picking one that you’ve thought of or are questioning if it’s good or bad, leave a comment below. Let me know where you’re at and where I can help you. If you leave a comment, I guarantee a thorough and personal reply.
And if you’re too shy for a comment, my inbox is always open: [email protected]
0 Comments