hey tech white here welcome back to
another episode now today I thought I
would give you some of my top tips on
how you can start your next site how so
and make sure that it is successful as
somebody myself has started multiple
successful site hustles in the past
before I've made millions on these and
especially now since so many people are
working from home what better time to
start a site also when your manager
isn't watching over your shoulder
checking about what you're doing and the
facts are realistically timing wise your
opportunities right now couldn't be
better because you never actually want
to quit your whole job and then try to
work on some site also and see if it
pans out and you put your whole life at
risk you want to be working on these two
things in parallel at the same time and
then when your site house is starting to
really take off that's when you know you
can make the switch safe wait so I
thought today I would share my personal
tried-and-true tips for success in your
next project and that's going to start
with making sure that your equipment is
well set up that brings us to our
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I'll see you in the next episode but
seriously equipment is something not to
be ignored as you're working on your
site also you know I know a lot of
people that are working from home don't
try to do your work in your bed using
your iPhone or your iPad because these
are consumption devices they're very
different from productivity devices
which is essentially going to be your
laptop don't try to get work done on
like a iPhone and make sure that you're
showing up and putting in your eight
hours of work or at least four hours or
whatever it is that you've allocated for
your site also and I think that if
that's the minimum that you do and you
make sure that you have a desk an area
for you to be productive then your about
those already halfway done or I mean
actually it's more like two percent of
the way done but more or less the same
thing and I can
show you some scenes of my desk setup
you can see it's quite nice I have a
nice lamp
this lamp has got to be one of my most
prized possessions I've pretty much left
my wife for it I've got my 4k monitor my
standing desk a really cool-looking
chair mechanical keyboard so all of this
stuff will be linked in the description
below if you're interested in getting
your home office environment set up just
the way I have it which is pro mode the
second tip is what is your biggest
problem tell me anybody in the audience
what's your biggest problem no it is not
the technicals it is marketing how'd you
get people to actually hear and use your
product so I would approach your site
also from a marketing perspective what
niche community are you part of that you
know you can sell to that you can create
word-of-mouth about if you have
something to announce because if you
just want to come up with some new
t-shirt website there's no way for you
to gain traction on this nobody is going
to listen to you
no blog is going to write about it
marketing is going to be the number one
problem for you and this is something I
hear an experienced idea founders come
up with all the time they just say hey I
have this cool idea where tons of people
will come to this website and they can
buy and sell stuff well this is that
chicken and the egg problem how are you
going to get people to use your website
if there's nobody on there at first you
need to gain that critical mass you need
to have a step-by-step plan where you
can grow the website from one person to
ten to one hundred to a thousand to ten
thousand people and the website or
product or app needs to be functional at
every single stage of development if you
take a look at Tesla they began with
high-end sports cars to help fund the
mass market consumer models Facebook
began at a Harvard dormitory Amazon
began selling books and then over time
these projects shipped into mass market
models you need to have that
stage-by-stage development plan where
your product pivots from one to the next
all right good what's uh what's problem
number two that we have to solve anybody
out there
no not you anybody else in the back no
it is finding the right product market
fit so as I see it way too many people
especially software engineering people
that they're going to focus on the
technicals and they're going to create
something that they want to make
something that's technically interesting
to them don't make what's interesting
for yourself you need to make something
that's interesting
for other people for the consumers as I
see it too many people are not thinking
about the consumers they're focused on
themselves they never launch the product
because they're just having way too much
fun working on some JavaScript framework
many people get caught up naming the
company making up t-shirts giving
themselves fancy titles figuring out
what the equity spots are going to be
hiring accountants and lawyers but very
little time is actually spent developing
a really good product and that's really
the first thing that needs to be done
and you want to focus on this you want
to build their MVP do one thing and do
it well
and make sure that it is solving a real
actual problem that people are asking to
be solved and one of the worst advice
I've heard is to cut out or ignore the
people who don't believe in your project
because maybe they're toxic whereas in
reality I would say that you want to
shop your project around launch early
iterate fast
find that product market fit if there's
criticism accept it with a grain of salt
and just make sure that you have all of
