How to Create a $2k+/mo Passive Income Website in 30 Days (or Less)

[Two Dog]

The main site's average monthly revenue since I launched it 6 months ago is $4,231/mo. That number doesn't include what the site generates on ebay currently (around $150 - $200/mo) and what it was generating on Etsy before I got suspended ($1,000+ per month).

Is there a point where you think about selling the site itself?

With 50% margins and 40x MRR multiplier, it's possibly worth $75K+. ;-)

 

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[Musaab1997]

Amazing thread. Thank you for all the info.
I do have a question, do you replicate the template of the digital product you find? for example, the digital product you found on etsy, did you purchase it and replicate what is being sold then created your own and sold it? or was this something similar to drop shipping? as an you purchased it then sold the pdf to your customers without changing anything?

 

[adnanazmi]

Is there a point where you think about selling the site itself?

With 50% margins and 40x MRR multiplier, it's possibly worth $75K+. ;-)

But why sell a near perfect passive income machine?

 

[adnanazmi]

Amazing thread. Thank you for all the info.
I do have a question, do you replicate the template of the digital product you find? for example, the digital product you found on etsy, did you purchase it and replicate what is being sold then created your own and sold it? or was this something similar to drop shipping? as an you purchased it then sold the pdf to your customers without changing anything?

It is possible. But I think he made his own. He may have used information from other places. He was saying is what is important is to have a USP and position the same product in a unique way that works.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Is there a point where you think about selling the site itself?

With 50% margins and 40x MRR multiplier, it's possibly worth $75K+. ;-)

Maybe for the right product. I'm not against it.

Amazing thread. Thank you for all the info.
I do have a question, do you replicate the template of the digital product you find? for example, the digital product you found on etsy, did you purchase it and replicate what is being sold then created your own and sold it? or was this something similar to drop shipping? as an you purchased it then sold the pdf to your customers without changing anything?

Pretty sure I've already answered this several times in this thread.

 

[traoul6]

I set up a new passive income site yesterday. Here's what that looked like:

• Product is a downloadable PDF document
• $9.97 for the domain
• $5/day in ad spend
• 8 hours or so in time invested

I built the whole thing yesterday and launched with Google ads yesterday too.

Earned my first sale overnight.

I made this one simpler than my other site.

It's one page.

That one page has 4 CTAs that all lead to a ThriveCart checkout page.

The page has good copy, basic credibility markers like credit card logos, images, solid branding...

After purchase, the customer instantly receives the product.

Finally, they reach a thank you page.

That's the entire funnel.

No email opt-in. No lengthy site history. Not attached to my name.

For this site I'm testing price points under $9 to see if I can move higher sales volume faster with ads + a price so low anyone can afford it.

Ideally, I'll find a price that people will pay all around the world so I can expand my advertising worldwide instead of targeting the US. That will help keep costs down.

Hi Lex

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It was the last little bit of inspiration I needed for me to take action.

Since 3 weeks I am trying to replicate your process. It is a little bit difficult for me because I have never sold anything on the internet. But as you said: If I am not a pussy, I should be able to replicate it. That last sentence is what keeps me motivated every day.

So here is my question to you. How do you manage to create a digital product in just a single day? I mean, I have been writing my eBook for 3 weeks and I am not finished yet. Could you please give us a few more details on how you are able to do it in such a short time?

And one last question: Do you have any experience working with systeme.io? I discovered them after wrestling a bit with Thrives. They seem to have everything I need in one place. Also, they offer a free package for beginners.

Keep it up, man!

 

[Lex DeVille]

Hi Lex

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It was the last little bit of inspiration I needed for me to take action.

Since 3 weeks I am trying to replicate your process. It is a little bit difficult for me because I have never sold anything on the internet. But as you said: If I am not a pussy, I should be able to replicate it. That last sentence is what keeps me motivated every day.

So here is my question to you. How do you manage to create a digital product in just a single day? I mean, I have been writing my eBook for 3 weeks and I am not finished yet. Could you please give us a few more details on how you are able to do it in such a short time?

