Primoz Bozic

Helping online entrepreneurs build a 7-figure online business

List Building

The Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an EPIC Lead Magnet

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You’re currently reading Chapter 6 of The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List.

Your Epic Lead Magnet: The Solution to The Problem Worth Solving

Once you’ve identified the Problem Worth Solving, you’ll want to create an Epic Lead Magnet that solves that problem for your audience better than anyone else on the internet.

You’ll then share your resource with your First 100 Fans and spread the word about it across the internet to grow your e-mail list to 500-1,000 e-mail subscribers.

This Lead Magnet will become the first thing any new e-mail subscriber sees and gets as a gift once they sign up to your e-mail list (some people like to call this an “opt-in offer” or a “freebie”), which will help you turn your website visitors into Raving Fans.

You’ll use your lead magnet every time you publish a piece of Remarkable Content to convert your readers into e-mail subscribers.

You can also use your Lead Magnet whenever you pursue Win-Win Partnerships like Guest Posting or Podcast interviews to give as a gift to your new readers (and maximize the number of new e-mail subscribers you get through these opportunities).

Having an Epic Lead Magnet will also be the key element of creating a High-Converting Website (that will help you make sure as many of your website visitors as possible become your e-mail subscribers).

In this post, you’ll find:

  • The 3 Crucial Rules for Creating an Epic Lead Magnet
  • 16 Epic Lead Magnet Examples
  • How to Create Your Epic Lead Magnet in 9 Easy Steps

Plus two advanced tips for creating Epic Lead Magnets.

Let’s dive in!

What is an Epic Lead Magnet?

The Epic Lead Magnet is a resource you can share with your e-mail subscribers in exchange for their e-mail address. It could be an e-book, a free online course, or something else (we’ll cover many different examples later on in this post).

For example, when you visit my website, you’ll be able to get a free copy of my Ultimate Guide Checklist, which shows you how to grow your blog audience with Ultimate Guides like this one.

You’ll want to offer an Epic Lead Magnet to your website visitors because a lot more people will subscribe to your e-mail list if you give them something tangible in exchange for their e-mail address (rather than just asking them to “subscribe to your newsletter”.

The “opt-in rate” (the metric that you use to measure how well your Lead Magnet is working) of “subscribing for updates” is usually less than 1-2%, which means that for every 1,000 website visitors, you’d get 10-20 new e-mail subscribers.

On the flip side, having an Epic Lead Magnet can result in opt-in rates of 5-20%, though I’ve seen rates as high as 50%. This means that for every 1,000 website visitors, you’d get 50-200 e-mail subscribers (which would mean that your e-mail list will grow a lot faster).

Another benefit of creating an Epic Lead Magnet is that if you make it REALLY good, your e-mail subscribers will share it with other people, bringing more e-mail subscribers your way via word of mouth.

What Should You Give Away as Your Epic Lead Magnet?

As you might have noticed, my favorite Epic Lead Magnets to give away are Ultimate Guides (like this one), because I’ve found that they work extremely well for converting website visitors into e-mail subscribers and blowing them away with the quality of my content.

I’ve seen others give away free courses, webinars, checklists, tools, calculators, and more.

There are no set rules for what format your Epic Lead Magnet should have.

It could be an e-book, a video, audio, a resource that your e-mail subscribers can “plug and play” to use… It doesn’t really matter.

3 Crucial Rules For Creating Your Epic Lead Magnet

There are 3 things that matter A LOT more than the actual format of the resource. I call these the 3 crucial rules for creating your Epic Lead Magnet.

Rule #1: Your Lead Magnet MUST Solve a Problem Worth Solving

After I published my Ultimate Guide to Creating Bulletproof Habits which helped me get from 0-600 e-mail subscribers in under 2 months, I had an idea to create a “Time Management Workshop”, because I thought my readers would find that more valuable.

I was wrong. When I started offering the workshop on my website instead of the habits guide, a lot less people subscribed to my website, losing me hundreds of e-mail subscribers over the next month.

The mistake that I made was that I created something that I thought was important, rather than solving a Problem Worth Solving for my audience.

If you create an Epic Lead Magnet that isn’t based on the research you’ve done around a Problem Worth Solving, it’s likely that your opt-in rate will tank and you’ll struggle with converting your website visitors into e-mail subscribers.

Luckily, you already know how to do that from the previous chapter of this guide.

Rule #2: Your Epic Lead Magnet Should be The Logical Next Step for The Content You Plan on Creating

Once you create your Epic Lead Magnet, you’ll use it to bring in more e-mail subscribers through your future content (blog posts, YouTube videos, Guest Posts, Podcast interviews, or whatever other method you’ll use to bring in new website visitors).

As you’ll do that, you’ll want your Epic Lead Magnet to be congruent with the content you create.

Here’s what I mean.

Right now, I’m writing this Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List, and once it’s finished, I’ll create a PDF version of it to use as an Epic Lead Magnet on my website.

Every time I write an article related to growing your e-mail list in the future (like “how often should you e-mail your e-mail list?”), I’ll offer this guide to the readers as the logical next step in their journeys.

If you’re reading about how often you should be emailing your e-mail list, you’ll likely want to know how to grow your e-mail list as well, so my opt-in rate from those articles should be pretty high.

On the other hand, if I wrote a guide on Mental Toughness for online entrepreneurs, it wouldn’t really be as relevant to the readers of the article, which is why my opt-in rate would be lower.

That’s why it’s important to do a bit of planning in advance and make your resource broad enough that it can be related to the future content you create.

Rule #3: Your Epic Lead Magnet Should be so Good You Could Charge for it

Some people say that your “lead magnet” can be super simple, like a simple one-page checklist.

I disagree.

I’ve found that while you CAN convert readers into e-mail subscribers with a simple checklist, it’s not the best idea to do that, especially when you’re just starting out with growing your e-mail list.

Instead, I believe that your Epic Lead Magnet should be so good you could charge for it.

Here’s why:

  • When you’re still “unknown” in your industry, creating a really outstanding Epic Lead Magnet can help you get noticed and “known for something”
  • If your “over-deliver” with your Epic Lead Magnet, your readers and e-mail subscribers will spread the word about it for you and share it with their friends
  • If your new e-mail subscribers are blown away by your Epic Lead Magnet when they subscribe to your e-mail list, they’re a lot more likely to stay subscribed and buy your products and services because they’ll think to themselves, “wow, if his free content is so good, then the paid content must be even better!”
  • Now that the online business space is more and more competitive, you want your content to stand out as the best content out there, to have a competitive advantage
  • When it comes to spreading the word about your Epic Lead Magnet, you’ll be A LOT more confident in talking about it if you know it’s your best work (and overcome your fear of self-promotion and putting yourself out there)

You’ll notice that many of the entrepreneurs I interviewed for this guide share the same mentality as we look over their Epic Lead Magnets, and for many of them going that extra mile really paid off.

One extreme example that comes to mind is an entrepreneur that created a full 30-hour online course, and gave it away to his e-mail subscribers for free (even though he could easily charge $500 for an online course like that). He did what nobody else would do.

Because this free course was unlike anything else out there, the people who went through it shared it with their friends, and in a bit over a year, he went from 0-3,500 e-mail subscribers.

Another great example is Jenni Waldrop, who went from 150 to 4,000+ e-mail subscribers in just a few months by creating an amazing Epic Lead Magnet for her website visitors. During our interview, Jenni said that your opt-in shouldn’t be a crappy checklist – it should be the best thing you’ve ever done.

Another example is Sam Gavis-Hughson, who spent 4-5 months creating his Epic Lead Magnet (a free e-book on mastering coding interviews) on the side of a full time job. As he published it, he went from 400 e-mail subscribers to 1,200 e-mail subscribers practically overnight, and kept adding 200+ new e-mail subscribers to his e-mail list every month since.

Creating an outstanding Epic Lead Magnet takes time, but it’s well worth the effort in the long-run.

16 Epic Lead Magnet Examples

To give you an idea what kind of Epic Lead Magnets you could create, I put together a list of 16 resources that you can study and analyze.

Here they are, in no particular order:

As you can see, there is a variety of resources, though the most popular Epic Lead Magnets seem to be guides and e-books.

How to create your Epic Lead Magnet in 9 easy steps

Now that we looked at why you need an Epic Lead Magnet to make your Big Entrance and grow your e-mail list to 500-1,000 e-mail subscribers, let’s talk about how to actually create one, step by step.

Step #1: Identify a Problem Worth Solving

You already know how to do this from the previous chapter of this guide :). Talk to your First 100 Fans, see what challenges they’re having, and pick a common challenge that you’d love to solve for them.

Problems Worth Solving could be:

  • Getting invited to speak at a TEDx event
  • Growing your e-mail list
  • Learning how to edit photos in photoshop

I’ll use these as examples to show you how to turn these Problems Worth Solving into Epic Lead Magnets.

Step #2: Define a Tangible Result

Once you know what the Problem Worth Solving is, think of a tangible result you want to help your e-mail subscribers achieve after they work through your Epic Lead Magnet:

  • If the Problem Worth Solving is getting invited to speak at a TEDx event… The Tangible Result could be actually getting invited to speak at a TEDx event
  • If the Problem Worth solving is growing your e-mail list, the Tangible Result could be getting to your first 1,000 e-mail subscribers
  • If the Problem Worth Solving is learning how to edit photos in photoshop, the Tangible Result could be learning how to beautifully edit a photo in under 15 minutes

Defining a Tangible Result will help you write Mouthwatering Opt-in Copy, as well as get clear on what your Epic Lead Magnet should actually include.

“What about Intangible Results?”

One of my readers had an interesting follow up chapter to this section of the guide, so I decided to include it here:

The thing is the blog I’m thinking to open would be around the more psychological side of the business (like motivation, self-doubt, courage, why and how we make choices, etc.) and I’m having a harder time coming up with actionable tactics I can package in a catchy lead magnet.

You can absolutely create a Lead Magnet around Intangible Results!

Here’s a great example from Mark Manson (a guide to happiness):

I can instantly think of:

  • The Ultimate Guide to Motivation
  • The Quick Guide to Overcoming Self-Doubt
  • The 80/20 Guide to Becoming More Courageous

(I like to think in guides, but your Lead Magnets could be of a different format as well).

As far as Building Blocks go, you can think of tactics that provide an instant effect in being more motivated, happier, more courageous, etc.

You could also read a few books on these topics and see how they do it (the best books on any topic are usually full of sticky ideas).

Step #3: Brainstorm the Building Blocks

Once you have clearly defined a Tangible Result, you can plan out which Building Blocks you’ll need to create an Epic Lead Magnet that will help your e-mail subscribers get the result you’re promising them:

  • What do you need to teach them?
  • What do they have to do?
  • What resources will be helpful for them?

