Improving people's productivity in a specific niche.

[KiwiEC]

Hi folks,

After a couple of days to brainstorm feasibility of several projects I had in mind, I have made my choice and I think I'm ready to move forward.

1.) The Key, the Business

My goal is to help people working in a specific niche. I want to make them gain time and increase their productivity.

Quick CENTS analysis:
NEED: I work in this niche so this allowed me to directly determine there is potential (also discussed about that with some colleagues).

CONTROL: I will design the products myself. I will use my own website as the main sales channel and I could use some third-party websites as alternative channels. Products are planned to be digital only, so no logistics to expect.

SCALE: my niche has several sublevels so I can extend the reach of my business over time. In the end I'm targeting dozens/hundreds of thousands of employees and even companies themselves.

TIME: product design/creation will take time for sure, once this is done it will sell by itself. At some point I may also consider a paid newsletter to generate an extra bonus of passive income (not my priority atm, it will require credibility).

ENTRY: I have several years of experience in this niche and my current job is still linked to it. I know from my colleagues, customers and hierarchy that I'm good and/or better than average in my domain. Some of the products may be already available at various places, but I plan to improve them and also to provide all of them through a single channel.

Overall this project is rated B+ on GradeMyBusinessIdea. I think it could be upgraded to A on the long term.

2.) Skills I need to learn / What I will create

It's quite simple here, I need to:
- Design the products
- Sell the products
- Advertise them / Gain visibility

Designing the products will require various softwares. I'm already familiar with some of them. Some will require training/courses.

Selling the products will be done through my own website. I will use a CMS like WordPress to quickly set up a decent Ecommerce website. This will be more than enough to start. I have already started to learn how to do it.

Advertising and global internet awareness will be achieved through usual ways (social medias, SEO, etc.). I also plan to be very active of a few social media which are well suited for my niche. In fact I'm already quite active on them but I want to improve that.

Also currently reading a lot of books related to this project : MJ's books, marketing, copywriting, SEO, etc. Anything that can help me.

3.) The Roadmap

I'm still working on it. Short term objectives are already determined:
- Getting a few products ready.
- Getting the website ready.
- Advertising and selling as soon as possible.

On the long term, I still need to think about:
- Which products may come in a second time.
- Publishing a paid newsletter if there is potential.
- Coaching/Courses if I become really successful.

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I will use this thread to keep you guys updated and to track my journey.

For the rest of the current week, I will work on designing a clear roadmap with milestones for each week/month. It's hard to aim a specific income at this stage, but I will consider myself very happy if I gain 5k€ per month by the end of 2023.

I will post in a couple of days a more accurate version of my roadmap. Happy to discuss with you until then.

 

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[KiwiEC]

A quick update.

I. Website development
My father runs a refloxology cabinet (for those who are wondering, it can be seen as "massage therapy").
He already gets customers but he can do way better as he is the only refloxologist in the area and he is surrounded by 3 medium cities.

His website is totally neglected. He made it quickly with flashy colors. When I browse it I don't want to read it and I'm sure it's the same for potential patients.
I am rebuilding it from scratch since a couple of days:
- Better message (what does he offer?)
- Better branding (logo, copywriting, pictures of himself working on patients)
- New visual identity with relaxing color palette

I still have a lot to do but I am going faster than expected. Next steps are:
- Finishing the remaining pages
- Working on marketing/SEO
- Building the brand on social medias (mostly Facebook/Instagram in his case)

Why am I doing this instead of focusing on my own website? Because first I want to help my dad and then it's a good exercise. I will have a lot of skills to use for my own website rather than only coding skills. I can also get an honest and detailled feedback about what to improve.

II. Girlfriend side hustle
I had a couple of discussions with my GF about making money.
Her job is a nightmare (customer care in a big company), she is very talented and could do way more than this. There are no career perspective for her in there and we know it. She tries to look for a similar job in a better company, but I know in the end it is a waste of time. She won't be happy by doing the same thing elsewhere.

So I said "why not starting something on your own? you have so much skills to sell".

I took the example of cosmetics and skin care products, she is a living encyclopedia about this. She also likes to avoid products with non-natural chemicals inside.
That's how she decided to start doing her own cosmetics. She made some this week, it looks promising and she feels better.

She has subscribed to some courses and to get stronger skills. In the end she is thinking about starting an ecommerce website to sell natural and handcrafted cosmetics. For the moment she focuses on soaps.

I am already happy having changed her mindset and put a smile bakc on her face. I will support her as much as I can.

III. My own project
I now have a clear roadmap and helping my dad and ma GF is part of it (lots of skills in the end). I still have to design the digital products I want to sell but one step at a time.

On the other hand I made a couple of interviews with other companies. My current one has doubled my workload this year (have to travel into half of Europe now) but my wage is the same. I have a nice profile for recruiters (and good visibility on LinkedIn, I write a lot in there) so I frequently received nice offers.

If this goes well, I am about to go to another company for a similar position but with less work for a better salary. I will double it (from 45k€ to 90k€). I know it's a Slowlane move but I can't afford to leave my job now. My business is on the rails but still at a very early stage. This will come.


I have to admit it's not easy to move forward on all those things. But it's way more rewarding than playing video games until 2am during my free time like I used to. I am working for me now.

 

[KiwiEC]

New update after a couple of weeks.

• As planned I redesigned my dad's website for his alternative medecine business. I tried to design it to bring value to his activity and to help him getting more patients. It is too early to determine how impactful it is, but it was a great experience and I have learnt new skills (web design, SEO, thinking like an entrepreneur, etc.).

• I made my girlfriend attend her first course about handcrafted cosmetics. She was thinking about it for a long time but she needed this small push to move forward. It is a bit early to say how serious this will get but she already has a lot of ideas about products, marketing, etc. If she decides to start a business I will support her as much as I can.

• I'm now totally focused on my personal project. As said previously I have now a couple of skills + experience to do it efficiently. I recently read this thread from @Lex DeVille and his story is not far to what I aim as a first step (+ he gave a precious list of tools alongside his experience):

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

In November, I launched a digital product. In under 30 days, I generated over $2,000 in sales. Four months later, the site had its first $2,000 week... I've been documenting this progress in my INSIDERS's thread here. Now, I'm going to show you how to do it. Here are some things to know...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

• I got a wage increase (after I asked for it of course). I know it's not fastlane at all but it's still a tiny improvement. It will cover the new costs I have to start my activity (I subscribed to a couple of paid tools like Canvas, Webflow, etc.).

That's all for now, I will post the next update when my own business/website is about to go live.

 

[KiwiEC]

Website is now live!

Of course it lacks a lot of features:
- A couple of integrations. Mainly about analytics for the moment. I need to understand my future audience.
- Branding and design. My site looks very generic for the moment. I have now a bit of experience with web design but I just had no time to focus on that.
- Content. Content. CONTENT. (including products).

It's going in the right direction. I have bought a domain name (really cheap) to give a more professional appearance to my website (+ it's easier to remember).

I made a post in the ChatGPT thread about using the AI to brainstorm about a newsletter. I had a clear idea about how to manage it, how to monetize it, etc. ChatGPT gave me precious insights about it.

Short term objectives:
- Finishing the website (integrations, design).
- First piece of content is live.
- Switching to growth design to growth process. Will include relevant social media and SEO for the moment. I plan to work on ads in a second time.

I will start to share here a few metrics:
- Website visitors : unknown (need analytics integration).
- Newsletter subscribers : 1 (it's me).

I don't expect those numbers to increase in the coming days. Lots of work before that.

 

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