And one last question: Do you have any experience working with systeme.io? I discovered them after wrestling a bit with Thrives. They seem to have everything I need in one place. Also, they offer a free package for beginners.

Keep it up, man!

Depends on the digital product I'm creating.

If I wanted to create a stock photo modeling package for men's black t-shirts I'd need a black t-shirt and a camera.

I'd ask Chat GPT about common modeling poses or look them up on Amazon. Once I had photos, I'd go to Canva and remove the background with their background removal tool, replacing it with a white background. Next, I'd upload the photos to a file on Dropbox. At this point, the product is ready for sale.

Now that the product is created, I'd make a checkout page in 5 minutes on ThriveCart that provides instant access to the Dropbox file after payment, set up a one-page website with the sections I mentioned a few posts back, and start running Google ads to people who need male-modeled black t-shirt stock photos that they can add their t-shirt designs over. I would also post my photo package for sale on other sites like Etsy and run ads there.

Once I had proof of concept, I'd take more modeling photos in different shirt styles and colors, and then expand into other articles of clothing.

I have no experience with system.io. I use what works and stick to it.

 

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[traoul6]

Depends on the digital product I'm creating.

If I wanted to create a stock photo modeling package for men's black t-shirts I'd need a black t-shirt and a camera.

I'd ask Chat GPT about common modeling poses or look them up on Amazon. Once I had photos, I'd go to Canva and remove the background with their background removal tool, replacing it with a white background. Next, I'd upload the photos to a file on Dropbox. At this point, the product is ready for sale.

Now that the product is created, I'd make a checkout page in 5 minutes on ThriveCart that provides instant access to the Dropbox file after payment, set up a one-page website with the sections I mentioned a few posts back, and start running Google ads to people who need male-modeled black t-shirt stock photos that they can add their t-shirt designs over. I would also post my photo package for sale on other sites like Etsy and run ads there.

Once I had proof of concept, I'd take more modeling photos in different shirt styles and colors, and then expand into other articles of clothing.

I have no experience with system.io. I use what works and stick to it.

Thanks for the quick answer. I need some time to absorb it.
I'll also have to take another look at your previous posts before moving forward.

 

[Keushei]

I set up a new passive income site yesterday. Here's what that looked like:

• Product is a downloadable PDF document
• $9.97 for the domain
• $5/day in ad spend
• 8 hours or so in time invested

I built the whole thing yesterday and launched with Google ads yesterday too.

Earned my first sale overnight.

I made this one simpler than my other site.

It's one page.

That one page has 4 CTAs that all lead to a ThriveCart checkout page.

The page has good copy, basic credibility markers like credit card logos, images, solid branding...

After purchase, the customer instantly receives the product.

Finally, they reach a thank you page.

That's the entire funnel.

No email opt-in. No lengthy site history. Not attached to my name.

For this site I'm testing price points under $9 to see if I can move higher sales volume faster with ads + a price so low anyone can afford it.

Ideally, I'll find a price that people will pay all around the world so I can expand my advertising worldwide instead of targeting the US. That will help keep costs down.

Wow Congrats! I've spent about 45 on ads and nothing. Paying about 80p per click. How are you spending a 5er and getting sales? I literally get about 10 clicks a day on a 10er spend.

Also at what point to you bin it off. Like by the sounds of it you start getting sales regardless and then just improve.. have you ever had it where you get 0 sales?

Like would you spend a couple of hundred on ads just to test.. and if it doesnt work move on?

UPDATE: After a site revamp, I ran ads for a few hours, changed my pricing and made my first sale. Pretty happy.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Wow Congrats! I've spent about 45 on ads and nothing. Paying about 80p per click. How are you spending a 5er and getting sales? I literally get about 10 clicks a day on a 10er spend.

Also at what point to you bin it off. Like by the sounds of it you start getting sales regardless and then just improve.. have you ever had it where you get 0 sales?