You’ll want to think of the BEST possible way that you can help your e-mail subscribers get to the outcome that you want to help them achieve.

If I want to help someone get invited to speak at a TEDx event, I might want to:

  • Show them what the process for getting invited to speak at a TEDx event looks like
  • Tell them which mistakes most candidates make (that they’ll want to avoid)
  • Give them specific strategies they can use to “pitch themselves” to a TEDx event

If I want to help someone grow their e-mail list to 1,000 e-mail subscribers, I might want to:

  • Tell them what’s the “high-level strategy” to get there
  • Give them specific list-building tactics and strategies they can implement today
  • Include specific templates and resources to help them along the way

If I want to help someone edit photos in photoshop, I might want to:

  • Show them the 3 beginner editing tools that they should learn how to use
  • Teach them how to use each of the 3 tools
  • Explain the basic process for editing your photos, and how to go through each step of the process

(Note that I have no experience with photoshop so I’m making these up, but you get the point).

33 Real-World Examples of Building Blocks

Here are 33 additional examples of “Building Blocks” you can use as inspiration (I pulled these from real Epic Lead Magnets of entrepreneurs I interviewed for this guide).

Your Building Blocks could be…

Tricks or hacks:

  • The tricks all top sellers know to keep sales flowing (tricks)
  • THE ONE SIMPLE TRICK to wearing more color (even if you’re “not a color guy”) (trick)
  • The one hack that earned me over $30,000 over the course of a couple of years (and takes just 3 minutes to execute) (hack)
  • A profile trick that’s scientifically proven to help you win more jobs (at higher prices) (trick)
  • The deeply psychological hack I used to raise my rates by $50 per hour overnight (hack)
  • How to make a few simple changes that will bring you more views and customers (quick changes)

Lessons, tutorials, explanations or walkthroughs:

  • The exact strategies to approach each problem (and others like them) with step-by-step video walkthroughs (video walkthroughs)
  • Pronounce the expressions correctly, thanks to my explanations in the complete video lesson (video lesson)
  • How to finally “get” what Dynamic Programming really is (explanation of a difficult concept)

Examples (Questions, Recipes, Clothing Items, Outfits, Expressions, Mistakes, Common Problems, Myths, Misconceptions…):

  • 50 real-world interview questions that were asked in actual interviews (interview questions)
  • Recognize 12 everyday expressions when Americans say them fast…without translating in your head (expressions)
  • 13 MUST HAVE ESSENTIALS every man needs in his summer wardrobe (specific clothing items)
  • 7 ULTRA-VERSATILE pieces all guys should have this Spring that you can wear to the office and on the weekend (specific clothing items)
  • EXACT outfit “recipes” for all your important events – from business casual meetings to your best friend’s wedding (outfits)
  • 7 Spicy Recipes to Melt Off 7lbs (recipes)
  • Discover “the top 3 mistakes that crush your chances with a studio” and make your dream job happen. (mistakes)
  • The 4 sentence types often behind comprehension and expression issues and why they’re so difficult. (sentence types)
  • The most common problems that hold most all sellers back (and how to fix them!) (common problems)

Crucial Information:

  • The only 10% information you need to ace your interview (the 80/20 rule)
  • What you REALLY need to do to succeed on Etsy (the 80/20 rule)
  • The most important element to include to turn readers into clients (80/20 rule)

Techniques, Formulas, Strategies or Tactics:

  • The not-so-obvious way you can solve any dynamic programming interview fast (counterintuitive technique)
  • My 5-step formula for acing each and every whiteboard interview (formula)
  • What you need to add into your book to make it a page-turner (key strategy)
  • How to add more colors and prints to your wardrobe, without looking like an Easter Egg (technique)
  • The deceptively simple way to write language goals; so you’re not spending hours on paperwork (goal bank included). (technique, goal bank)
  • An easy-to-implement “low-prep” strategy proven to boost sentence structure, comprehension, and written language (conjunctions flashcards included). (strategy)

Tests, Quizzes, Cheat Sheets or Worksheets:

  • Train your ear to instantly catch the fast sounds, with the audio test and worksheets (test + worksheets)
  • Download my free Ultimate EDM Speed Writing Cheat Sheet below, and get your track finished TODAY! (cheat sheet)

Hidden Opportunities, Secrets or Counterintuitive Advice:

  • What opportunities open up for you with a book (and what you’re missing without one) (hidden opportunities)
  • Pro secrets to creating content for your book in less time (secret)
  • The hidden culprit behind unexplained “processing” problems that’s often overlooked. (secret issue)
  • How wearing LESS clothes can make you FEEL HOTTER! (And what to do instead) (counterintuitive advice)

Step #4: Choose the Format

Once you have your Building Blocks ready, you can decide on the format of your Epic Lead Magnet.

This could be:

  • An e-book or a guide
  • An e-mail course
  • A video course
  • A video workshop / masterclass
  • A collection of scripts / examples
  • …or something else

You should pick a resource format that best suits what you’re trying to teach:

  • An e-book would be great for teaching someone how to get invited to speak at a TEDx event
  • An Ultimate Guide would be great for helping someone grow an e-mail list
  • A 5-day course with video tutorials would be great for teaching someone how to edit photos in Photoshop

Chances are that you could pick different formats for the same Epic Lead Magnet (for example, if you could write an e-book about something, you could also create a video course about it).

I suggest picking the option that is:

  • Easier to implement and set up (creating a PDF e-book might be easier than creating a 5-day video course)
  • The most exciting (you want to be excited about creating your Epic Lead Magnet)
  • Plays to your strengths (if you love writing, write an e-book; if you love talking, record a video workshop)

Remember, the format isn’t as important as nailing the other steps of this process. Pick a format that will work and move on!

Step #5: Create an Outline

Once you’ve selected the format of your Epic Lead Magnet, you can create a simple outline for your Epic Lead Magnet.

During the outlining stage, you can simply organize all of your Building Blocks into an order/flow that makes the most sense, so that you can move forward with creating the resource.

Here’s an example from such an outline from my Ultimate Guide to Creating Content That Sticks:

lead magnet outline

As you can see, the outline is simple and to the point – don’t overcomplicate this step!

Step #6: Go the Extra Mile

Once you have a simple outline in place, take some time to think about how you can go the Extra Mile for your e-mail subscribers and really make your Lead Magnet Epic and one-of-a-kind.

This is one of the most important steps in this process (right after finding a Problem Worth Solving), as this step will make your resource really stand out from everything else out there (and lead to your readers loving it and sharing it with their friends).

For this guide, I went the Extra Mile by actually interviewing 20 entrepreneurs about how they grew their e-mail lists, rather than just summarizing my own personal experiences.

I’m also going the Extra Mile by pulling real-world examples for things like Finding Profitable Business Ideas, Epic Lead Magnets, Writing Mouthwatering Opt-in Copy, etc.

For a guide on TEDx talk, I might:

  • Interview a few TEDx event organizers and ask them what makes the best candidates
  • Interview past TEDx speakers and ask them how they got invited to events
  • Break down “good” and “bad” approaches or pitches
  • Record and share an actual interview with a TEDx organizer
  • Figure out if there are different “tiers” of TEDx events and break down what you need to land a speaking opportunity at each of the different tiers

And for a Photoshop editing video course, I might:

  • Record 5 example videos for each editing tool where I use the tool on 5 different images
  • Talk about common exceptions / edge cases (like having an extremely bright/dark photo) and how to handle them
  • Create an “editing checklist” or “cheat sheet” that my readers can keep in front of them as they edit their photos for easy reference

Think about what going the Extra Mile would look like for your readers, and make it happen!

And if you don’t know what going the Extra Mile would look like, you could just e-mail them and ask them:

“Hey NAME,

I’m working on a resource that will help you get a speaking gig at a local TEDx event. To make this resource as valuable as possible to you, could you let me know what’s one thing I could include in the resource that would make it insanely valuable to you?

Thanks,

-YOUR NAME”

Step #7: Create the Lead Magnet

This is the step where you “buckle down and make it happen”.

When you’re creating your first Epic Lead Magnet, I suggest spending roughly 10-20 hours on it (you should be able to create it within a few days or 1-2 weeks at most).

That will be plenty of time to make it Epic while still keeping it manageable.

If you want to learn more about how to create an amazing Epic Lead Magnet, you can read two of my Epic Resources that will help you create one:

  • The Ultimate Guide Checklist: Ultimate Guides are some of the best Epic Lead Magnets you can create – and I wrote a detailed guide that covers the exact steps for writing an Ultimate Guide
  • The Ultimate Guide to Creating Content That Sticks: Your Epic Lead Magnets are amazing opportunities for creating your own Sticky Ideas and Frameworks that you can become known for (and that will get you even more e-mail subscribers). I wrote a detailed guide on how you can up with those and make your Epic Lead Magnets even better.

Step #8: Pick a Sticky Name

Once you’ve written your Lead Magnet (or as you’re writing or planning it), give it a sticky name!

Calling your resource something (like Jenni Waldrop’s SEO Bootcamp or Christina Rebuffet’s American Accent Survival Kit) will make it more tangible, compelling, stickier and shareable.

While a name won’t make or break your Epic Lead Magnet, coming up with a sticky name can definitely pay dividends in the long run.

Here are some short guidelines for coming up with a sticky name for your Epic Lead Magnet:

  • Make it CLEAR: When someone hears the name of your resource, they should instantly know what it’s about. Clear names tend to perform better than fancy names, especially when not many people know you yet.
  • Keep it SIMPLE: You should be able to say the name of your Epic Lead Magnet in one breath of air. If your name is confusing, a lot less people will remember it.
  • Make it STICKY: If you want to go the extra mile, make your name sticky and memorable. This means that someone should only hear the name of your Epic Lead Magnet once in order to remember it for years.

If you’re not sure how to come up with a great name for your Epic Lead Magnet, definitely read my Ultimate Guide to Creating Content That Sticks – it will give you plenty of ideas plus a specific framework for making your name sticky and memorable.

Step #9: Design it

Unless you’re a designer or want to serve an audience that really values visually appealing e-books, you definitely don’t need to spend any money (or too much time) designing your e-books at an early stage of your business.

Later on when you’re running your business full time and making a decent living off it, you can definitely consider hiring a designer to design your e-books, but until then it likely won’t be necessary.

I personally write and “design” my e-books (by design, I mean that I create a cover and some headings) in Google Documents, then simply export them as a PDF. I stuck with that simple and proven process for years, and it was more than enough to build a 6-figure online business.

If you really wanted to design a nice cover for your Epic Lead Magnet, the only other tool I’d recommend is Canva – there’s a free version and it’s pretty intuitive to use.

