3 Business Ideas For You To Steal
3 Business Ideas For You To Steal
It’s been two weeks since I stepped down as CEO. I have more time on my hands than I expected. It’s making me realize how overworked I was.
As a result, I am struggling to manage my thoughts.
Recently, my mind has been FLOODED with new ideas. I am constantly reminding myself not to act on these ideas, because that would defeat the entire purpose of stepping down in the first place.
I’ve been working on a few projects for the last few months that are about to launch. There’s plenty going on. Yet, these endless ideas keep coming to me.
I need to put these ideas somewhere. So this week, I am giving you a list of great business ideas that I am forcing myself to ignore. Hopefully one of these ideas will resonate with you and you can take it and run with it.
Steal my ideas. LFG.
1. Start A Job Board
I love job boards. I love them for the same reason that I love directories. It’s one of the few businesses where the marketing and the product are the same thing.
I’ve been thinking a lot about putting a job board on The Census.
In the last few months, we’ve grown The Census to almost 6000 subscribers. People love the newsletter and we clearly found an opening in the market.
A job board is a perfect addition and a great way to monetize.
Job Boards And Newsletters
The other day, I discovered a newsletter called Link In Bio. The newsletter is written by Rachel Karten and I think she does a great job.
One of the first things I noticed is that she monetizes through a job board.
I LOVE THIS!
In my view, one of the best ways to monetize an industry specific newsletter is through job boards. The job market (at least in the United States) is white hot right now, and employers are looking to fill positions with qualified employees.
For Link In Bio, she writes about social media. As such, her job board is focused around social media marketing positions.
It’s a great model and it’s one that would fit perfectly into The Census.
(Note* – Job boards also work really well on hyper local sites. My buddy Randy created a job board for his hyper local site and it’s successful.)
The Census is a weekly newsletter focused on the behavioral health industry, and behavioral health facilities are ALWAYS looking for talented employees. A typical behavioral healthcare facility has multiple departments and many of these positions are difficult to fill.
Some examples include …
nurses
therapists
insurance verification
business development reps
digital marketing specialists
claims collections
documentation
… and many more
It makes perfect sense to put a job board on The Census. I think I could sell job postings for $250 and sell at least one a day.
NNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
My focus is to continue selling listings for Recovery Local and to continue building out the sales team. In the last two weeks, the team has booked 5 pitch meetings for potential clients and new business relationships.
In addition, I’ve grown the MRR for Recovery Local by $5000 in the two months since we’ve launched the product. I show you the entire system and the revenue numbers in this video.
It’s working. I need to stay the course.
The Plan For The Census …
The plan was always to focus on building the best newsletter in the space. That’s what’s most important. Professionals in this industry are thirsty for good content and if we focus on being the best, the business will build itself.
I’m feeling restless with the extra time on my hands, but that is no reason to start new projects and make life more complicated than it needs to be. I know what I need to do, so my priority is to stay focused and keep my eye on the prize.
2. Starting A Fund
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Climbing The Wealth Ladder.
In that article, I make the argument that investing is actually the top tier of the wealth ladder. When you invest, you are deploying maximum leverage, because you don’t have to trade any of your time in exchange for the potential return.
As of right now, the biggest limiting factor for me to make more investments is the capital itself. I’ve built my entire investment portfolio with my own money. I’ve never taken on outside capital. I recently bought another house, and made a significant investment into Hey Creator.
In addition, we are investing heavily into Stodzy and Recovery Local and there are two more investments I plan to make within the next 60 days.
That’s a lot of my own money to be reinvesting. If I were to start a fund, I could take advantage of more opportunities and could hedge my personal risk.
Scratching The Itch
My personal brand acts as a deal flow mechanism. I don’t sell any products or services directly through my newsletter, but rather, I use my newsletter to gain access to entrepreneurs who might want to work with me.
Every day I am meeting talented entrepreneurs and discovering new businesses that you are all creating. I would LOVE to get involved on the ground floor with many of these projects. There’s one project in particular that I love and fully believe in. If I had a fund, I could jump on this opportunity immediately.
But since I am making all my investments with my own personal money, I have to be extra careful and never over extend myself. It sucks because I have to pass on opportunities I would love to be involved in, but that’s probably what is best for me right now.
