Like many of you, I keep a list of ideas around.
On Thursday, someone with a large following on Twitter tweeted out an idea on my list that I have been casually working on.
I immediately replied:
And then I thought if people really want this then someone will buy. I had to leave for the airport in 15 minutes so I had to get this done quickly.
I rushed to put a pre-order page on Gumroad. I then replied to my comment and another person in the thread.
Here's what the pre-oder page looks like: https://gum.co/NDphv
Within 5 minutes I got my first pre-order sale!
Top takeaways from this little experience...
- Don't overthink it. Action >>>>>> thinking. I could have spent time perfecting the copy of the Gumroad page or making the cover image pretty. Just get shit done. Move quickly.
- That first sale made me a believer. People paying you is the best validation. I will now create this. The TAM is enormous.
- Every person who replied and liked that thread is a prospect I'll reach out to when the course is ready. I doubt 95% will buy but 2-3% might. Nice little pool of prospects I have.
- Leverage the audience of others, don't be shy.
- Time constraints are your friend. It forced me to move. Set deadlines.
- Twitter is awesome. I regret not using it sooner.
- I should have made my release date earlier. I just noticed that it's 2/21. This probably hurt sales. Who wants to wait a month? I'll move this up.
Awesome buddy, that's the way to do it! Ship ship ship.
#4 is great.
Are you following the thread opener, or were you actively searching twitter for people's needs?
Thanks @ran! I follow him, total luck.
This is awesome a great lesson learned. More action and less thinking works always for reversible decisions.
For sure, it's so easy to analyze and not do anything.
Good for you. Congrats and I agree that we should move fast. I need to be constantly reminded of this as I'm the type to always try to wait for the perfect time to make sure everything is perfect before taking orders.
thanks!