Advanced Tip: Create an Epic Lead Magnet Portfolio

As you might have noticed, a lot of established entrepreneurs have more than one Epic Lead Magnet – they have an Epic Lead Magnet Portfolio.

Here’s an example from Peter Nguyen:

As you e-mail list grows, you might want to create one yourself as well.

The idea behind an Epic Lead Magnet Portfolio is simple – you can create a portfolio of different Epic Lead Magnet for different topics (or audiences).

You will usually want to do that when you start a new Content Season (a concept we’ll talk about in the next chapter of this guide), or in other words, when you start talking about a new topic that you haven’t talked about before.

For example, the reasons why I’m creating this very Ultimate Guide are:

  • I want to establish myself as an expert in list-building
  • I want to give my readers an amazing resource on list-building, as I know that that is a Problem Worth Solving for them
  • I want to create an Epic Lead Magnet that I can use as a logical next step (or a “content upgrade”) for all the future content I create

Peter Nguyen does this exceptionally well. He has dedicated Epic Lead Magnets for spring and summer style and fall and winter style, which he can then offer to his readers whenever he talks about specific clothing items in different seasons.

Jenni Waldrop also created an Epic Lead Magnet Portfolio for her readers, and she did it by simply collecting the top 5 questions from her audience, and then creating an Epic Resource for each of them (for example, since a lot of her readers had questions about SEO, she created the SEO bootcamp).

You probably won’t need to create an Epic Lead Magnet Portfolio until you have thousands of e-mail subscribers, but once it makes sense for you to do it, you can just use the exact steps from this chapter to create another Epic Resource that your readers will love.

Advanced Tip: Create a Content Ladder

Another advanced tip for when you start creating products and services in your online business is to create a Content Ladder for each of the topics that you talk about in your online business where each of your Content Layers builds on a previous layer.

The Content Ladder will look like this:

World Class Content -> Epic Lead Magnet -> Flagship Product or Service

Your new readers will find your content, subscribe to your e-mail list to get an Epic Lead Magnet, and have the opportunity to join your flagship product or service (all related to the same topic).

Here’s a practical example from Christina Rebuffet:

“Every month is dedicated to a different program we are selling in our business. Every YouTube video we create is on a subject related to the program we’re selling, and so are out lead magnets. The subjects we talk about always correlate to the big programs we are selling.”

For example, this is what Christina’s Content Ladder could look like:

  • World-Class Content: 6 Secrets to Understanding Fast-Talking Americans
  • Epic Lead Magnet: American English Survival Kit
  • Flagship Product: Master Real American English

Structuring your content and Epic Lead Magnets you create in this way will help you maximize the amount of paying customers you attract to your business, create a great immersive experience for your readers, and become way more strategic with everything you do in your business.

Summary

Once you’ve identified the Problem Worth Solving, the next logical step is to create a Lead Magnet that you’ll give away to your new e-mail subscribers.

Make sure your Epic Lead Magnet follows the following rules:

  • Rule #1: It MUST solve a Problem Worth Solving
  • Rule #2: It should be the logical next step for the content you plan on creating
  • Rule #3: It should be so good you could charge for it

You can then create the Epic Lead Magnet in 9 easy steps (and use the 16 Epic Lead Magnet examples in this post for guidance):

  • Step #1: Identify a Problem Worth Solving
  • Step #2: Define a Tangible Result
  • Step #3: Brainstorm the Building Blocks
  • Step #4: Choose the Format
  • Step #5: Create an Outline
  • Step #6: Go the Extra Mile
  • Step #7: Create the Lead Magnet
  • Step #8: Pick a Sticky Name
  • Step #9: Design it

To guide you in creating your Epic Lead Magnet, you can read my Ultimate Guide Checklist and The Ultimate Guide to Creating Content That Sticks.

As your e-mail list grows to a few thousands of e-mail subscribers, you can create an Epic Lead Magnet Portfolio to serve different audiences.

And once you start selling online products or services, make sure your Epic Lead Magnets fall correctly into the Content Ladder:

World Class Content -> Epic Lead Magnet -> Flagship Product or Service

That’s it!

Now you know everything you need to know to create an Epic Lead Magnet. Stay tuned for the next chapter, in which we’ll cover how to write Mouthwatering Opt-in Copy for your Lead Magnet.

Continue to Chapter 7: How to Write Mouthwatering Opt-in Copy

Your Turn: What will be the Epic Lead Magnet that you’ll create?

Are you ready to build an e-mail list of 1,000+ BUYERS?

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Customer Research 101: How to Find The Problems of Your Audience

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You’re currently reading Chapter 5 of The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List.

When I first started primozbozic.com, I went from 0-600 e-mail subscribers in less than two months. A month later, I successfully launched my first online course (a 2-hour productivity workshop), and got 7 sales to make my first $350 with this online business.

A few months later, I improved that online course and had my first $1,000 launch. Then a $2,000 launch. Then a $5,000 launch. Within the first year of starting my website, I made over $30,000 through online courses and coaching services that I sold through my website.

The engine behind the exponential growth of my online business was my e-mail list, which grew from 0 to 2,200 e-mail subscribers within the first year of my business:

list building

The key to building the initial momentum and getting to 600 e-mail subscribers was finding a problem worth solving.

With only two articles written on my website, I created The Ultimate Guide to Creating Bulletproof Habits:

ultimate guide to creating bulletproof habits

Back in 2014, not many people talked about how to create habits that stick, and when I wrote this guide, it created a lot of buzz. People talked about it, used it to form better habits, and shared it with their friends.

That was my problem worth solving.

I created something remarkable about a problem many people had but nobody solver, and became known for it. I was no longer a “no-one”, I was someone worth paying attention to.

I’ve seen a similar pattern in many online entrepreneurs I interviewed to create this guide:

  • Sam Gavis-Hughson published an e-book about coding interviews that helped him double his e-mail list overnight, attracting 500+ new e-mail subscribers
  • Olivia Angelescu created a database of websites and publications that bloggers could pitch, together with exact guidelines to pitch them, to get to 400+ e-mail subscribers
  • Rusty Gray wrote a guest post for a major animation website and got 400+ e-mail subscribers from it
  • Peter Nguyen wrote a guest post for a popular style blog and attracted 1,000+ e-mail subscribers from it

If we break down the process for how they did it, it’s pretty simple:

  • They found a Problem Worth Solving that their audience has
  • They created a Lead Magnet to solve that Problem
  • They promoted the Lead Magnet to grow their e-mail list to 500-1,000 e-mail subscribers

In this chapter, I’ll teach you how you can find your Problem Worth Solving, and in the future chapters, I’ll teach you how you can create and promote an EPIC Lead Magnet to solve that problem.

Why You Need a Problem Worth Solving

Before we talk about how to create a Lead Magnet, we need to find a Problem Worth Solving that our Lead Magnet will help with.

You might have heard other entrepreneurs say that “building a business boils down to solving problems of your audience”.

That’s exactly true – in order to get people’s attention (whether it’s to read a blog post, subscribe to your e-mail list, hire you as a coach or join your online course), you need to solve a problem they have.

The bigger the problem, the more likely you are to get their attention.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to solve the problems of our audience in the most effective possible way to stand out in your industries and stand out from everyone else, while creating your own following of Raving Fans.

But to do that, your first need to FIND a Problem Worth Solving.

What is a Problem Worth Solving?

A Problem Worth Solving is a problem that your audience complains about over and over again.

A Problem Worth Solving is a problem that your audience spends hours and hours Googling about to find the solution.

A Problem Worth Solving is a problem that keeps your audience up at night.

Here are some examples:

  • Let’s say you have a job interview for Google coming up in 2 weeks, and you have no idea how to prepare for it. That’s a Problem Worth Solving, and Sam can help you solve it.
  • Let’s say you want to buy a new leather jacket and are willing to spend $500-$1,000 on it, but have no idea what to look for in a leather jacket and don’t want to waste your money. That’s a Problem Worth Solving, and Peter can help you solve it.
  • Let’s say you have a TEDx talk coming up in a month and you have no idea how to put together a great talk. That’s a Problem Worth Solving, and Ryan can help you solve it.

You can spot a Problem Worth Solving when you see people complaining about a problem with a lot of emotion.

Let’s say you’re looking at a reddit thread. If you find a thread that hundreds of people are commenting on and they’re writing long, detailed responses, it means that you’ve discovered a Problem Worth Solving.

If people take the time to complain or talk about a problem at length, it’s likely a Problem Worth Solving.

How to Find a Problem Worth Solving: Talk to Your First 100 Fans!

In an earlier chapter of this guide, I taught you how to collect your first 100 e-mail subscribers (Your First 100 Fans).

If you haven’t read that chapter yet, give it a read, as it will make Problem Worth Solving and answering questions like “where can I find people to talk to?” SO much easier.

Once you already have a list of 100 e-mail subscribers, you don’t have to look far to find a Problem Worth Solving. You can just talk to them and ask them what it is!

Gabriela Pereira did exactly that when she started growing her e-mail list. She reached out to her e-mail subscribers and invited them to jump on a Skype call with her.

She talked to them about what they were up to and what challenges they faced when it came to writing. She made a lot of great connections that way and got a lot of research done for her business as well.

When you attract your first 100 e-mail subscribers, don’t rush to get to thousands of e-mail subscribers as soon as possible.

Appreciate the fact that there are 100 people out there who are eager to listen to what you have to say. It’s as if you spoke at a conference in front of 100 people.

How to Start a Casual Conversation With Your E-mail Subscribers to Discover Their Problems

Don’t treat these people as just numbers. Instead, start Casual Conversations with them.

Treat them as real people. Take the time to talk to them. Email them. Message them on Facebook. Invite them to a Skype call with you. Be curious about what they are up to, and what challenges they are facing. Ask them a lot of questions. Get to know them better, like you would get to know a friend.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be as simple as saying:

“Hey, I know you said you wanted to speak at TEDx, can you tell me more about why you want to do that?”

And then naturally evolving the conversation from there.

Talk to them as if you met them in person (or as if you were talking to a friend). Ask them what they do for a living. Ask them about what they want. Ask them about their struggles.

You’ll soon start seeing hints of Problems Worth Solving.

The BEST Way to Find Problems Worth Solving: Welcome Calls

The most valuable thing you can do at this stage is to invite your e-mail subscribers to a Skype call with you. Think of it as a Welcome Call for signing up to your e-mail list.

This will help you get to meet them face to face and as real people, and help you really understand and get to know them a lot better than you would if you just exchanged e-mails with them.

You can invite them to a Welcome Call in a very casual way:

“Hey, I’d love to talk to you more about this subject – would you be open to talking on Skype with me for 30 minutes some time this week so we can officially “meet” each other face to face?”

