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Generating š¤š¶ Photos = $1000/Month
Welcome to a fresh edition of eBiz Insider, my free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business.
Today...
Generating AI Baby Photos = $1000/Month
Free "Get Paid to Write" Email Course
$200K/Month Giving His Product Away For Free
The Only Way To Become Excellent
$1M/Year Sharing Local News in the Middle East
She Went From a āSlow Octoberā to $27K in November
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
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Generating AI Baby Photos = $1000/Month
Checkout Yifan Goh's OurBabyAIĀ š¤
Upload some photos of you and your partner, and OurBabyAI returns plausible images of what your baby could look like š¶
Cost right now is $9 for 8 baby pictures, though it looks like it usually costs $19.
In a recent interview Yifan sharesā¦
I had lots of self-doubt, if I'm being totally honest with you. I built the landing page in one day but hesitated to launch it because I thought the idea was stupid. I announced the launch on Twitter and all I got were crickets.
š How he got tractionā¦
After submitting my product to a few AI directories, organic traffic started to come in. Some of that traffic converted to sales and, when traffic went up, sales went up too.
Yifan's landing page went live on April 2nd, andā¦
First sale came in on April 11! I was beyond excited, and generated the photos manually for my customer. Made 9 sales for the month of April, and crossed $100 in total revenue. Sweet!
As things picked up, Yifan realizedā¦
I can't generate the photos manually forever, I need a backend to do it for me automatically so that I can scale. So I wrote the first line of code and deployed my backend app to production. Got 18 sales for the month of May. Brought in $325 of revenue.
Did you catch that?
Yifan didn't build the product and then try to market it.
First he built out just the landing page and promoted that to see if there was any interest š”
And when those first orders started rolling in, he processed them manually.
Only when he felt there was sufficient and consistent demand for the service did he invest the time and effort to create a fully automated solution š
His smart and patient approach has paid off, as he recently tweetedā¦
Everyone should strive to build their own money making product.
I have stopped working on OurBabyAI, but it makes $1k+ per month for me.
š Looks like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is big for Yifanā¦
80% of my traffic actually comes from Search. Whenever there's a trend on TikTok related to my startup, people search for those keywords (e.g. baby ai generator) and I get spikes in traffic and sales!
That's even more impressive when you consider that his site only has 10 pages total.
Do you have some "stupid" business ideas? š¤
If so, consider testing them out fast and loose like Yifan.
šĀ artificial intelligence | permalink
Free "Get Paid to Write" Email Course
Today's email is brought to you by Elna Cain's free āGet Paid to Writeā email courseĀ š„³
The blurbā¦
This isnāt going to teach you how to write and it wonāt talk about punctuation and grammar either. What you learn are 6 action steps you can start this week and be on your way to getting paid to write online.
Sign up for it here š
ā¹ļø full disclosure | sponsorship info
$200K/Month Giving His Product Away For Free
Ivan Kuckir is the founder of Photopea, which is basically a clone of Photoshop that you can use for free in your browser.
I shared Ivan's story back in 2021 when he was making $1M/year š°
He monetizes with display ads and subscriptions (for an ad-free version), with ads making up 90% of the revenue.
Now after almost a decade of working on it, Ivan recently revealedā¦
I make slightly over 200,000$ a month from ads on Photopea.
š¤Æ
After starting the project in 2013ā¦
It took about 200-300 hours to create the first version of Photopea. I wasnāt working on it full-time since I was also busy with my university studies. I coded the main features first and then focused on other ones.
He finished university and started to see tractionā¦
I was living in a dorm here in Prague, sharing a room with three other students. Photopea was more like a hobby to me.
It wasnāt a job; it was something I enjoyed doingā¦I was excited to see it grow ā starting with about 20-30 users a day ā and enjoyed adding new features. I was adding new features or updates almost every week, just being thrilled by its gradual growthā¦
People found Photopea by word of mouth, through blog reviews, or video content.
š¤ Ivan could have gone the SaaS route and charged a monthly fee for access, butā¦
Initially, I wasnāt sure if people would be willing to pay for Photopeaā¦ I wanted to attract as many users as possible by offering it for free.
I thought that if I could gather a large user base, I could make significant money without asking people to pay, similar to how Google or Facebook monetize with ads.
Ivan eventually hired 2 people to help him, but still works a lot himselfā¦
I spend about six to eight hours a day on Photopea. Itās like a full-time job, but I still enjoy it. Most of my work has no deadlines.
His costsā¦
I spend about 600$ per year for servers and 20$ for the domain. I also had an additional cost for an AI feature ā $1.000$ per month.
That adds up to only $12,620 per year.
Not sure how much he's paying his two employees on top of that.Ā
But I'm guessing he's running his $2.4M per year business on less than $100,000 per year š¤Æ
Ivan's advice for anyone starting outā¦
Donāt be intimidated by the idea of entering a crowded market or tackling complex tasks. Begin by focusing on the core, essential features of your product, the ones that are most important and useful. These donāt have to be numerous or complicated.
