Day 17 of Building a Product to Sell and Make Millions...
This is REALLY hard
Every morning I wake up, make a cup of tea, wrap myself in a blanket, and stare at a bright rectangle called my laptop.
I’m trying to figure out how to make a product for the interwebs, except no one is helping me, and I’m figuring it all out from scratch. Which turns out to be slightly harder than anticipated. Well, slightly harder and easier than anticipated.
Let me explain.
That title is totally sarcastic btw. I’m tired of all the online “gurus” hiding behind courses, so I’m figuring this out on my own and documenting the entire process for free. Follow along, or don’t, no matter.
Here’s why it’s hard
Almost a year ago, I was walking down a street in Mexico listening to a voice message from my brother. I was almost in tears. This was one of the hardest moments I’ve ever faced in my life and I needed help.
I was in Mexico learning Spanish. But not like a normal person.
I had 7 weeks.
I lived with a family that didn’t speak English.
I had Spanish tutoring 6 hours a day, all in Spanish, plus homework.
It’s week 3 and I’m caving. I don’t know how I’m going to do this.
Through the crackly, weak speakers of my iPhone, my brother said very seriously, “You have to dig deep.”
I didn’t know how to dig deep, but I was desperate. I would have paid a lot of money for something to give me the edge I needed.
Now, if you can build a product that can rescue people from a situation like that, you’ve got something valuable.
Just one problem.
It’s really hard to do that.
Most people end up building a medium salsa product and then spending all their time trying to convince people they are in need of being rescued. That’s called marketing.
And unfortunately, there’s a bad reputation being built with influencers selling cheap, lame, unhelpful products. The reason for that is every online guru and his cousin are trying to convince people that you can build anything you want and sell it and make millions.
Oh, but only if you buy their course teaching you how to do it…
It’s amazing how gullible people are when they desperately want something to be true.
I’ll try not to rant, but it’s very frustrating to see. My whole Substack and X feed is flooded with these people. Sheesh, one wrong search, and the algorithm is punishing me for weeks.
Regardless, I think I have a plan for making it easier.
Here’s why it’s easy
The plan is to make a system that rescues people from the chaos of their lives. How will I figure out how to do that you might ask.
I have no idea.
Quite literally.
I guess I’ll just build something that I desperately need and see if others desperately need it too. Most people are willing to pay for something that turns chaos into order, but who knows? People are remarkably stubborn and tend to buy off emotion more than logic.
If it doesn’t work at least I solved my own problem.
I definitely don’t want to be that sales guy who’s trying to convince people they are in need of rescuing. The whole “Your life will suck unless you buy this product” theme is pretty lame in my opinion.
It makes it significantly easier when trying to solve one person’s problem (mine) instead of trying to guess what 137 other people’s problems are. So when people say “Hey, I want a habit tracker in this thing!” I say, “Too bad Kevin, not my problem.” Or, “Your design isn’t pretty enough.” I say, “Sorry Jessica, ‘pretty’ doesn’t help me solve my problem.”
This system I invented saves me around 2-5 hours a week. Not because it’s so organized and efficient (even though it is haha). It saves me time because it squeezes all the annoying distractions out of my work. Which is a big deal for someone who self-manages their time.
Turns out work is actually kinda fun when you have a system to help you flow.