During the Welcome Call, you can have a casual conversation around things like:

  • Who they are, and what they do for a living
  • Why they are interested in learning more about [TOPIC]
  • What are the biggest challenges they have
  • What’s the most painful around those challenges
  • What they want to achieve
  • Why they want to achieve it
  • What are the biggest obstacles in their way
  • What they tired doing before, what worked and what didn’t
  • What annoys them the most about advice that’s already out there
  • What’s missing for them? What’s something that nobody talks about?

Don’t go through these questions like a formal interview. That won’t make people open up to you.

Instead, use these questions as things you can talk about if you run out of things to say, as icebreakers or as follow up questions.

Use natural follow up questions like “ooh, that’s interesting, tell me more!” as a way to naturally evolve the conversation, and if you end up talking about something completely unrelated, that’s ok! You’re trying to get to know your e-mails subscribers as people, not just as customer research subjects.

Your goal at this stage should be to build real, meaningful connections with your first 100 e-mail subscribers and turn them into your First 100 Fans.

These fans will then:

  • Tell you the problems they’re struggling with (so you can help them solve them)
  • Help you promote your Remarkable Content and Lead Magnets as you publish them
  • Become your first customers

And they’ll also help you come up with an idea for your Epic Lead Magnet that will help you attract more people just like them.

Best of all, they’ll be the people that “get you” that you can talk to about things that excite you, and they’ll be the first people that you can start helping in your online business journey.

Talk to your First 100 Fans. Note down the challenges they share with you. Sooner or later, you’ll see a pattern emerging.

Maybe there will be a common problem that everyone has. Maybe there will be a problem that people get really emotional about. Maybe there will be a problem that people can’t stop talking about.

What to do if You Find More Than One Problem Worth Solving

If you find more than one Problem Worth Solving, that’s great news! It means you’ll have plenty of ideas for future Remarkable Content or Lead Magnets that you can create.

If you’re not sure which topic you should create your Epic Lead Magnet about, you can either pick the topic you’re the most excited to talk about, or ask your e-mail subscribers which idea they’d like for you to talk about.

For example, you could write an e-mail like this to your e-mail subscribers:

SUBJ: Quick question about speaking at TEDx events

“Hey guys, I talked to a lot of you over the past week, and I’m thinking about creating an amazing resource that will help you [speak at a TEDx event].

I’m torn on what I should create this resource about though.

I’m thinking about one of the following:

-How to find a great idea for a TEDx talk
-How to find the best TEDx event to speak at
-How to prepare for a TEDx talk in under 30 days

Can you let me know which resource you like the most by replying to this e-mail? I’ll then create the resource that gets the most votes.

-YOUR NAME

This will help you find a “winning” Problem Worth Solving. And if the votes are tied, choose a problem that either (1) gets the biggest emotional response from your audience, or (2) you’re the most excited to solve.

Either works!

Continue to Chapter 6: How to Create an EPIC Lead Magnet

Your Turn: What’s a Problem Worth Solving you’ve successfully identified? Share it with us in the comments below!

Are you ready to build an e-mail list of 1,000+ BUYERS?

Download the full 393-page PDF version of this EPIC list-building guide, to print it out or read it on the go!

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How to Get Un-Stuck With Your Online Business Idea

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You’re currently reading Chapter 4 of The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List.

In the previous chapters of this guide, I summarized how to find and validate your business idea and get your first 100 e-mail subscribers in a way that’s as simple as possible to understand and follow.

However, there’s so much more I have to say on this topic (and a lot of questions that you might have about this stage of building your e-mail list).

That’s why I created a chapter that will help you get un-stuck with finding and validating your online business idea.

Let’s dive in!

“Do I Need a Clear Target Audience For my Online Business Idea?”

The answer to this question is “it depends”.

A lot of experts say that you need an ultra-specific target audience or an “ideal client profile” in order to build a successful online business.

You need to know the gender of your audience, how old are they, where they live, what they do for a living, how much they earn, and how many pets they have.

But my personal experience and all the interviews I did for this guide tell a different story.

When I asked fellow entrepreneurs how they came up with their business ideas, very few of them talked about having an ultra-specific audience in mind. And even the ones that did didn’t really have clearly defined customer demographics.

Here are some examples of how specific the audiences were:

Of course these might be slightly oversimplified and they might have a clearer idea who their best clients are (something we’ll talk about further on in this guide), but in general, it wasn’t super-detailed demographics or ideal client profiles that would help them build e-mail lists of thousands of people.

Instead, what mattered a lot more was defining their target audience or the problem they are solving clearly and succinctly.

Learn how to speak at a TEDx event. Learn how to animate for a living. Learn how to speak fluent American English. Learn how to grow your Etsy business. Learn how to produce EDM music. Learn how to play bass guitar.

No fancy target audience, just a clear business idea – that’s what you need at this stage of starting your online business.

The exception here (and the reason why I said “it depends” in the beginning of my answer) is when you’re pursuing a business idea in a highly-competitive field. That’s when having a clear and specific audience is important.

Now that doesn’t mean that you need to have an endless list of customer demographics ready. Quite the opposite.

It does mean though that you shouldn’t just target “people”, you should target a specific audience that you can describe in a handful of words.

A great example for this is my friend Kim Nicol – she started her business by teaching mindfulness to lawyers (and later on moved to start-ups). That’s a lot more specific than teaching mindfulness to everyone.

Peter Nguyen is a stylist for guys who work at tech companies (not just a stylist for everyone).

And Sam Gavis-Hughson helps you ace your coding interview at top tech companies (not any job interview in any industry).

Having a specific audience in mind can definitely help you stand out in a crowded market, but you definitely don’t need to know how many pets your “ideal client” has, especially when you’re at this early of a stage of building an online business.

You won’t test your idea by saying “are there any 35-45 year old entrepreneurs with 2 kids who make $100-$150k/year and want to speak at a TEDx event out there?”.

Instead, you’ll ask “does anyone want to learn how to speak at TEDx events?”. Then you’ll see who responds. You’ll see who buys your products and services. You’ll see who your best clients are. THEN you’ll define clearer and clearer customer demographics.

“When do You Have a “Good Enough” Business Idea, When Should You Refine it More, and When Should You Move on to a New Idea?”

One of my readers, Stephanie, asked “when do I know that my business idea is a good idea, when does it need more refining, and when should I move on to a new idea?”.

The first answer is simple: Your idea is good enough when you see enough traction to build an e-mail list of 100+ e-mail subscribers within 1-2 weeks.

If you’re not even close to that, if you keep testing your idea and fail to see any moments of traction, then you should either tweak your business idea or move on to a new one.

The second part of this question is a bit trickier.

Personally, I’d give each of my business ideas a maximum of a month to see traction. If there’s no traction, I’d move on to a new idea.

During this month, I’d go all out on this idea, keep tweaking it and test different angles. But if I already ran tens of different List-Building Experiments and I just can’t seem to find traction, it’s unlikely that my idea will magically gain traction over-night. It’s a lot more likely that I’ll get stuck in the List-Building Rat Race.

If you’ve already spent months trying to make the same business idea work, I don’t believe that “making small tweaks” will make it a Profitable Business Idea overnight – I’ve just VERY rarely seen it happen, but I’ve seen people stuck on 14 e-mail subscribers for months because they were reluctant to try out different business ideas.

If your idea just isn’t picking up any traction, I suggest one of the following:

  • Simplify your idea. Make it so simple that people can understand it in a split second. “Do you want to learn how to speak at a TEDx event?”
  • Choose a more specific audience. “Do any lawyers want to learn how to be less stressed out or burned out?”
  • Choose a more specific problem. “Do you want to learn how to become an Early Riser?”

These are usually the best ways to pivot your idea, and you can cycle through different problems / audiences very quickly to see one that picks up traction.

Remember, when you see a Profitable Business Idea, you’ll know it.

Here’s a great example that happened this Thursday. I was coaching one of my clients, and she was frustrated that her idea wasn’t picking up any traction. I walked her through the framework from this chapter of the guide, and helped her brainstorm some new Profitable Business Ideas.

She off-handedly mentioned something about “designing e-books in Google Documents”, and another one of my clients interrupted the conversation and said “I’d buy that for my assistant in an instant. I’d happily pay $300 if you can teach her how to do it”.

As we started talking about the idea more and more, we helped her clarify it into “Teaching assistants of online entrepreneurs design beautiful e-books and worksheets in Google Docs”, and I got excited about the idea as well, and said “I want that for my assistant as well!”.

It was magical. My client went from an idea to 2 paying customers in a matter of minutes. That’s when you know you have a Profitable Business Idea.

“What if I can’t find a Profitable Business Idea after months of trying to grow my E-mail list”?

If you keep running List-Building Experiments on different business ideas and none of them seem to pick up traction, there’s a few things you can do:

  • Get good at a valuable skill: Instead of asking yourself “which existing skill can I build a business about”, you can learn new, valuable skills that you can then build a business around (for example, if I noticed that people want to learn how to create online course, I could get good at creating them, then try to build a business around it).
  • Find existing traction: You can go into online forums and communities and find questions that are ALREADY getting a lot of traction. For example, if you found a reddit thread that has 1,000+ comments, that might be a big problem that people have that could be worth solving.
  • Try something completely different: My friend Naveen Dittakavi from NextVacay started out with a business idea to import BMWs from Europe to the US, which never really took off. He then built a very profitable business around teaching software engineers how to build recurring revenue, and an even bigger business around finding flight deals (NextVacay).  

If your idea just doesn’t take off after months and months of work, trying something completely different will likely be better than doing what you’ve been doing before.

“Should I pick an idea that I’m more excited about, or an idea that there’s a lot of demand for?”

Whenever I work on a business idea, I make sure that it’s an idea that:

  • I’m an expert at
  • I can talk about for hours on end
  • There’s a lot of demand for

If I pick an idea that I’m not an expert at, I’ll experience a lot of imposter syndrome (“I’m not good enough”).

If I pick an idea that doesn’t excite me, I’ll get bored quickly and won’t work on it as hard as I would want to.

If I pick an idea that there isn’t enough demand for, I won’t get enough traction with my idea.

Now if I have two ideas that tick all of the above boxes and one of them is more exciting and the other one seems more profitable, I’ll personally pick an idea that’s more exciting to me (as having fun with my business is more important to me than making the most money possible).

Think about what’s more important to you – is it making money or having fun? And choose the option that suits you best.

If you’re just not sure, you can do a 1-month trial.  

Try working on an idea for a month, and go all out on it. If you love it and you see traction with it, keep going. If not, switch to a different idea.