šĀ display ads | permalink
š The Only Way To Become Excellent
From the archive, published January 2023ā¦
From the book Atomic Habits by James Clearā¦
When a habit is truly important to you, you have to be willing to stick to it in any mood. Professionals take action even when the mood isnāt right. They might not enjoy it, but they find a way to put the reps in.Ā
There have been a lot of sets that I havenāt felt like finishing, but Iāve never regretted doing the workout. There have been a lot of articles I havenāt felt like writing, but Iāve never regretted publishing on schedule. There have been a lot of days Iāve felt like relaxing, but Iāve never regretted showing up and working on something that was important to me.Ā
The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.
So if your goal is to become excellent in your career, try pick one that is endlessly fascinating to you.Ā
Is there something youāre really into that many other people would find boring or annoying? š¤
šĀ permalink
$1M/Year Sharing Local News in the Middle East
I recently came across Lovin DubaiĀ š¦šŖ via this amazing report by Glen Allsoppā¦
Turns out, Lovin Dubai is just one of several local news websites run by Irishman Richard Fitzgerald š®šŖ
According to the Irish Examinerā¦
In 2012, Richard Fitzgerald left his job as a senior advertising executive to head to the Middle East. Three years later he founded Augustus Media.
Augustus Media owns Lovin.coā¦
a local news & entertainment channel sharing the best of its city, informing using bitesize news, viral content, and community storiesā¦ available across the Arab world.
All their sites are subfolders on the same domain, such asā¦
š¦šŖĀ Lovin Abu Dhabi
š§šĀ Lovin Bahrain
šŖš¬Ā Lovin Cairo
Richard shares in a June 2022 interviewā¦
I grew up in Ireland in a small little townā¦ went to university in Dublinā¦ worked in Dublin, spent a year in Germanyā¦ lived in London for a couple of years and then I moved to Dubai 10 years agoā¦
When I came to Dubai, I didn't have any money. I luckily had a good promotion and a good job, but I didn't have any money.
But he did have experience related to SEO, affiliate marketing and social media. Probably from his time working in London š¬š§
Back to Glenās reportā¦
In September, Richard tweeted a company-wide email he sent, which started, āHi all. Today we turned down an offer of $12M for the business from a rival media company.ā
Later, he added, āAfter 8 years of building it might have been tempted [sic] to cash out. But, Iām not in this to get rich.ā
According to Glen, Richardās sites are now earning a combined $1 million a year š¤
As I've said many times before, most cities or regions should have a local news site like Lovin Dubai or Lovin Cairo.
Or a quality tourist information site for such places.
Examples featured in past newsletters š
$1 Million Hyperlocal Website (Frisco, Texas)
$2500/Month Website + Newsletter (Mallorca, Spain)
$12K/Month 1-Woman Tourist Website (San Francisco)
Turning Her Passion Into $16K/Month (Rome, Italy)
Could you do something like this in your area? š¤
As Richard proves, you can do this successfully even if you're fairly new in town.
šĀ permalink
š She Went From a āSlow Octoberā to $27K in November
From the archive, published December 2022ā¦
Jennifer Gregory shares how she recently boosted her freelance writing income.
She usually earns ā$12K to $18K each monthā but October was her lowest earning month for a long time at $10K.
(Not bad if thatās a slow month, amirite?)
Then she had her highest earning month ever in November, pulling in $27K š
Jennifer lists 5 things that led to her big monthā¦
She stayed in touch with past clients, regularly letting them know when she was available for more work.
āI repeatedly told clients in my messages that I loved short turnarounds and was available for last-minute projects.ā
She reached out to writer friends and asked for referrals.
She checked who viewed her LinkedIn profile and reached out to them.
āPut your website and LinkedIn in your email signature.ā
She addsā¦
Itās not a single marketing act that made my $27K month possible, but the combination of all of my outreach and persistence. One tactic or type of outreach simply isnāt going to cut it. But when you ādo all the thingsā then things can turn around pretty quickly.
šĀ freelancing, freelance writing | permalink
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
This is the last edition of the newsletter this year.
I'll be back in your inbox on Tuesday, January 2nd.
Thank you for being a subscriber in 2023 š
Hopefully you found some ideas or inspiration in these emails.
2023 has been my best year ever in business ($300K+) but I have an odd mix of feelings entering 2024. Traffic to my site is down š and it will likely be a lean few months while we execute a plan to get things back on track.
Fittingly, I came across this quote recently, from the book Memos From the Chairman by Alan C. Greenbergā¦
The year was over last Friday and it was a good one, but last year is gone. The score right now is nothing to nothing. Nobody cares (especially our competition) what we did last year.
The same is true if 2023 was a bad year for you: the year is over and the scoreboard has reset.
All that matters is what you do going forward š
So rest up over the holidays and prepare yourself for a mighty 2024.
I'll be rooting for you.
ā¦
Thanks to Fardeen Khan for helping me write and research today's newsletter.
Hasta la prĆ³xima, rock on with your legendary self šŖ
Niall Doherty ā Canillo, Andorra
eBiz Facts (follow on twitter)
P.S. Be sure to check out Elna Cain's free āGet Paid to Writeā email course.
That'll help you land your first freelance writing job š
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