your bases covered in terms of product
strategy or design now another tip is
avoiding linear growth you want to make
sure that your growth is exponential so
how can you do that well one thing is I
would advise never selling your own time
if you ever find yourself selling your
own time like getting paid 50 bucks for
an hour's worth of work and you see this
and say the restaurant industry working
as a waiter driving uber cars these are
all forms of selling your own time where
you get one for one trades and at the
end of the day that most anybody can
really be paid this may be a hundred two
hundred bucks an hour and that's if
you're pretty good and what you really
want is like a trade that is one to ten
or one to a hundred or one to a thousand
and that's the way you really start
making more money
examples of higher leverage are like
building an app or website writing a
book selling recipes selling mass-market
t-shirts making YouTube videos for all
of these you put in the constant amount
of time no matter how many people end up
buying your product and no matter what
business you're in you want to automate
yourself out of it as much as possible
to free your time to work on any other
future developments and I would also
consider the industry wave that you are
on like if you take a look at the
t-shirt industry that's pretty flat it
hasn't really gone anywhere but if you
take a look at it like tapioca
restaurants in Japan has just been
booming there's been an exponential
growth in that everybody is just crazy
for tapioca milk tea over there and
these exponential growth
they don't last forever they eventually
flatten out so the timing really matters
moving on at this point it may also be
good to do a quick back of the envelope
pricing check just to make sure even in
the most optimal best-case scenario how
much money do you think that you can
make from your side hustle like if
you're selling t-shirts and you're
making $10 each
you would have to sell 10,000 of them
just to make $100,000 in sales that
sounds like a lot of teachers to be
selling that's when you may realize
you'll need additional product lines
like maybe have 10 different t-shirt
designs sell a thousand copies of each
or raise the t-shirt price and you also
want to consider the process of
onboarding a new user there's a test
that we liked in the fang industry known
as the mom test which is can you get
your mom to sign up to whatever app or
feature that you're building and if you
can't then that means that it's way too
complicate it and you need to make it
simpler and easier for the user to use
because the fact is the mainstream
unwashed masses they're just not as
passionate about your industry as you
are so you need to make sure that your
messaging is clear and simple to explain
why your product is so good now my next
tip it's a simple one but one that I
always check with myself and it is to
make sure that you truly believe in the
product because many times people will
go out and start asking other people for
their time for their money for their
investments for their belief in the
product whereas you yourself haven't
even put in any of your own money so why
don't you first put in say 10 thousand
dollars of your own cash and just put
that into the business and make sure
that you're not going to be able to get
that out and if you ask yourself if
you're willing to do that then you may
double check your goals your business
plan and you may realize that hey this
business that idea that you had it was
just a lofty idea that maybe you knew
deep down inside it wouldn't really work
and that means you need to go back and
double-check your business plan and
every stage of growth to make sure that
it is more secure put in your own time
and money before you start asking for
anybody else's and one tip a great way
to validate an idea and we did this
other time over in the apps industry was
to take a look at what's already out
there what your competitors are doing
and that's a good baseline for what's
already working out there and then you
can take that concept improve on it and
add your own ideas and spin on it to
make it even better and push the
industry forward and then the last and
final tip
your cytosol is just make sure that
you're passionate enough about it to do
it long term you want to make sure that
you're committed for six to 12 months
many people I know they have some idea
but then they never actually get to it
because it's just too much work it's in
the area that they're not very
interested or passionate about I think
all of us know some way or another in
which you could be making money but we
simply just don't do it because it's not
interesting to us so ask yourself deep
down what area you're really interested
in what thing you can imagine yourself
actually pursuing for say six to twelve
months
consistently day in and day out until
you acquire deeper knowledge about the
field that you're in and we acquire that
niche deep knowledge that's what's
really going to start setting your
projects apart and allow you to build
something really great and undoubtedly
you're gonna have hard times you're
gonna fail a number of times but what's
really gonna keep you motivated is
having fun in the process make success
fun now to succeed in your site hustle
you're gonna need infrastructure and
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so they'll do for me I hope you enjoyed
the video if you did remember to please
give it a like and subscribe I really
appreciate that
remember to follow me on instagram at
tech lead HD and I'll see you next time
thanks bye