You’ve likely heard of author James Clear and his massive #1 New York Times best-selling book "Atomic Habits".
But do you know how James’s website, JamesClear.com, got started?
I first the heard story from James himself, when we met through mutual friends in NYC in the summer of 2011. We even famously shared a hotel room that night (separate beds!) but I’ll save that story for another time.
JamesClear.com began as basically what I’d call a personal diary. He started by writing articles on his travels, his photography and the books he was reading.
I’ll be honest: I thought he was destined for failure when he first told me about it. (I obviously couldn’t see the whole picture back then.)
But James kept writing articles, collecting email addresses for his accompanying newsletter and hitting "publish" week after week.
Eventually, through practice and feedback he started to hone in on more self-improvement topics. Specifically, he noticed that people were responding best to his content on habits and productivity.
So he narrowed his focus, albeit still a mass market topic of "habits". And when he did that, things really started to take off.
His subscriber base climbed into the tens of thousands.
James didn’t stop there. He kept narrowing and honing and then building streams of income.
At first it was affiliate marketing through Amazon but ultimately he settled into creating courses. He put out workshops on building habits and improving productivity.
All the while, subscribers poured in and I looked on in awe.
His little personal newsletter turned into a full-fledged, self-sustaining online business.
Long-story short, even before the best-selling book, James had built an ideal dream business that was super simple in every way.
Think about it: He would read books, then write articles and newsletters condensing what he was learning. Then he built courses and sold them to his list.
He didn’t have a large team – just a virtual assistant.
He wasn’t working insane hours and seemed to have a great work-life balance.
Yet he was making life-changing money.
And again, this was before the book and all the complications being an author and speaker brings.
So I’m here to tell you: if you want to build a simple, solopreneuer business but you’re feeling completely overwhelmed by how complex it might seem. Or, more likely, you’re afraid of dumping a ton of time and energy into an idea that ultimately fails and brings little-to-no results…
My recommendation is that you start a low-pressure newsletter exactly like James’.
Don’t start with a product. Don’t put together a business plan. Don’t even have a fully-formed topic in mind!
This might sound crazy but it’s actually pretty simple and, in my experience, it’s the "smartest" way to get started because it eliminates almost of all the typical overwhelm people feel at the beginning of a business.
This week I’ll walk you through how this all works. I’ll show you how to create a weekly newsletter that you can start in one weekend (under 48 hours) and turn into a six or seven figure solopreneuer business.
I’ll cover everything from the "starting topic", to the intended audience and traffic, to when to monetize… down to the exact tech you’ll need to make it all run smoothly.
Tomorrow I’ll start by diving into exactly what this style of newsletter business looks like (with more real-life examples).
Sound good?
Talk to you tomorrow!
– Derek
P.S. Okay, real talk. While this week I’ll be covering exactly how to launch this style of newsletter and eventually how to build it into a six or seven figure solopreneuer business… I won’t be able to squeeze everything into an email series.
So if the above resonates with you, then you should know that I’ve opened the cart to my course Weekend Launch Party this week and it goes into much, much greater depth than I cover via emails. If you’re interested, click here to learn how to launch a newsletter this weekend.