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He works 1 day a week and earns $11,000 a month 🤯
Welcome to a fresh edition of eBiz Insider, my free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business.
Today...
Works 1 Day a Week, Earns $11K/Month
The Formula To Profit From Amazon
Fiverr Freelancer to $24K Website Projects
Compression is Needed to Explode Gunpowder
He Sold his WP Themes Store for $500,000
One Video Monetized 8 Different Ways
Which Site Do You Spend The Most Time On?
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Works 1 Day a Week, Earns $11K/Month
Check out Bank Statement Converter, which allows you to…
Easily convert PDF bank statements from 100s of banks world wide into clean Excel (XLS) format.
According to live Stripe data, that project is earning $11,000 in monthly recurring revenue 🤑
Founder Angus Cheng lives in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 and shared his story in a recent interview…
I had just quit my job [and I] was looking for something to build. A friend of mine wanted to work with me on something so we were both on the lookout for ideas.
One day I wanted to analyze my spending so I logged onto my online banking account in search [of] a CSV feed. They didn't have one, all they could give me were PDF bank statements.
I downloaded all the statements, then wrote some code to extract the data I wanted. It was incredibly fiddly. I thought it would take about an hour, but I think I spent 10 hours on the script.
He adds…
I thought "If I have this problem, maybe someone else does".
So I pitched my friend the idea "Let's make a web app that extracts transaction data from PDFs". He was keen. I went over to his place two or three times and we hacked out an MVP and got it into production.
To get their first users, Angus tried Google Search Ads, spending about $1000 per month.
But the return was poor: $200 revenue for $858 in ad spend. His partner soon dropped out, saying he found the project to be "a bit too boring" 🥱
Angus persisted and eventually switched to a subscription model priced at $20 per quarter. He also improved the PDF processing.
Revenue jumped to $740 from just 20 users that month 😎
Around that time, Angus came across this article which convinced him to try content marketing.
He started writing blog posts, got lucky with one hitting the front page of Hacker News – see all his HN submissions here – and began ranking better on Google 📈
Angus writes…
At this point I learn that content marketing is a much more effective marketing strategy than paying for clicks. Good content can bring in traffic for years, whereas once you stop paying for ads, they stop bringing in traffic.
More simply, I wasn’t able to make money while running ads. It was clear to me the strategy had to stop.
Today Bank Statement Converter makes money from monthly and yearly subscription plans ranging from $5 to $20 per month.
Revenue has steadily grown to $11,000 MRR while costs are only around $1000 per month 💰
Angus also notes…
At the moment I dedicate one day a week to the business.
On that day he responds to user messages and fixes any issues reported.
Such a simple, low-maintenance product earning him 6 figures a year… gotta love it 😍
Angus' advice for anyone starting out…
Get your product live immediately. Talk to your users. Keep the product simple.
The Formula To Profit From Amazon
Today's email is brought to you by The Wholesale Formula.
That's a highly-rated Amazon training that's opening its doors again this month. The course creators have apparently done more than $36 million in sales via Amazon 🤑
This week they're running another free webinar (the last one)…
on this webinar, you're going to discover a 3-step formula that helped 960 folks initially sell over $1,057,143,592 on Amazon. Yes, over a billion dollars!
Even better: those 960 successes had no real "pattern." Their ages, locations and experience levels varied. Most had no previous online successes. Many started part-time. And all did it risk-free.
When you join this webinar, led by one of the top online business trainers in the world, you’ll discover the exact formula to sell on Amazon and see success.
Fiverr Freelancer to $24K Website Projects
Linda Groeneveld is the founder of Studio Soaked, a web design agency based in the Netherlands 🇳🇱
I stumbled across her story via a recent video interview…
Linda started out as a graphic designer in Amsterdam, working for various agencies. After a while, she wanted to branch out on and start her own agency (around 2008).
Linda realized that when clients would ask her to design their website, she could provide the visual designs but not actually build the site 😕
She also noticed that clients were willing to pay more to the developers who would implement her designs. So she set about gaining those technical skills herself.
She tried learning to code but realized it wasn’t her thing. But she eventually came across Webflow (around 2018-19), a no-code website builder.
To find her first Webflow client…
I just put myself out there with a profile and I got my first Webflow website client through Fiverr.
This was Linda's first ever Webflow site, but the experience gave her confidence 💪
It went so well, good and easy. And the client was super happy.
From that initial client, Linda started getting more Webflow projects through referrals from friends and family.
I didn't really have a niche. So it was all over the place.
As her portfolio grew, businesses noticed her work and reached out looking to hire her.
Over time, as Linda honed her skills in Webflow and developed a portfolio of high-end website projects, she began getting inquiries from bigger companies who liked her style 😍
By this time she had worked on a couple of projects for financial companies.