Like would you spend a couple of hundred on ads just to test.. and if it doesnt work move on?

I spent a bit over $100 on one of the other sites I started in this thread with 0 sales before I got rid of the website and moved on.

As for how I'm spending what I spend and getting sales, I'm targeting a niche that wants my product, and communicating its value as clearly as possible. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. I use everything in my background and experience to help me do that.

 

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[adnanazmi]

I spent a bit over $100 on one of the other sites I started in this thread with 0 sales before I got rid of the website and moved on.

As for how I'm spending what I spend and getting sales, I'm targeting a niche that wants my product, and communicating its value as clearly as possible. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. I use everything in my background and experience to help me do that.

@Lex DeVille what if you made an affiliate link option and emailed small to mid social media pages in the niche you are targeting. What do you think about that idea? Maybe 25% of the commission for a $9 product? or something? Would you basically make much more sales if promoted right? Would you test this?

 

[Lex DeVille]

@Lex DeVille what if you made an affiliate link option and emailed small to mid social media pages in the niche you are targeting. What do you think about that idea? Maybe 25% of the commission for a $9 product? or something? Would you basically make much more sales if promoted right? Would you test this?

Might be worth testing to grow your email list. Or you might throw away money on social ads that send almost no one to your website. Ultimately, I don't want to deal with third parties or rely on influencers for business and I also don't want to spend too much time trying to get any one site profitable. If I can't get it profitable within $300 of running ads, I'll move on and test another idea.

 

[Two Dog]

But why sell a near perfect passive income machine?

Endless reasons aka "all the usual reasons" any business gets sold.

Boredom. Shrinking market. Low profits. Interested in another opportunity. Change of life. Need money. Mind space.

IRL, there are *very* few passive income machines since every business requires attention and ongoing improvements to continue generating sales. Imagine something as silly as having a legacy business website hosted on MySpace with an @aol.com email address. The market and its demand are constantly changing. About the only exceptions are things like royalties, patents, dividends, insurance settlements, etc. which aren't really businesses at all since they don't buy / sell anything or directly serve a market.

 

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[bibbysoka]

This inspired me to start planning and creating something on Shopify. Spent the past two hours on my laptop addicted. This post lit a flame in me thank you Lex

 

[naz10101]

Hey mate,

Good Stuff! What's your cost per conversion on Google?

I've always thought Google Ads would generally cut into the margins for digital products as the cost per click is quite high (it could just simply be my research was too brief) or things have changed since i last looked into this stuff

 

[Lex DeVille]

Hey mate,

Good Stuff! What's your cost per conversion on Google?

I've always thought Google Ads would generally cut into the margins for digital products as the cost per click is quite high (it could just simply be my research was too brief) or things have changed since i last looked into this stuff

It changes from month to month. If it weren't profitable, I wouldn't continue using it. Who cares if it is high. If you spend $20,000 and earn $22,000 then you have a $2,000/mo passive income. I think people worry too much about the spend when the focus should be on creating a valuable product that people actually want to buy.

 

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[Coolledge]

Thanks for this! Really does help people who are trying to lose their ignorance (like me!)

 

[Captain Hoodie]

I thought I'd give this a try as I have a very little bit of experience with some of the tools used to create and sell digital products but I've always wanted to help people with digital tools.

So I started my search for a product before I even finished reading the first page of this thread.

From some of the products mentioned in here, doing some research on etsy and using my google ads account to look for search terms and their volumes I found the product I would take a shot at. It's a template that is very useful.

I had someone create a template for me based on my research. It would take me forever to learn and create the product I wanted. I also really wanted to get this store up and running ASAP. So I contracted out to an expert to create it for me.

Google ads and shopify I can navigate well enough to create my own store and ads sufficiently enough, so I handled that.

My research consisted of: looking at the monthly search volume on google keyword research tool, looking at the sales on etsy of similar products.

That was pretty much it.