I’m learning how to manage FOMO.
Starting A Fund Is A Bad Idea
As intriguing as it sounds to pull together a few million dollars and start deploying capital for a living, there are some major downsides.
For instance …
I don’t want the pressure of managing other people’s money. I’m too high strung and too anxious for that.
Managing a fund is not a side project, it’s a full time job. That’s a job I don’t want.
I have plenty of opportunities right in front of me. I don’t need more opportnities, but rather, I need to make the most of what I already have.
The reality is that if I start a fund, I can scale much faster than I am currently able to as a solo investor. The long game for me has always been to build my personal holdings company, but do I need to raise money in order to do that?
Even if I could, should I? Would it make me happy?
Probably not.
I want to go faster, but my higher power is serving life to me at exactly the right pace. Now is a time for stillness, mindfulness, and patience. I must have faith that my path is being laid out in front of me in exactly the right way.
3. Starting A Paid Newsletter
Most of you don’t know this, but I write a daily-ish newsletter on Substack.
The newsletter is called The Blank Page, and it’s a way for me to write creatively. Every evening, I sit down and I write a few sentences that help me process my day, decompress, and keep the creative juices flowing.
Recently, I’ve had the brilliant idea of turning it into a paid newsletter and selling memberships through my email list.
Paid Newsletters
If you are a great writer, then paid newsletters are awesome businesses. I did a breakdown of Brian Clark’s paid newsletter and broke down the process to make $10,000 a month.
Watch the video below to see the full breakdown.
It would be easy enough for me to sell subscriptions to my paid newsletter through the Timstodz.com funnel. The value proposition would be that you could get “behind the scenes access to me and learn the step by step process of building a business.”
Shaan Puri did this some time back and it was a great success for him. But, I can absolutely foresee a future where my paid newsletter takes up all my time.
So I thought the whole "paid newsletter" thing was dumb.
So naturally, I tried it out as an experiment.. The results were kinda nutty. The newsletter started bringing home $49k per month (!) — Here's the backstory pic.twitter.com/lnwYjWLKa8— Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) December 21, 2020
My daily newsletter is a way for me to express myself and write freely. As soon as I stop writing freely is the moment The Blank Page loses it’s value to me and to my readers.
I don’t need to turn everything into a business. These habits of efficiently and scale are so embedded into my thinking that even I forget that I love to write for the sake of writing.
Before the blogs, the companies, and the “personal brand”, I wrote because I love to write. I wrote when no one read my stuff and I continue to write because it’s the best way I have found to stay sane and continually challenge myself to “hit publish”, which is another way for me to contribute to society and give gifts to the world.
As soon as I lose my love for writing, I am toast. So why would I jeopardize that?
Turning my daily newsletter into a paid product is one of the dumbest decisions I could possibly make.
It’s easy to say it and to recognize it, but it’s not as easy to control the restlessness that tells me I should be doing more.
2024 Is The Year Of Doing Less, But Doing It Better
I heard a great quote once that says “we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.”
The last few months has been a prime example of this for me. I am constantly reminding myself not to act on every idea or impulse that comes into my mind.
Recently, Shân gave me the reminder I needed, which inspired me to write this week’s issue.
Why is it so difficult to stay focused on what’s right in front of me? Why is it that no matter how well my life is going, I am always looking for the places in which I am failing or falling behind?
I suppose it is this endless paranoia that helps me be effective. I never rest on my laurels. I’m never comfortable, and as such, I am always seeking growth and areas of improvement.
However, it’s counter productive for me to put that energy towards starting new projects. That is a form of fear, more than anything else. Instead, I should focus on doing more of what I am already doing, and making my products and services better.
“Less but better.”
Steal These Ideas
Just because I can’t take advantage of these business ideas, doesn’t mean you can’t.
I learned everything I know by watching and copying other people I admire. Recently, I see people creating products and brands that I know were inspired by something I wrote or a video I made.
That makes me happy. Life is coming around full circle.
My goal is to be of service. I hope that my thoughts and musings give you insight into opportunities you may not have seen otherwise. All 3 of these ideas are reasonable, profitable, and pragmatic.
If you get started now, and if you go all in, I am fully confident you will find success.
So what’s stopping you? Go.
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