“How Much Customer Research do I Need to do Before I Validate my Idea?”

Doing customer research is extremely important when you try to create new blog posts, e-books or online courses in your business.

But to get to your first 100 e-mail subscribers, you don’t need to spend tens of hours on customer research. You don’t need to do a lot of research to ask “Would you like to learn about how to speak at a TEDx event?”.

You’d be better off testing different ideas to find traction, and then, ONCE you have 100 e-mail subscribers, simply do all the customer research with those 100 e-mail subscribers.

“What if I don’t have anything unique to offer?”

Watch this amazing video from Michael Ellsberg, it might spark some ideas:

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Screen-Shot-2019-05-16-at-11.11.07.png

And if that’s not enough, try out my 9 ways to find a profitable online business idea – you’re bound to come up with some new ideas that you can validate!

“Can I get good at something and share my personal journey as my business idea?”

Here’s a question I got from one of my readers of this guide:

“Hi Primoz, I have been stuck with my business for more than 2 years for various reasons. I have tried blogging on a few different topics in the last 2+ years. 

My biggest challenge is that my 10+ years of experience has been with Oracle databases. But I somehow lost interest in pursuing the same career in database engineering, which brings me to my biggest challenge. 

I have tried blogging on topics like data science, fitness, and parenting.

Since I am not an expert in any of these topics, it is always in the back of my mind holding me back.  I am thinking “Okay, let me go through a personal transformation and share it on my blog first. And then use that as a starting point for my business.”

But I have failed miserably so far with this strategy. As you know, personal transformation is not easy. Otherwise everyone will do it. 

What am I doing wrongly here?”

It breaks my heart when I hear stories like these. I see so many people who keep trying and trying to build an online business for YEARS, without seeing any traction at all.

To avoid being in a scenario like this (or to get out of it), you should always validate your business ideas and try to see enough traction with your ideas in 1-2 weeks to get to your first 100 e-mail subscribers.

Even if you tested 10 different business ideas that way, it would still take you only 10 weeks to test them, which is a lot less than 2 years.

The big mistake you can make here is to keep going with your idea even if there’s no traction, which will lead to a situation like this in 99% of the cases.

Ok, onwards to answer the question of “can I go through a personal transformation, share it on my blog, and then build a business around it?”

The answer is yes and no.

Let’s first look at the data. How many of the entrepreneurs that I interviewed for this guide followed this approach?

Zero.

Everyone that I interviewed was already fairly good / amazing at the topic they built an online business around, which makes sense to me (if you want to open a restaurant, you should be a good chef already).

While there MIGHT be entrepreneurs who followed that approach, they’re outliers, unicorns, and exceptions to the rule.

CAN that approach work? It can, but it’s a gamble.

The problem with that approach is that if you DON’T see any traction before you put years into getting good at something, your idea might never take off. And as my reader said, “getting good at something” isn’t necessarily easy either.

Sure, there are viral videos out there like this 10-year singing transformation.

But those videos usually become viral AFTER the 10 years of effort, and 99% of them might still never get noticed.

The bigger problem however is that if you try to get good at something JUST to build a business around it, that might not motivate you enough to actually do it.

The “personal transformation journeys” businesses usually don’t start out as business ideas. They’re stories of hobbies that people used to blog about, then someday took off. They were never intended to be businesses, the business/virality was usually accidental.

You probably won’t become a great singer in 2 years if you just want to build a business around it. You’ll become a great singer if you really want to learn how to sing.

Based on the data, I can’t recommend “going on a personal transformation and documenting your journey” as a solid strategy for building a business. The success stories for that strategy are few and far in-between, and the idea validation process is just way too stretched out.

So if that’s not a solid approach, what CAN you do if you are an expert in only one area that you don’t want to talk about any more?

My recommendation is to get good at something first, and THEN, MAYBE build a business around it.

If you can’t find a profitable business idea that:

  • You ARE an expert in already
  • You CAN talk about for hours on end
  • There IS demand for

Then take a break from building an online business. Instead, go and explore life. Get good at something BECAUSE you want to get good at it, not because you want to build a business around it.

If you want to blog about it, by all means do it (but know that chances of success are slim). Though perhaps it might be more fun not to worry about blogging at all.

Then, once you do, in a year or two, revisit the subject on building an online business, and see if there’s something there. Maybe you’ll see the online business world in a different way.

Or maybe, you’ll one day come up with an idea that you ARE an expert in, you CAN talk about for hours on end, and there IS demand for out of thin air, test it, and it will take off.

But at least you won’t spend another 2 years frustrated and spinning your wheels. You’ll spend the 2 years living your life and doing things you love.

Continue to Chapter 5: How to Find Problems Worth Solving

Your turn: What other questions do you have about finding or validating your online business idea, finding your first moments of traction or getting to your 100 e-mail subscribers? Let me know in the comments below!

Are you ready to build an e-mail list of 1,000+ BUYERS?

Download the full 393-page PDF version of this EPIC list-building guide, to print it out or read it on the go!

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How to Rapidly Validate Your Online Business Idea

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You’re currently reading Chapter 3 of The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List.

In the last chapter of this guide, we talked about how to find your Profitable Online Business Idea (and why having an incredible idea is the key to growing your e-mail list today).

But how do you validate your business ideas to know that they’re ideas worth pursuing (and how can you build your e-mail list to 100+ e-mail subscribers before even setting up a website)?

That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this chapter. You’ll learn about:

  • Moments of Traction: The quickest way to validate your online business idea and get your first 100 e-mail subscribers
  • Why you shouldn’t pursue business ideas that feel like an “uphill battle”
  • List-Building Experiments: How to create your Moments of Traction and quickly validate your online business idea
  • How to know when you’ve successfully validated your online business idea
  • The easy & hard ways to validate your online business idea (and which one to choose)
  • Exact business idea validation scripts and examples
  • How to collect your first 100 e-mail subscribers (even if you don’t have a website yet)
  • What to do if you don’t see any traction with your idea

This is a long chapter – but working through it will save you weeks or months pursuing an idea that won’t take off – so going through it will be well worth it for you :).

Business Idea Validation Masterclass

If you want to dive deep into the process of business idea validation, you can watch my Business Idea Validation Masterclass where I’ll show you the “mad scientist method” for validating your business ideas and show you how I would validate different business ideas myself (it’s a great supplement to this blog post):

Moments of Traction: The Quickest Way to Validate Your Online Business Idea And Get Your First 100 E-mail Subscribers

You can very easily predict how an online business will go based on how well it does in the first 3 months (with rare exceptions).

I see a lot of entrepreneurs fighting and living an uphill battle where they pursue business ideas for months or years, but their business never really takes off. Their email list is practically inexistent. They never find their first paying clients. They put in the work, but the results just aren’t there.

The culprit, in most cases, is either that:

On the flip side, almost every established entrepreneur I ever talked to about how they started their online business had a big moment very early on that helped them validate their online business idea, told them “there was something there”, and gave them the momentum to go all out on their business idea.

I call these moments Moments of Traction.

What are Moments of Traction and How Can They Help You Validate Your Online Business Idea?

These Moments of Traction could be anything from asking people to hire you, to growing your e-mail list to hundreds of email subscribers practically overnight.

Here are some examples of Moments of Traction from entrepreneurs I interviewed for this guide:

  • “Working With You is a No-Brainer”
    • Christina Rebuffet: “I was getting a lot of positive feedback from the videos I was doing. First time someone contacted me for lessons online, my pricing was a lot more expensive than in the English learning centre, and someone paid almost instantly because they saw my videos and liked them.”
  • “Can I hire You?”
    • Matt Rosenblum: “I went to a meet up through meetup.com and talked to the host of the meet up. He then hired me on the spot.”
  • “Do More of This!”
    • Danny Margulies: “I published a blog post online, and a lot of people messaged me telling me to write more posts like this”
  • Inbox Full of Emails
    • Gabriela Pereira: “I asked a question on my blog that very few people read, “if there was a DIY approach to getting a MFA (writing degree), would you do it?” , and woke up to an inbox full of comments”
    • Sam Gavis-Hughson: “I Went into a few online groups, hackathon hackers interview prep group, posted on reddit, etc. – overnight, 50 people e-mailed me saying YES I want to learn about preparing for tech interviews.”
  • “You’re reading my mind!”
    • Karen Dudek-Brannan: “I wrote a blog post and shared it in a Facebook group in my industry, and got a lot of people emailing me and saying “wow you’re reading my mind”. This told me I’m pursuing the right idea.”
  • A Flood of Comments
    • Karen Dudek-Brannan: “I wrote a blog post and shared it in a FB group of 20k+ people. “Hey guys, I noticed a lot of people have this issue, I wrote a blog post on this topic, and hope it’s helpful”. I got 186 email subscribers in 2 days without an opt-in, and got a flood of comments. That was the green light for the niche and area within speech pathology.”
  • “I’ve been looking for this for years”
    • Geraldine Lepere: “When I started creating YouTube videos, people said things like “I’ve been looking for this for years”, and “I would have loved this a few years ago”, because I answered questions in a way they have never seen before.”

You get the idea. In a nutshell, your Moment of Traction will likely be

  • Instant Pay Validation: Someone trying to hire you
  • A Flood of Comments: A lot of people commenting or emailing you about your idea
  • A Strong Emotional Response: “you should do more of this!

The more Moments of Traction you’ll have in the earlier stages of your online business, the faster your email list will grow.

WARNING: Don’t Pursue Business Ideas That Feel Like “Fighting an Uphill Battle”

If you’ve spent more than a few months working on your online business, haven’t seen any real Moments of Traction and your business feels like “fighting an uphill battle”, I’d be very worried.

I’ve seen this happen over and over again.

Aspiring entrepreneurs fall in love with their ideas, and hope that “it will all work out if you keep plugging away”. But unfortunately, what usually happens is more of the same – more “plugging away”, but no traction.

It’s exactly what happened to me when I spent 6 months getting to 42 email subscribers. Had I pursued that business idea, I would have likely never build an online business.

If that’s the case, you might want to go back to the drawing board to find another business idea that DOES take off (when you DO find a Profitable Online Business Idea that DOES create traction, working on it will feel like night and day).

I know hearing this might be uncomfortable, but if I look at the cold, hard data, there’s just nobody saying “I spent a year working on this business idea and then it magically took off overnight”. It just never happens.

Now of course you might not be missing out on the Moments of Traction because your idea isn’t good – it might just be that you never tested it in real world, and couldn’t even encounter a Moment of Traction.

If that’s the case, you’ll know A LOT more about how good your business idea actually is over the next week, as you work through the steps in this guide.

And if things go well, you’ll validate your online business idea and sit on 100+ email subscribers in no time.