Within the first week I had a shopify store up and a final product being created. A few days after that I had a google ads campaign and ads group with my one ad and many keywords ready to go.

Fast forward a few days and I decided to take a simplified, unfinished, mock version of my template and load it up on my shopify store page. I then fired up my ads and switched my store to live.

I had my 1 product priced at $30 to start and about a week in I lowered the price to $20.

I gathered some info from running my google ads from May 1st - May 20th.

In this time I managed to sell 1 product which was promptly returned and fully refunded. (The customer claimed it was too complex to use. WOMP WOMP) Never the less, this is good to know.

I have paused my ads for now as I think what I should do next.

I'm not sure if I should abandon this product and move quickly to the next idea.

My initial offering was for a rough draft, albeit working version of my final product. My final product is done now and I will be uploading to my store and creating and etsy account to try and sell it on. Then I will probably fire my ads back up.

I did also try to capture email addresses using a coupon code but was only able to get 1 signup out of 80 visitors.

I am also thinking of new products I could sell. I think it would have been better if I went into a niche with less competition and cheaper clicks. I also think the product should be one that is easily edited and sold to many different niches and people. Think about having a store with hundreds of versions of the same product with slight variations to each.

 

[AlexMarin]

What specific products have you created on your websites?

 

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[Lex DeVille]

What specific products have you created on your websites?

I've already stated multiple times I sell step-by-step instructions to GFYS.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I thought I'd give this a try as I have a very little bit of experience with some of the tools used to create and sell digital products but I've always wanted to help people with digital tools.

So I started my search for a product before I even finished reading the first page of this thread.

From some of the products mentioned in here, doing some research on etsy and using my google ads account to look for search terms and their volumes I found the product I would take a shot at. It's a template that is very useful.

I had someone create a template for me based on my research. It would take me forever to learn and create the product I wanted. I also really wanted to get this store up and running ASAP. So I contracted out to an expert to create it for me.

Google ads and shopify I can navigate well enough to create my own store and ads sufficiently enough, so I handled that.

My research consisted of: looking at the monthly search volume on google keyword research tool, looking at the sales on etsy of similar products.

That was pretty much it.

Within the first week I had a shopify store up and a final product being created. A few days after that I had a google ads campaign and ads group with my one ad and many keywords ready to go.

Fast forward a few days and I decided to take a simplified, unfinished, mock version of my template and load it up on my shopify store page. I then fired up my ads and switched my store to live.

I had my 1 product priced at $30 to start and about a week in I lowered the price to $20.

I gathered some info from running my google ads from May 1st - May 20th.

In this time I managed to sell 1 product which was promptly returned and fully refunded. (The customer claimed it was too complex to use. WOMP WOMP) Never the less, this is good to know.

I have paused my ads for now as I think what I should do next.

I'm not sure if I should abandon this product and move quickly to the next idea.

My initial offering was for a rough draft, albeit working version of my final product. My final product is done now and I will be uploading to my store and creating and etsy account to try and sell it on. Then I will probably fire my ads back up.

I did also try to capture email addresses using a coupon code but was only able to get 1 signup out of 80 visitors.

I am also thinking of new products I could sell. I think it would have been better if I went into a niche with less competition and cheaper clicks. I also think the product should be one that is easily edited and sold to many different niches and people. Think about having a store with hundreds of versions of the same product with slight variations to each.

If someone was willing to part with their cash, then there's probably something there and it just needs to be tweaked a bit to attract more people and move them to buy.

Ultimately, you can have the shittiest website on the planet and pretty terrible ads, and people will still buy the product if they can't get it anywhere else and if they feel like they really need it.

 

[Crash Overhide]

@Lex DeVille Thanks for this amazing thread. I've read through it all!

I'm curious about your thoughts on 1 site vs mutiple sites (or 1 product vs multiple products).

Initially, you set up several websites; more recently, you've "only" got two, with one of them (the first one), having multiple products that sell in the range ( think) of 1 to 3 digits.

