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From depressed and stressed to $150K in one year 💪

Welcome to a fresh edition of eBiz Insider, my free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business.

Today...

  • Built a $5 Chrome Extension Without Knowing How To Code

  • Zero to Money-Making Website in 7 Months

  • His Match Making Business Earned $430K Last Year

  • Hyper-Niche Biz: $60,590 in 1 Month

  • From Depressed and ​​Stressed to $150K in 1 Year

  • Latest Momentos

  • Musician’s $2000/Month Affiliate Website

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Built a $5 Browser Extension Without Knowing How To Code

📝 From a recent post on Reddit…

I have no coding knowledge but have constantly shipped different products since I was in college. All my ideas usually were not tech focused but focused more on operations, expertise and physical products or services.

Recently… I decided to find a problem to solve and ship something even with my limited expertise.

I listed down all the problems I had and finally decided on one to work on.

Full disclosure, the first 3 failed with hardly any sales.

But with the 4th one, I just got my first sale!

It's a chrome extension that helps you find and navigate to your desired Chrome tab in one click.

The extension is priced at only $5 for lifetime access, so not a huge success story 😕

But it's still impressive, especially considering this person – unclear if male or female – doesn't know how to code.

So how did he/she build the extension? 🤔

I used Gemini Advanced and Replit to make it.

Got all my instructions from Gemini and followed it to the T on Replit.

It was a bit tedious as I had to keep coming back for each change I wanted and uploading the new version to my Chrome to check how it looks.

By the time I was done I had made over 20 versions of my extension.

Gemini = Google’s AI, basically their version of ChatGPT.

Replit = a code editor that works in your browser.

Now for the twist in the story 👇

Redditors were quick to point out that…

Chrome already has this feature built-in. Click the down arrow on the top right corner

So yeah, not much of a future for this project 😢

But that's besides the point.

Along the way, this person has learned…

  • how to leverage AI

  • how to build Chrome extensions

  • persistence

  • what it's like to make a sale

That's a lot 💪

And it makes his (or her) future projects way more likely to succeed.

How about trying something like this yourself?

Make a list of all the problems you have and then pick one to work on 🎯

takes the guesswork out of deciding what to build next. See which popular extensions get bad reviews so you can create improved versions.

Find an idea there and use AI to build a solution 🤖

Or, if you have the budget, you could hire someone to build it for you, like Joe Davies did…

Zero to Money-Making Website in 7 Months

Today's email is brought to you by The Authority Site System (TASS).

I've now done in-depth reviews of 45+ popular affiliate marketing courses, and TASS ranks #1.

That ranking isn't just based on my own extensive experience with the course – the 57 student reviews we've collected have the biggest say in the ranking 🤩

A recent review…

I’m roughly 7 months into the course (side hustle) and started earning affiliate commissions this month.

What I liked the most was the emphasis on niche selection and ruthlessly checking the numbers before starting the actual work.

Another…

Following The Authority Site System 3.0’s strategies, I built my website from the ground up. Remarkably, the site began generating revenue after just six months, and two years on, it continues to grow.

So it's by no means a way to get rich quick.

But if you follow the training and put in the work consistently, you're likely to have a website earning solid income within a year, with plenty of room to grow.

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His Match Making Business Earned $430K Last Year

Behdad Jamshidi is the founder of CJAM Marketing, self-described as a… 

Match making service to find the right marketing agencies

They basically help companies find and hire marketing help. Companies use their services instead of writing up job posts, interviewing multiple candidates, etc.

💬 In a recent interview, Behdad reveals…

I believe in slowly growing a profitable and sustainable business. From the first year through last year, I doubled revenue almost every year but I did it without taking a ton of risk.

Year 1 2019: $16,366
Year 2 2020: $ 84,232
Year 3 2021: $109,644
Year 4 2022: $280,006
Year 5 2023: $438,785

I've kept my costs low and built my business the old-school way: through relationships, community, and providing value. That was the focus for the first 3-4 years in my business, while I also worked my full-time job for stability. This allowed me the freedom to build slowly…

Last year, we were at $430,000 in revenue, with a 60% profit margin.

Sounds like he's mainly grown the business via LinkedIn, with little focus on other channels…

We don't have as much website traffic as I would like, and my email list has just about 340 people on it.

Check out Behdad's Linkedin (6000+ followers) and the content he posts there 👀

He writes…

People started reaching out to me because they saw me online adding value, which started my first level of growth. 

😕 But it was a tough road…

if I knew how hard this business was to build in the beginning I might not have built it!

I had no idea that I would have to talk to, interview, and vet so many agency partners to build the network that I needed to find good fits for my customers. 

Also, I didn't realize how fast marketing trends shift and how I would need to keep sourcing new partner agencies as that happens.

Behdad has some reassuring words for anyone still working 9-to-5…

There is a lot of value in working for a company — you can build skill sets and knowledge that most entrepreneurs have to learn the hard way. 

So, if you are still working a traditional job, don't worry that you are behind in business — you are learning things that will help you in your journey.

Behdad's network is obviously crucial for his business, and I suspect he started building that in his old job.

What experience or connections have you gained as an employee? 🤔

How could you leverage those to start your own thing?

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🗂 Hyper-Niche Biz: $60,590 in 1 Month

From the archive, published July 2022…

Eric Turner tweets about his hyper-niche, bootstrapped business, Japan Dev 🇯🇵

It has no employees — just my wife and me.
It’s earned $60,590 so far this month.

The business is a simple job board for modern tech jobs in Japan. Companies pay a fee when they make a successful hire via the site.

The domain was only registered in March of 2019.

More remarkably, the target audience is tiny: English-speaking tech workers who want to live and work in Japan 🤯

Here’s what Eric attributes his success to…

choosing a business in my “zone of genius” helped. Everyone knows a lot about a few things. For me, it was:

– Living in Japan
– Programming
– Developer careers (worked as a dev + hiring manager for other devs)

And Japan Dev is at the intersection of all these.

If you were to draw up a venn diagram like Eric, might you find some ideas or opportunities at the intersection? 🤔

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