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- Built her chatbot in a weekend, now earning $10K/month š¤Æ
Built her chatbot in a weekend, now earning $10K/month š¤Æ
Welcome to a fresh edition of eBiz Insider, my free newsletter packed with tips, insights and opportunities to build your online business.
Today...
Built Her Chatbot in a Weekend, Now Earning $10K/Month
This Newsletter Condensed & In Video Format
17-Year-Old Digital Nomad Living on Trains in Europe
He Made $28,910 By Sending One Email
This Strategy Helped Grow His Newsletter to 130K Subs
Latest Momentos
Conference Badges = $5 Million in Sales
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Built Her Chatbot in a Weekend, Now Earning $10K/Month
Claire Vo is the founder of ChatPRD, which she describes as š
A chatbot that helps PMs write product documentation and make their product better.
(PRD = Product Requirements Document. PM = Project Manager.)
š¬ Dan Shipper recently interviewed Claire and tweetedā¦
[ChatPRD] now used by over 10,000 product managers and is pulling in six figures in revenue.
The surprising partā¦
She built all of ChatPRD herselfāover the weekendāwith AI, while working a day job.
Claire is the CPO at @launchdarkly and she originally built ChatPRD for herselfābefore realizing it would be valuable for her team and product managers everywhere.
Claire can code but she says using ChatGPT helped speed up the process of building š
One day, she created a 5-page PRD in a few hours that took her team by surpriseā¦
It was because I had, over the course of months, sort of prompted ChatGPT into a place where I could really work with it in a rapid fashion to get high-quality outputs that wasn't just going to happen using plain ChatGPT.
š„³ Then the GPT Store opened upā¦
I thought, okay, I'm just going to drop myā¦ prompt into the GPT store, got the great name ChatPRDā¦ shared it with my teamā¦ they all loved it.
Claire then decided to turn it into a real productā¦
I dusted off VS code [Code Editor], and I was like, I think we can build this. So I built it over the course of Thanksgiving week with my kids home while they were nappingā¦
Launched it, I think, on November 28th, so it's six months old, andā¦ people started buyingā¦ I started to add a little bit more features and raising the priceā¦ now I have 10,000 users on the app.
There's a free version of ChatPRD on the GPT Store and premium pricing starts at $5/month.
Unclear how many free vs paid users there are, but apparently it's a 6-figure business already, so likely $10,000+ in monthly revenue š°
Claire was early into the GPT Store which probably helped her app draw eyeballs. And she says building in public has also been key, mainly via X where she has 21k followers.
Think about what Claire has done here š
She basically built a tool with AI to speed up her own work, then released it as a product for others to use.
Can you do something similar?
Or maybe you could team up with an expert/influencer in some niche, build a chatbot that greatly improves their workflow, then release it as a product together š¤
Another option is to build custom GPTs for clients for a fee.
Creating GPTs is much easier than you might expect.
Here's a good step-by-step tutorial on YouTube that walks you through an exampleā¦
Note however that you still can't monetize GPTs directly on the GPT store š
That's why Claire had to crack open a code editor and build her own website + a premium version of her app.
But this is likely to change soon š
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Today's email is brought to you by the new short-form videos I'm posting on YouTubeā¦
It's the same stories from this newsletter, just condensed and in video format.
What do you think? š¤
Likes and shares would also be very much appreciated to keep the algorithm gods happy!
I'll be posting a new video every weekday š
17-Year-Old Digital Nomad Living on Trains in Europe
Lasse Stolley is a digital nomad from Germany š©šŖ who has been living on trains for almost two years.
He recently told the Guardianā¦
Iām 17 and since August 2022 I have been living on trains. I grew up in a village in the north of Germany. I enjoyed travelling to Scandinavia with my parents and going on nature tours, and was also interested in computer programming.
I taught myself how to program during the pandemic and decided that was what I wanted to do for my job.
š It all started when Lasse saw a TV report about someone who lived on a trainā¦
I could not get the thought out of my head. I loved the idea of having the freedom to travel anywhere in Germany every day. A few days later, I bought my first BahnCard 100, which offers unlimited travel on Germanyās national train network.
That cost him ā¬2664 / $2860 for a year of train travel.
š A typical day in Lasse's lifeā¦
Arriving into a city between 6am and 8am on an overnight InterCity Express train.
Iāll go to the railway companyās guest lounge and eat breakfast. Iāll then have a quick wash in the bathroom, or go to the local swimming pool to shower.
Afterwards, I look at the dayās train departures and choose a destination.
How he pays for everythingā¦
Iām a software developer at an IT startup and work about 10 hours a week.
The great thing about my job is that I can choose my own working hours. Itās not a problem if I donāt work for a day or two. I use my time travelling on the train to work, so the job fits quite well with my lifestyle.
š The downsidesā¦
Living on the train means I have to do without some things that I used to take for granted.
I donāt have privacy. I have also had to reduce my possessions so that everything I own fits into a 30-litre backpack.
But the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
š¤ Lasse says this lifestyle costs himā¦
ā¦ less than ā¬10,000 a year. That sounds like a lot at first, but itās very cheap compared with the costs of renting an apartment.
The original plan was to do this for only a year, but I have enjoyed it so much, Iāve decided to keep doing it. At the moment, thereās no end in sight.
He posted on his blog last September that he'd secured an Interrail Global Pass, which allows him to travel on trains all around Europe at a cost of ā¬700 for 3 months.
I doubt Lasse's lifestyle would appeal to many, but it goes to show the kind of freedom a person can have when they earn a living from their laptop š
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š He Made $28,910 By Sending One Email
From the archive, published June 2023ā¦
Matt McGarry tweetsā¦
I made $28,910 by sending one email.
It took me 3 hours to write ā but 3 years to learn.
Thatās often the case with these āovernightā success stories: the person has usually built up a ton of experience (and failure) before they hit a home run.
Matt gained his experience working on other peopleās newslettersā¦
Iāve helped 25+ newsletters add millions of subscribers (The Hustle, Milk Road, Codie Sanchez, Sahil Bloom, & more).
Back to his $28,910 email š
Hereās the online versionā¦
Itās a recent edition of his newsletter about growing and monetizing a newsletter (meta, I know).
Matt sent it out to 7,625 subscribers.
Heād grown that audience over the previous 6 months š
He monetized the email in a few waysā¦
Affiliate Marketing ($410)
Sponsors ($1000)
CTA to book a coaching call ($2500)
CTA to hire his agency (ā$4k in revenue but will likely result in $25k+ā)
Matt says the secret to monetizing a newsletter like this is The Value Ladderā¦
On each step of the ladder is one of your offers ā and those offers increase in value and price as customers go up from left to right.
Hereās my Value Ladder:
ā Free newsletter
ā Online courses
ā 1on1 coaching calls
ā Done-for-you services
As people go up my ladder they get more value, more personal help from me, and they trust me more and more.
This helps me earn more per customer and increase LTV.
If youāre just starting out and donāt have a product or service to sell, Matt advises starting with affiliate marketing, particularly viaā¦
Also from Mattā¦
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