List-Building Experiments: How to Create Your Moments of Traction and Validate Your Online Business Idea

So how do you go and create your Moments of Traction to validate your online business idea and get your first 100 e-mail subscribers?

Through List-Building Experiments.

Here, I’d like to share a word of caution. There will be a slight disconnect between the overall strategy that I’ll share for building your e-mail list in this guide, and what the entrepreneurs I interviewed actually did to start building their email lists.

Let me explain.

In this guide, I don’t recommend you to create content, a lead magnet, or even a website before you have hundreds of email subscribers. I believe that’s the leanest approach to building your email list that requires the least time and resources.

But in reality, you CAN do all of those things to create your first Moments of Traction, and many entrepreneurs that I interviewed didn’t really have any business knowledge when they started their online business, and just did things they thought would make sense at the time.

For example, when I asked Luke McIntosh how he started out, he said “I thought to myself, let me just put a few videos out there and see what happens”. There was no strategy involved – only fun experiments.

In this section, I’ll share a few different ways to create your first Moments of Traction (that entrepreneurs I interviewed actually used). Some of these will require more time, others less. Some of these will require you to set up a website and read through the future sections of this guide, others won’t.

It’s up to you to choose an approach that YOU are the most excited about. I believe that doing things that you are excited about in your business will get you WAY better results than doing something you don’t want to do and you “should do” just because someone else told you to do it.

But let me warn you: there is a danger in skipping ahead in this guide.

If you move on to creating your website, your Lead Magnet and Remarkable Content, it’s very easy to put in weeks or months of work before you actually put your idea into the world. This means you could spend weeks or months working on an idea that will never take off (or, your idea could take off).

So regardless of which route you take, try to make sure that you run your first List Building Experiment and validate your online business idea within 1-2 weeks, so you can quickly build traction with ideas that work, and ditch the ideas that don’t. That’s the best way to avoid getting stuck in the List-Building Rat Race.

Another thing I will mention is that many entrepreneurs I interviewed didn’t actually start their business by focusing on growing their email list, which is why their Moments of Traction might be different (like getting their first few paying customers instead of hundreds of email subscribers).

Because this IS a guide on how to build your email list, I do suggest that you always think about how your Moments of Traction can help you build an email list, and capture the email addresses from people who are excited about your Profitable Online Business Idea, even if that means capturing them manually.

Ok, now that we set the context, let’s go back to List-Building Experiments.

What are List-Building Experiments?

List-Building Experiments are experiments you can run to validate your Profitable Online Business Idea and quickly build traction with your idea.

Ideally, you’ll want to run a few of these experiments over the course of 1-2 weeks.

I can’t tell you how many of these to run as there’s no exact number, but in the more ways you put your idea out there, the higher the chances are of finding your Moment of Traction (or seeing that the idea isn’t promising enough to pursue).

To make things more concrete, here’s an example of a List-Building Experiment from one of my clients, Michelle Rebosio:

“I asked people in a group about International Development if they would be interested in reading The Ultimate Guide to Finding a Job in International Development, and 500 people commented on the post saying they would read it”.

Here’s another example from Ryan Hildebrandt:

“I went into 20 Facebook and LinkedIn groups and asked people if they would be interested in learning how to speak at TEDx events, to see what the response would be like.”

Ok, you get the idea.

How to Know if You’ve Successfully Validated Your Online Business Idea: The 3 Levels of Traction

Once you run your List-Building Experiments, each of them will hit one of the 3 Levels of Traction:

  • No Traction: You’ll hear crickets, and practically nobody will attention to your idea
  • Some Traction: You’ll get some enthusiastic responses, but not hundreds
  • Massive Traction: You’ll get hundreds of responses to your idea

If we return to Michelle’s example of making a Facebook post about writing a Lead Magnet about finding a job in International Development, here’s what that could look like:

  • 0-20 comments/likes: No Traction
  • 30-50 comments/likes: Some Traction
  • 100+ comments/likes: Massive Traction

NOTE: These “levels” are a bit subjective, and if you’re ever in doubt, you should always use the LOWER level to measure the success of your List-Building Experiment.

This means that if you’re not sure if you’re seeing No Traction or Some Traction, you should err on the side of being cautious and count it as No Traction. So for example, If Michelle only got 10 comments from a group of 20,000 people, that would still count as No Traction.

There will also be some “gray area” situations, like getting 70 comments/likes. Is that Some Traction or Massive Traction? If there are a lot of enthusiastic comments, it’s Massive Traction. If it’s mostly likes and only a few short comments, it’s Some Traction.

Use your gut feeling, but don’t lie to yourself.

How Much Traction do You Need to Validate Your Online Business Idea?

The goal of running these List-Building Experiments is to get to 100 e-mail subscribers over the course of 1-2 weeks.

You could do this through one Moment of Massive Traction, like Karen Dudek-Brannan, who got 186 email subscribers through sharing one blog post in a Facebook group.

Or, it could be through multiple Moments of Some Traction, like Danny Margulies, who didn’t really have a Massive Moment of Traction, and instead saw multiple small wins that helped him build more and more momentum.

I’d be worried if after 1-2 weeks you’re at only 10 email subscribers (and all of those are your friends and family members).

But if you’re at 80 or 100 email subscribers and new subscribers keep trickling in, it means that there’s enough traction for you to move to the Momentum Stage.

The Easy and Hard Way to Validate Your Online Business Idea

Ok, so let’s look at the 2 main types of List-Building Experiments you can run to validate your Profitable Online Business Idea and get to your first 100 email subscribers.

The Quick And Easy Way can help you get you your first 100 e-mail subscribers in a few hours or days, while The Hard And Long Way can take longer, but can also bring more e-mail subscribers your way.

The Quick And Easy Way to Validate Your Online Business Idea

The simplest and quickest List-Building Experiment you can run is The Quick And Easy Way. You can literally run this experiment within a few minutes and see exactly where you stand with your Profitable Online Business Idea, and start building your email list.

You’ve already seen this one in action with examples from Michelle and Ryan that I shared earlier in this chapter.

All you need to do is ask your potential audience if they would like to learn about the topic you’d like to talk about.

Here are some examples

  • “Would you like to learn how to speak at a TEDx event?” (Ryan Hildebrandt)
  • “Would you like to learn how to find a job in International Development?” (Michelle Rebosio)
  • “Would you like to learn how to land jobs at top tech companies?” (Sam Gavis-Hughson)

You could ask this question

  • On your Facebook Wall
  • In Facebook Groups
  • In LInkedIn Groups
  • On Reddit
  • In Online Forums
  • …

To get enough data and make sure you actually build your email list, you should try to ask this question in 10-20 different places (the more the merrier).

You could ask your question through:

  • A short post: You could create a post with no context at all, and simply ask the question.
  • A long post: You could create a post that sets the context around your question

Here is an example of a long post that Rusty Gray could ask to test his idea of teaching animators how to get jobs as professional animators (I made this example up):

“Hey guys, this is Rusty.

I’ve worked in the animation industry for the past 20 years, and animated at companies like Disney, and worked on films like Toy Story 2.

I’m thinking of starting a blog about how to find a job as a professional animator.

I noticed that a lot of you had questions in this group how to find the right job, how much experience you should have, and specific animation techniques.

Would you be interested in reading a blog like that?”

I don’t have data on which approach is better, and have seen both approaches work – so pick the one you’re more comfortable with.

The Hard And Long Way to Validate Your Online Business Idea

The second type of an experiment is The Hard And Long Way.

This experiment will be more time consuming than The Quick And Easy Way and might require you to set up a website and knowledge on how to create Remarkable Content or a Lead Magnet (which we do cover in this guide), which can be a dangerous and time-consuming rabbit hole when you are trying to get to 100 email subscribers as quickly as possible.

The last thing you want to happen is to spend a month developing a website (rather than just going out into the world and testing your idea).

On the flip side, writing some extremely valuable content might feel better to you than just asking a question in a community you’ve just joined, so if this type of an experiment excites you, you should definitely go for it.

The idea behind this strategy is simple:

Write one or more pieces of Remarkable Content (or create a Lead Magnet) about a “Problem Worth Solving” and spread the word about it to see if people like it or not.

Your piece of content could be a blog post, a YouTube video, a post in a Facebook group, an e-book, or something else.

This is exactly what Karen Dudek-Brannan did to go from 0-186 email subscribers with one blog post. She found a topic that her audience kept complaining about, wrote a blog post about it, and shared it in a Facebook Group about speech pathology.

You can run this experiment in one of the following ways:

  • Contribute To The Community: You can go directly into a community (like Reddit, a Facebook group, a LinkedIn group, an online forum…) and write a post there, without setting up a website
  • Create & Share: You can set up a simple website / YouTube channel, create content on your blog / YouTube, and share your content in online communities
  • Partner: You can do a partnership with another entrepreneur to get your first few email subscribers (a podcast interview, a joined webinar, a guest post…)
  • Build it And They Will Come: You can tap into an existing audience of a platform like YouTube, churn out a decent amount of content, and hope some of it takes off

Either of these approaches can work to generate traction.

The benefit of contributing to the community is that it might be easier to collect email subscribers, though it will take considerably more work to actually set up your website or YouTube channel. It might also be harder to share your content in communities that have strict guidelines around sharing your content.

The benefit of creating & sharing your content is that it’s less likely you’ll break any rules in online communities, and sharing your content will seem less “self-promotional”. The downside is that it might be a bit trickier to collect email addresses that way.

The benefit of doing a partnership is that you’ll be tapping into an existing audience. Especially if you’re already connected to other entrepreneurs in your niche, this can be a great way to start building your email list. The downside is that you will need some way of capturing your email subscribers, and that if you don’t have the connections built yet, making these connections and getting partnership opportunities might take a prohibitively long time.

The benefit of the “Building it And They Will Come” is that you can just focus on creating great content and not worry about anything else, and you can tap into an existing audience from a platform like YouTube. The downside is that it might take weeks of months until you start seeing traction (Luke McIntosh who built an audience of 25,000+ e-mail subscribers through YouTube said it took him 6-7 weeks of publishing weekly videos to see traction through YouTube).

As I mentioned earlier, this is an approach that a lot of the entrepreneurs I interviewed took.

Here are some examples:

  • After Gabriela Pereira asked her handful of blog readers if they were interested in learning about a “DIY writing degree”, she wrote a blog post every day for a month about that topic, and went from 12 to 400 blog followers.
  • Peter Nguyen, a stylist for men, wrote a guest post on a friend’s website and attracted 1,000+ e-mail subscribers from it
  • Rusty Gray wrote a guest post and got 400+ e-mail subscribers from it
  • Geraldine Lepere, Christina Rebuffet and Luke McIntosh all built their e-mail lists through YouTube videos
  • Sam Gavis-Hughson published an e-book that helped him double his e-mail list overnight, attracting 500+ e-mail subscribers
  • Olivia Angelescu created a resource (a list of websites that you can contribute to as a blogger and how to pitch them), asked if anyone wanted access to it in a Facebook group, and got 400+ e-mail subscribers

As you can see, these approaches are all different from each other, and there’s no one proven way you HAVE to follow to get to your first 100 e-mail subscribers.

