30x500 when is it worth it?

Hi Johann,

Let me try to quickly answer your questions.

1. Not sure if you can call it survivorship bias. As with any course there are lots of people who enroll in 30x500 but never really start or never really put in the work. So for every successful alumni there are a few students who didn't make it. But that's less about the course content itself.

Apart from the big successes like Brennan Dunn or egghead there are many more smaller success stories of people earning their living or making a great extra income. I've been following at least a dozen or two in the past two years. Mario for example was pretty successful last year with his first book. Here's more about his learnings: https://stackingthebricks.com/mario-nzualo-business-is-a-skill/

I made a few thousand dollars by now. I haven't been the most consistent student and took some detours. But I know it's going to be more if I continue to put in the work.

2. The community is pretty large with more than 1k students/alumni. Apart from the content itself this is the biggest resource imo. There are very active members of varying levels of experience. So the community is helpful if you need to get feedback or help. But it's also a great opportunity to practice your learnings when more inexperienced students have questions. For example by reviewing pitches and landing pages of others. You have access to the community after the course as well.

3. I had this approach as well tbh: My hours are worth x so when will the course be worth it? Now I don't think this is the best way of thinking about building a business. The number of hours I put into my business compared to the money I made until now are a joke when I look at my hourly rate as a developer. In most cases this will be true in the first years of your business (or maybe months if you're really lucky).

The difference is that a product business is scalable beyond your hours of work. So at a point with persistence and the right approach your income will be somewhat independent of the hours you put in.

I'm sure you know that already. So as a summary: the business approach of 30x500 is rather slow but long-term using a proven and repeatable process. All the rest depends on you. You need to put in the work and persistence.

The $2k investment for the course is little compared to the time investment it'll take to make the business work. But if you're serious about building a business and you're sick or afraid of wasting your time on products that don't sell then you're at the right place. The processes you learn might well save you a lot of otherwise wasted time.

I hope this helps. I'm planning on writing a longer update after my posts here on IH. Unfortunately, my time is limited :)

"Under what circumstance is the course worth it's money?" The course is worth the money if you're willing to complete the course, do the work and use it as a compass and not a road map.

I've been purchasing Internet marketing courses for more than a decade. I'm definitely more of a student than an doer. There are more people like me than who actually do the work necessary to get results. If you're like I used to be and not willing to do the work, then "no" it is not for you.

That being said, I do have experience with various types of training courses and their relative value.

30x500 teaches how to research an audience to see what pains they are experiencing. If you are able to help this audience, do so. That means posting to forums, groups and anywhere the audience "hangs out". While you're helping these people, you are also building a portfolio of your answers. This can be blog posts, videos, cheat sheets or however you prefer to express yourself.

You'll eventually gain a following of people who respect you, trust your advice and would love to get more from you. This is the point where you learn how to make and market a product that you already know your audience wants to buy.

The course is a series of video lessons and some action items. The course is not a step by step instruction on how to build a business. I went through the course a few years back and missed a ton of stuff. The first time I went through was at a hurried pace. You really need to watch the lessons more than once and do much more than the requested action items. The action items are not a one and done. They are more of "hey, do this practice session". The idea is that you do it enough to become good but they don't set goals such as spend X amount of time doing Y or wait until you see Z result before proceeding. So there is some guess work involved.

The 30x500 method is simple because it works and is repeatable. The size of the business you build will vary based on your effort and the audience chosen. However, it does work. There are no short cuts or tricks being taught. The basic premise has been expressed by many other courses in different ways because it works.

The community is great. The teachers are active members of the community and so are several students/alumni.

It is unlikely that you will earn back the $2k in the first 40 hours. However, that is the wrong way to look at it. Will you gain skills and knowledge worth more than $2k? The answer is "yes".

One quote from a former student mentioned to buy a bottle of champagne and keep it in the fridge. Pop open that bottle to celebrate once you've earned more than the cost of the course. That's a decent way to look at it. It's not a matter of "if" it is a matter of "when".

Personally, although I've already completed the course, I only half way through truly studying the course. This time around I've recognized many things I missed. I still don't think I've done enough work to move on to part two. The course doesn't say stop here until I've reached a milestone but I am anyway. I've set a personal milestone that once I reach it, I'll feel like it is time to move on to part two. If I go to part two now, I know I will miss stuff because I'm not truly ready.

That is my only criticism of the course. While I agree there is a danger to setting targets for students, it would have been helpful to have a few checkpoints. For example, by now some signs you might have been experiencing is X, if you're not try doing more Y.

After taking the course, you will look at certain parts of the Internet in a new light. I know I already am. That truly is the sign of a good course. It gives you the knowledge to see things on a new level. This is the course, out of all the others I've purchased that I've chosen to do the work.

1. My guess would be that only a small fraction of the people who buy 30x500 end up successfully building an online business as a result. But that's nothing to do with what's good or bad about 30x500, that's just life. Only a small fraction of people who try anything hard end up succeeding. 30x500 gives you what I think is a really good paint-by-numbers plan to be successful in selling things online but even with a perfect plan you still have to do the work.

2. There is an active community. Amy and Alex (mainly Alex lately) tend to be available for questions. The community (mainly the access to Amy and Alex) has helped me a lot.

3. It's worth the money if you're willing to put in the work to get a result. The methods taught in 30x500 are based on what I would call sound logic, and so if you follow the instructions, cause and effect basically guarantees that something will happen. The only question is how much will happen, and that's determined largely by how much work you put in. I personally have put in a huge amount of work since 2018 and so far I've earned about $7000 from my 30x500 activities. That's not much but it's something, and it's way more than I probably would have earned without the help of 30x500.

Many thanks Joke! Very helpful!