She explains….
I [helped] launched a [financial] website and just a couple of months later, a company from the financial district in Amsterdam called me and they were like, yeah, we want to rebrand and redo our Webflow website.
Financial companies became a niche for Linda…
I think by having a good design website, you can really establish trust and show that these people or companies are the experts within their niche.
Now Linda works almost exclusively with financial companies, law firms, and other professional services…
It's much easier to work with premium clients. The communication goes faster.
And premium clients = premium prices 🤑
Which is how Linda can charge $24,000 for a no-code website nowadays.
To me this is another great example of how taking on small projects can lead to much bigger things.
Linda doesn't say how much she charged for her first Webflow project on Fiverr, but I suspect it worked out to something like $2 an hour 😱
But it was that crappy project that led to $24k clients down the road.
🔎 freelancing | permalink
Compression is Needed to Explode Gunpowder
You might have heard of Alexandre Dumas' classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo 📖
It's about an innocent young man (Dantes) who is betrayed by a jealous rival and spends 14 years in prison, much of it in isolation.
Eventually he escapes, finds a hidden treasure, and returns home to exact his revenge 🔥
While in prison, Dantes befriends a wise and industrious old priest who has been in captivity for many years.
After getting to know him well, Dantes says to the priest…
I was reflecting, in the first place, upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?
The priest replies…
Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.
Sure, being in prison sucked.
But the priest saw that there were some advantages to his situation, compared to being a free man, and he sought to exploit them.
Might be a good thing to keep in mind when you're going through a tough time yourself 🤔
In the words of Napoleon Hill…
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
He Sold his WP Themes Store for $500,000
Mike McAlister started Array Themes in 2012 as a solo founder looking to turn his design skills into WordPress themes he could sell to a wider audience.
💬 He shares in a recent interview….
This was really early on in the days of WordPress, so templates weren't nearly as commonplace as they are now. It was a burgeoning niche, and I happened to get in at a great time when my designs could have a widespread impact.
Mike intentionally kept Array Themes small, with just himself and one contractor handling all operations and development.
Finding ways to scale the operation while also remaining a purposefully small-scale operation was challenging. I didn’t have ambitions of creating a full-blown company, so I found creative ways to scale to healthy 6-figure revenue with as much autonomy as possible
According to the interview…
McAlister’s themes, which clients paid for with a yearly fee, earned the company monthly recurring revenue in the $20,000-$40,000 range and attracted attention from potential acquirers.
👉 Click here to see one of the themes he was selling back in 2017. You could buy just the theme for $49 or get access to all themes for $89/year.
Although he regularly received acquisition offers, Mike wasn't interested in selling until he was approached by Brian Gardner from WP Engine in 2018…
This was also a unique opportunity for me to start fresh and focus on crafting products with a stellar team. I wanted a new challenge.
WP Engine acquired Array Themes (along with Atomic Blocks) for "mid-6 figures"... so around $500,000 💰
Reading Mike's story, I can't help but think of similar opportunities that might exist today.
He started creating WordPress themes…
… really early on in the days of WordPress… It was a burgeoning niche, and I happened to get in at a great time
Funnily enough, Google Trends shows that search traffic for WordPress themes was already trending down by 2012 📉
Whereas traffic for the following might still be on the rise…
🤔
One Video Monetized 8 Different Ways
🗂 From the archive, published February 2020…
About a month ago an artist 🎨 on YouTube published this video: I made a FIVERR page & DRAW ANYTHING people want for $5!!
It has almost a million views and it’s fun to watch. But what really caught my eye was the next-level monetization going on there.
I counted no less than 8 different ways he’s making money via that video:
Fiverr – earned about $700 from the gig featured in the video
Squarespace sponsorship – that could have earned him $10,000 to $50,000 (source)
YouTube ad revenue – $1,840 estimated earnings for the video (source)
Patreon – earning $2,196/month from 227 patrons
Merch store – several +$50 hoodies sold out
YouTube membership – members pay $3 to $25 per month
Online art class – priced at $179
Amazon affiliate links
Some of those he promotes in the video itself, and some are linked from the description.
(He might be making money via the Discord link as well. What do you think?)
All told, I wouldn’t surprised if he’s already earned at least $20,000 from that one video 💰📹
Nicely done.
Which Site Do You Spend The Most Time On? |
👆 Click an option above and you should land on a page showing the results for everyone.
This will help me figure out which platform I should be spending more time on and creating content for 🤔
…
Thanks to Fardeen Khan for helping me write and research today's newsletter.
Hasta la próxima, rock on with your legendary self 💪
Niall Doherty – Canillo, Andorra
eBiz Facts (follow on twitter)
P.S. Remember to check out that free webinar mentioned above: The Formula To Profit From Amazon 👈
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