TL;DR breakdown of "12 Months to a Million": Choosing your product

Hello, hello!

Here I am again, leaving my trail of (hopefully helpful!) bread crumbs by way of the latest biz book break-down. Just trying to save us all a bit of time, money, and sanity. 🤪

So, I'm halfway through 12 Months to a Million. Am I convinced that I'll have a million dollar business on my hands by year's end...😎🤔 Welp, hmm. I'm not, not convinced! And that's saying something, right?

And, I have found a few very useful suggestions that I've already applied to my own process (hoping to launch something new by the end of March!).

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📕The book du jour: 12 Months to a Million (How to Pick a Winning Product, Build a Real Business, and Become a 7 Figure Entrepreneur) by Ryan Daniel Moran

😎TL;DR: I’m halfway done. We’re in the weeds now. Way fewer aha moments and way more “if/then” scenarios to wade through. Feels valuable enough to keep going. This week’s chapters were all about choosing the right product.

Why care about what this author has to say: Made his first million at age 26 via email marketing. Has since co-founded two 7 figure businesses (before age 35).

Why read this book: It came out in 2020 so it’s super duper fresh. Has almost 600 5-star reviews on Amazon. Promises to be practical yet mind-blowing.

🤩 Key Takeaways:

Normalizing success and money-making is vital. Read about, follow, and seek out people who’ve gone where you want to go. Having a successful business is not special (but, go you if you're doing it!). It’s a normal thing that millions of people have done. You can too. 💪
The first year, you’re likely going to eat it. Working long hours for very little money, reinvesting every dollar back into the business. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
Stop trying to figure out what product to sell. Instead, ask yourself what kinds of people you understand really well. Get really specific.
Once you’ve figured out the kind of people you want to serve, ask yourself what kinds of products or services these people already buy. (The author gives the example of people who do yoga. They buy yoga mats, tea, essential oil, organic things).
Choose a “gateway product” by 1. identifying their pain point and creating something to solve it, or 2. making a list of things they already buy and reading reviews to see how these products can be improved.
Remember, if your product is workout gloves, your main focus isn’t on gloves. It’s on the people who use workout gloves.
Focus on your customer not your competitor.
If you’re building a physical product, have $5,000 to $10,000 available to bridge any gaps that might come up in production. (A stall in production can be make or break). Tim Ferriss apparently has a very helpful (and free) how-to guide on using Kickstarter successfully if you need help raising money.
Money is an amplifier not a magic wand. If you have a bad idea, it’ll amplify that. If you have a good one, it can spread that.
To build a snowball effect you need 25 to 100 people to buy from you in the first few days of your launch. You can make this happen by....

⏩ Stay tuned for HOW TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN. The next chapters are launching and getting to $100k. 😅

🤮 What I’m disappointed about: Two things. I wish he’d reference digital products more (yes, I agree the puke emoji was a bit dramatic for this desire, lol). But this one is pukeface appropriate: When he talks about the actual manufacturing of a physical product, it seems his main priorities are getting them made fast and cheap. This feels gross to me. Personally, I’d appreciate more mindful suggestions around creating long-lasting, sustainable products, made in healthy working environments.

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