Still, what is obvious from all the data I collected is that you should either:

  • Ask people if they’re interested in learning what you have to teach
  • Create amazing content and put it into the world

If you want to get to your first 100 e-mail subscribers and create the first Moment of Traction in your online business.

Should you Follow the Quick and Easy, or Long and Hard way to Validate Your Online Business Idea?

This is the part of the guide where the advice I’ll give you is different from what the majority of the entrepreneurs I interviewed did.

Instead of trying to reach the 100 e-mail subscribers the “Long and Hard Way” like they did, I recommend you to take the MUCH quicker and easier “Quick and Easy Way”. You’ll save yourself weeks, if not months of work, and get to 100+ e-mail subscribers a lot quicker.

You can easily go into 10-20 different online communities and ask people if they would want to learn more about a topic you’re amazing at in an afternoon. And the next day, you could already have 100+ e-mail subscribers.

In my eyes, that’s a much better approach than setting up a website, writing 5 blog post or an e-book, or shooting 10 YouTube videos.

If you come up with an amazing business idea, you won’t NEED content to generate the initial interest. You don’t need to create any content in order for people to raise their hands and say “yes, I’m interested. Tell me more!”.

How to collect your first 100 e-mail addresses

At this point, you might be wondering how you could even collect the 100 e-mail addresses if we didn’t talk about using any e-mail software yet.

The truth is that you don’t need an e-mail provider, landing page or a website when you’re trying to collect your first 100 e-mail subscribers. Your time and energy would be better spent actually running List-Building Experiments.

You just need to collect the 100 e-mail addresses that you can e-mail in the future.

You can save your first 100 e-mail addresses in one of the two ways

  • The “Quick and Dirty” approach: Save your e-mail addresses on a piece of paper, a Google Document or an Excel Spreadsheet
  • The “Still Simple Enough” approach: Get a Mailchimp account (a free e-mail provider for smaller e-mail lists), and manually enter the e-mail addresses into an email lis

And as far as how to actually collect the e-mail addresses, this is where some old-fashioned Manual Labour comes in.

This is how Olivia Angelescu got to her first 400 e-mail subscribers by creating and sharing an Epic Lead Magnet:

  • She created a resource for herself (a list of websites you can contribute to as a blogger and how to pitch them)
  • She thought others would benefit from this resource as well, so she asked people if they wanted to get access to this resource in an online community she was already a part of and active in
  • Overnight, she got over 520 empathic comments saying that they wanted to get the resource
  • She sent each person a private message and asked them if she can send them the resource via email and add them to an email list
  • This way, she collected over 400 e-mail subscribers

You could do the same thing to collect your first 100 e-mail addresses, whether you create a Lead Magnet or not.

Once you ask people if they’d be interested in learning more about the topic you want to teach, you can send the people who commented on or liked your post a private message and ask them if they’d like to be added to an email list where you’ll send them the articles you write.

For example, you could send them a message like this:

“Hey NAME, I noticed that you commented on my post in the [COMMUNITY] and that you’d love to learn more about how to become a professional animator.

I’m putting together a few articles related to this topic over the next few weeks, and if you’d like to, I can e-mail them to you once they’re ready through my email list.

If you’d like that, can you send me your e-mail address? I’ll send you the articles as soon as they’re ready.”

This is the general approach you can use to collect e-mail addresses without a website – and even if you don’t have an e-mail provider yet, you can just e-mail the articles to people manually through e-mail (make sure you bcc everyone if you send an e-mail to multiple people at once though).

Alternatively, if you already do have an e-mail provider, you could also set up a simple landing page like this from my friend Tim Hoffman (he created an email list for people who want to learn how to open a coffee shop):

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Screen-Shot-2019-05-13-at-09.47.09.png

You could then simply send the link to this landing page to the people who are interested in learning more about your business.

Last but not least, you could create a landing page like this with a Lead Magnet that you could link people to:

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Screen-Shot-2019-05-13-at-09.48.23.png

If you’re not sure what a landing page or a Lead Magnet is, don’t worry – we’ll cover these in the next chapters of this guide:

Finally, another approach that Michelle Rebosio used to get over 1,000 e-mail subscribers within a month of starting her website is to:

  • Create a post in an online community asking people if they would like to learn about a specific subject (in Michelle’s case, she asked people if they’d like to read a guide about finding a job in International Development)
  • Create the Lead Magnet, circle back to the post you’ve made earlier (that ideally got a massive response), and either leave a comment with the link to the Lead Magnet on the post, or individually message people with a link to the Lead Magnet so they can get access to it and sign up to your e-mail list

There’s no “wrong” way of going through these steps. Pick the approach that feels best for you, and go ahead and try it out!

What Should You do if You Don’t See Any Traction With Your Idea?

What if go and test your idea in 10-20 online communities, and get zero to no response? What if there’s no Massive Moment of Traction? What should you do then?

You have only two real options:

  • OPTION #1: “Kill Your Baby”, let go of your existing business idea, come up with a new one and run the List-Building Experiments until you experience your first Moments of Traction
  • OPTION #2: Keep working on your existing business idea and take the “Long and Hard Way” until you find your Moment of Traction

Based on everything I’ve seen working with 1,000+ online entrepreneurs and helping them set up their online businesses, option #2 ends in the exact same place 99% of the time: The List-Building Rat Race.

If you put your idea in front of hundreds of people and hear crickets, it’s unlikely that there’s something there. You can go ahead, set up a website and start creating content, hoping that “people will see that they need this”, but in reality, you’ll likely end up with 42 email subscribers and a lot of wasted time and energy after 6 months.

Or, you can let go of your existing idea, spent a few more weeks running List-Building Experiments, and within a few weeks you will likely find an idea that DOES create Moments of Traction, and speed well past 100 e-mail subscribers, feeling thankful that you didn’t spend more energy on an idea that felt like fighting an up-hill battle.

The choice is yours, and the fate of your online business is in your hands.

The same goes for trying the Long and Hard Way, and not seeing traction with your idea after you spent 1-2 weeks spreading the word about the content you wrote. If there’s no traction within the first few weeks, it’s unlikely that there will ever be.

Summary: How to Validate Your Online Business Idea

In this chapter, you learned about Moments of Traction that help you quickly validate your online business ideas.

Moments of Traction could be:

  • Someone saying that “working with you is a no-brainer for them”
  • Someone hiring you on the spot as you share your idea with them
  • Someone enthusiastically telling you to write more articles around your idea
  • Waking up to an inbox full of e-mails asking to learn from you
  • Someone saying that you’re “reading their mind”
  • Receiving a flood of comments on an article or a post you publish online
  • Someone saying they’ve been “looking for this for years”

They will boil down to instant pay validation, receiving a flood of comments or a strong emotional response.

You learned that working on profitable online business ideas shouldn’t feel like an “uphill battle”, and that working on an idea that does take off will feel quite the opposite (you’ll know it when you see it).

You also learned about “list-building experiments” that you can run over the course 1-2 weeks to quickly validate your online business idea.

We talked about the “quick and easy” and “long and hard” ways to run these experiments:

  • The “quick and easy way” is to go into 10-20 online communities and ask the members if they’d like to learn about the topic you’d like to teach
  • The “long and hard way” is to go ahead and create a High-Converting Website, some Remarkable Content and/or an Epic Lead Magnet, and then spread the word about it

I recommended you to try the “quick and easy way”, as you can go through it in 1-2 days with zero downsides, and validate your online business idea a lot quicker than through the “long and hard way”.

You learned that you don’t need a website or an e-mail list to collect your first 100 e-mail addresses, and that you can simply collect them on a piece of paper or in an excel spreadsheet (to simplify your life).

Finally, we covered the 2 options you have when your business idea doesn’t take off after your validation process:

  • OPTION #1: “Kill your baby”, let go of your idea and pick a new one
  • OPTION #2: Keep trying to gain traction with your idea

I recommended OPTION #1 as examples of established entrepreneurs whose business idea miraculously took off overnight are few and far in-between, while there are far more examples of entrepreneurs whose ideas instantly saw traction.

In the next chapter of this guide, we’ll cover the 6 common questions you might have at this stage of starting your online business and getting to your first 100 e-mail subscribers:

  • “Do I need a clear audience for my business idea?”
  • “When is my idea “good enough”, when does it need more refinement, and when should I move on to a new idea?”
  • “What if I can’t find a profitable business idea after months of searching for one?”
  • “Should I choose an idea I’m more excited about, or that there’s more demand for?”
  • “How much customer research do I need to do before I validate my idea?”
  • “What if I don’t have anything unique to offer?”

Continue to Chapter 4: How to Get Un-Stuck With Finding Your Profitable Business Idea

Your Turn: What has your experience been with validating your Online Business Idea?

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How to Find a Profitable Online Business Idea

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How to find a profitable online business idea

You’re currently reading Chapter 2 of The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List.

How to avoid the “List-Building Rat Race”

When I first started my website, I spent $500 on a custom design, wrote tens of blog posts, and worked hard on it for months.

And yet, in over the course of 6 months, I only managed to get a measly 42 e-mail subscribers, and never expected to turn it into an online business that I could live off.

I LIVED the “List-Building Rat Race”, and it’s no wonder I ended up deleting my website after spending hundreds of hours and dollars on it.

Why did I struggle with growing my e-mail list?

Well, I probably broke every single rule in my Ultimate Guide to Growing Your E-mail List (oops):

  • I didn’t test my business idea or experience any Moments of Traction (TRACTION stage)
  • I didn’t create an Epic Lead Magnet that would turn my website visitors into e-mail subscribers (MOMENTUM stage)
  • I definitely didn’t create and promote any Remarkable Content (GROWTH stage)

Instead, I built a blog, started sharing my ideas, and hoped that I would somehow magically build an online business. It didn’t work.

The good news is that you don’t have to repeat my mistakes and spend 6 months grinding to 42 e-mail subscribers.

And the best way to start is to find a Profitable Online Business Idea.

Finding Your Profitable Business Idea might not be something that you think of as a crucial step to growing your e-mail list.

However, it can be THE thing that makes the difference between a business that grows exponentially and a business that stays stuck in the List-Building Rat Race forever.