From what you've been through in the past weeks, testing, experimenting, tweaking here and there, what do you think is more worthwhile: 1 site with multiple products (focused on the same "micro-niche"), or 2 to 3 sites, each with 1 product, and then, when testing the response to that product, expand the funnel to similar products?

Thanks for your time and for the great thread.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

@Lex DeVille Thanks for this amazing thread. I've read through it all!

I'm curious about your thoughts on 1 site vs mutiple sites (or 1 product vs multiple products).

Initially, you set up several websites; more recently, you've "only" got two, with one of them (the first one), having multiple products that sell in the range ( think) of 1 to 3 digits.

From what you've been through in the past weeks, testing, experimenting, tweaking here and there, what do you think is more worthwhile: 1 site with multiple products (focused on the same "micro-niche"), or 2 to 3 sites, each with 1 product, and then, when testing the response to that product, expand the funnel to similar products?

Thanks for your time and for the great thread.

The first site is more profitable, but also more complex. That complexity didn't happen all at once. It got more complex over time as I added things. It's still almost entirely automated, so it's not a big deal to run more sites.

At this point, I think what makes the most sense is to try to find a product that can have many variations that all serve one niche. Build out your product line on one site so people have a lot of reasons to come back to buy again and again.

Once you get one profitable site, then you can work on a new niche and maybe a new product and do it again.

The latest site presents some challenges due to its simplicity. It's hard to get people to buy because there's a lack of credibility.

Right now, my ads are 1:1 for the new site (meaning for every $1 I spend I earn $1). In other words, I'm breaking even. So the next step from there is to build out my email marketing processes to get people to come back, and also build out more products so people have more reasons to come back and so the shop looks more legit.

So going forward, I'll look for niches where I can simplify the process to: Click, Buy, Done. But I'll also make sure the niche/product combo will be something where I can easily have many product variations without exponentially increasing my workload.

 

[Crash Overhide]

The first site is more profitable, but also more complex. That complexity didn't happen all at once. It got more complex over time as I added things. It's still almost entirely automated, so it's not a big deal to run more sites.

At this point, I think what makes the most sense is to try to find a product that can have many variations that all serve one niche. Build out your product line on one site so people have a lot of reasons to come back to buy again and again.

Once you get one profitable site, then you can work on a new niche and maybe a new product and do it again.

The latest site presents some challenges due to its simplicity. It's hard to get people to buy because there's a lack of credibility.

Right now, my ads are 1:1 for the new site (meaning for every $1 I spend I earn $1). In other words, I'm breaking even. So the next step from there is to build out my email marketing processes to get people to come back, and also build out more products so people have more reasons to come back and so the shop looks more legit.

So going forward, I'll look for niches where I can simplify the process to: Click, Buy, Done. But I'll also make sure the niche/product combo will be something where I can easily have many product variations without exponentially increasing my workload.

Thank u for your thougts and time. Keep going!

 

[adnanazmi]

Lex I found something pretty cool! I think you might find this interesting as well. Any idea what this tool is and how we can go about getting this feature? I am talking about the 'it looks like you're from Sri Lanka part'. I think it is PRETTY COOL! Had to share! @Lex DeVille

 

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[Cojo]

I have decided on a digital product to make but when I search on it, I noticed no one is running google ads for it. Would it be a good idea to go forward with it?

 

[Andy Black]

I have decided on a digital product to make but when I search on it, I noticed no one is running google ads for it. Would it be a good idea to go forward with it?

How many people are searching for it?

What do the organic listings offer?

How much buyer intent is behind the search terms?



Maybe knock up a simple landing page and Google Ads campaign and get search volume, impressions, clicks, cpcs, etc?

Here's what you could learn on $5/day spend:

MARKETING - How to read Google Ads metrics

Thought I'd already created a thread for this but it seems not. Hope it helps. Let me know if you have any questions. View: https://youtu.be/svxkKfn0Z5k Here's how to setup those columns: View: https://youtu.be/4Eql3ybEP80

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