In this post, we’ll talk about:

  • Why you need a Profitable Online Business Idea to grow your e-mail list in 2019
  • What is a Profitable Online Business Idea
  • 12 Examples of Profitable Online Business Ideas
  • 9 Ways to come up with a Profitable Online Business Idea
  • Why you shouldn’t spend hours and hours brainstorming ideas (and what to do instead)

Let’s dive in!

To Grow Your Email List in 2019, You Need a Profitable Online Business Idea

Back in 2006-2007, you didn’t have to have a particularly unique business idea to build a successful blog.

Since this was before blogging exploded and it was way harder to get into it (you couldn’t just buy a blog template for $50 and start blogging), there was far less competition.

You could simply start writing, and people in your social circle would read what you write. Facebook posts would get hundreds of likes and shares. Your content would automatically be found on Google, since there was little competition in most industries.

But in 2019, just writing a blog is not enough.

Today, there are over 40x more blog posts written than back in 2006-2007. This means that you likely have 40x more competitors than you did back than, if not more (if you’re trying to enter a very saturated niche like fitness, that number might be a lot higher).

That’s why today, to grow your email list and build a successful online business, it’s more important than ever to have a Profitable Online Business Idea.

The Business Idea Masterclass

Because finding a profitable business idea is such an important topic, I recorded a 65-minute masterclass about it that goes into way more depth – you can watch it here as a supplement to this blog post:

What is a Profitable Online Business Idea?

Today, with thousands of online businesses out there, your should come up with a business idea that is unique in some way to stand out and get noticed.

By a Proftitable Online Business Idea, I mean that you should try to:

  • Solve a problem nobody else is solving yet
  • Help an audience that nobody else is helping yet
  • Help an audience with a problem in a better or different way than anyone else

This will give you the highest chances of finding an online business idea that your potential customers will be happy to pay for.

You can find a Profitable Business Idea in a number of ways:

  • You could come up with a completely new problem that nobody is solving yet (teach people how to learn a new programming language)
  • You could take existing knowledge and tailor it to a specific audience that nobody is helping yet (teaching accountants how to get more clients)
  • You could enter a saturated market with a new angle (lose weight through spices)

As you choose your business idea, you should pick an idea that:

  • You are excited about, and could talk about for hours on end
  • You know a lot about, and you could confidently give advice about
  • There is enough demand for, and people are willing to pay for

I assume you already have some kind of a business idea in mind as you’re reading this guide, and that’s awesome.

But if you tried creating content or publishing an Epic Resource and you just didn’t get an amazing response (or you struggle with getting your first 100 e-mail subscribers), then your business idea is the first piece of the puzzle you should revisit.

12 Examples of Profitable Business Ideas

To get a feel for what makes a Profitable Business Idea, let’s look at some of the ideas from established entrepreneurs I interviewed for this guide.

Every single one of these entrepreneurs has an e-mail list of thousands of e-mail subscribers, successfully sold online courses or coaching programs, and the majority of them earn more than $100,000/year with their online businesses.

Here are some of my favorite examples:

Notice how the majority of these ideas are unique / specific in their own ways (and interestingly enough, the majority of them are not in the health / money making niches).

Some people say that “you don’t need to be an expert to build an online business”, and that you don’t need a unique business idea to succeed, but the data seems to say otherwise.

If you want to live of an online business today, it’s more likely you’ll be able to do it if you come up with a unique business idea than if you try to pursue an idea that has already been done before.

9 Ways to Come up With a Profitable Online Business Idea

When I asked these entrepreneurs how they came up with their business ideas, they shared a few key strategies that you can use to come up with your own Profitable Business Idea.

These are the actual “strategies” that worked for them and helped them build 5-6 figure online businesses.

Strategy #1: Find the Common Complaints

Matt Rosenblum came up with his Profitable ONline Business Idea (marketing for life coaches) by reading Facebook groups related to his industry. He noticed that his audience complained about getting clients ALL the time, and that marketing their business and making it sustainable was a big challenge for them. Since he had a strong background in marketing, he felt like that was a challenge he could solve for them.

Just like Matt, you can pay attention to things people constantly complain about, whether it’s in-person or online. When you find a Common Complaint you can solve, you have a Profitable Online Business Idea worth exploring.

Strategy #2: Find a Game You Can Win

Danny Margulies knew that he wanted to help his clients with Freelancing, as that was something he was good at. Initially, he decided to focus purely on Freelancing through Upwork, and later on he focused on “Freelance Copywriting”, rather than the more competitive fields of just Freelancing or just Copywriting. That’s how he found a game he could win.

As you’re coming up with your Profitable Online Business Idea, ask yourself “What’s a game I can win?”, and try to find a specific audience (Freelance Copywriters) or a specific platform (Upwork) that you feel like is big enough for you to build a business around, but still small enough to be “Winnable”.

Strategy #3: Answer the Unanswered Questions

When Sara Kirsch started her online business, she joined a lot of Facebook groups in her industry and paid attention to questions that kept getting unanswered, or that didn’t get great answers. That’s how she found problems that nobody else was solving for her audience.

As you’re doing research around your Profitable Online Business Idea, try to spot the “Unanswered Questions”, and see if you can find a pattern. You can then use that pattern to form your Profitable Online Business Idea.

Strategy #4: Use Your Unused Research

Karen Dudek-Brannan started her online business by talking about speech pathology, a field she has worked in for 12 years. As she picked her online business idea, she wanted to pick an idea she already knew a lot about, and coincidentally, she had a “pile of research” she wasn’t using from her PhD that she could talk about in her business, which she used to build her online business.

If you have a collection of research / experiments you’ve done in the past that you never shared with anyone, this might be a great opportunity to build a business around.

Strategy #5: Share Your Personal Transformation

Nagina Abdullah saw her online business take off when she shared her personal transformation with the world. As a mom of two kids, she managed to lose over 40lbs and keep the weight off for over a year, and a lot of people were asking her questions about how she did it.

If you have an incredible personal transformation that people keep asking you questions about, this can be a great springboard for your online business.

Strategy #6: Find an Ultra-Specific Audience

Since the health industry was already pretty saturated when Nagina started building her email list, she also decided to focus on a very specific audience as she pursued her idea. She focused on helping busy ambitious women lose weight that didn’t have the time to think about what to do or where to start.

By having a specific audience in mind, she could say things to them that nobody else was saying (about losing weight when you have kids, about walking into a boardroom being consumed with how you look rather than sharing a message with your employees…).

If there’s a specific audience you can relate to or would love working with (and nobody else is serving well), you can try to reach that audience (instead of trying to compete with everyone in your industry).

Strategy #7: Answer Questions People Ask You ALL The Time

Vickie Gould wrote a lot of books, and people around her constantly asked her how she did it. She turned that into an online business where she helps people write and publish best-selling books.

If there’s a topic people ask you questions about all the time, it might be something worth exploring for your Profitable ONline Business Idea.

Strategy #8: “Someone Should Create This”

I recently talked to a friend about how he started his online business, and he said he’s had an idea for YEARS and constantly said to himself “someone should do this”, but nobody ever did. Eventually, he had enough of it and did it himself, and built an extremely profitable online business that helps millions of people all over the world.

If you have a feeling that “someone should create this” about a topic (but nobody ever does), then you could step in and do it yourself, and build a successful business around it.

Strategy #9: “I Could do This For a Different Topic / Audience”

Will Darling who helps people produce EDM music online had a friend who built an online business around helping people learn how to play guitar. He thought to himself “I could do the same thing, but for EDM music”, and it worked.

If you ever see someone building a business and think to yourself “I could do the same thing but for a different topic/audience”, you should definitely try it out.

Why You Shouldn’t Spend Hours and Hours Brainstorming Profitable Online Business Ideas (And What to do Instead)

Something that surprised me as I talked to entrepreneurs about how they came up with their Profitable Online Business Ideas was that almost nobody said “I sat down for 3 hours and brainstormed different business ideas, then came up with this amazing idea” when I asked them how they came up with their ideas.

Sure, some of them might have done a bit of brainstorming, but the actual ideas didn’t come from that. They came from something they were amazing at, that they’ve been doing for years (and just made sense, like with Rusty Gray, who helps animators get jobs as professional animators).

Or, it was that they randomly got an idea as they were browsing through Facebook groups online (like Matt Rosenblum and Sara Kirsch).

You can’t really brainstorm a Profitable Online Business Idea. It will come to you when you least expect it, whether you’re going for a walk, taking a shower, laying in bed in the evening or having a conversation with a friend.

Brainstorming is something that will merely help you START thinking about business ideas, and allow your brain to think of more ideas on the go.

What’s important is that WHEN the idea comes, you don’t dismiss it and say “it will never work” before you actually test it, but to go out into the world and see if there’s something there.

So take some time and brainstorm some ideas – then go out and test them in the world using the next chapter of this guide.

Summary: How to Find a Profitable Online Business Idea

In this chapter, you learned that you need a Profitable Online Business idea to escape the List-Building Rat Race and successfully build an e-mail list in 2019.

Without a great idea, your list-building efforts will bring you disappointing results and feel like an “uphill battle”. With a great idea, building an e-mail list will feel easier than you think

We covered that your idea should:

  • Solve a problem nobody else is solving yet
  • Help an audience that nobody else is helping yet
  • Help an audience with a problem in a better or different way than anyone else

You can find a Profitable Business Idea by:

  • Coming up with a completely new problem that nobody is solving yet
  • Taking existing knowledge and tailor it to a specific audience that nobody is helping yet
  • Enter a saturated market with a new angle

And that you should pick an idea that:

  • You are excited about, and could talk about for hours on end
  • You know a lot about, and you could confidently give advice about
  • There is enough demand for, and people are willing to pay for

We looked at 12 examples of Profitable Online Business Ideas and went over a 9 different strategies for coming up with your own idea:

  • Strategy #1: Find Common Complaints
  • Strategy #2: Find a Game You Can Win
  • Strategy #3: Answer the Unanswered Questions
  • Strategy #4: Use Your Unused Research
  • Strategy #5: Share Your Personal Transformation
  • Strategy #6: Find an Ultra-Specific Audience
  • Strategy #7: Answer Questions People Ask You ALL The Time
  • Strategy #8: “Someone Should Create This”
  • Strategy #9: “I Could Do This for a Different Topic / Audience”

And finally, I argued why you shouldn’t spend hours and hours brainstorming your ideas, and recommended you to test them in the real world instead.

In the next chapter of this guide, we’ll talk about how you can validate your Profitable Business Ideas in under a week and get to your first 100 e-mail subscribers without getting stuck in research.

Continue to Chapter 3: How to Validate Your Online Business Idea

Your Turn. Which Profitable Online Business Idea(s) did you come up with? Share them with us in the comments below!

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