“Always deliver more than expected.” — Larry Page

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❓ What You’ll Learn

• Who made $550,000 with 1 programming course?
• How to validate demand?
• How to get early customers?
• Who makes $100,000 ARR via affiliates?
• How to get early feedback?
• How to get predictable revenue?
• Who made $200,000 with a course on spreadsheets?
• Who used side project marketing to attract 150,000 visitors?
• How to boost customer success?
• How to crowdsource product ideas?
• What are evergreen digital product ideas?
• What are 77 digital product ideas?
  
  

🔍 Problem

You know something that others don’t.

But 1:1 help does not scale.

💡 Solution

Digital products help you share your knowledge in a scalable way.

🏁 Players

Ebooks

• Landing Page Hot Tips • How to build effective landing pages
• Zero to Sold • How to start, run and sell a bootstrapped business
• Writing for Software Developers • How to write technical articles
  

Online Courses

• Notion Mastery • Master your life and business workflows with Notion
• Driven Digital • How to make passive income with affiliate marketing
• The Art of Visual Design • Improve the aesthetics of your product with images, colors, fonts and more
  

Templates

• Lume 3D • Portfolio website template for Webflow
• Figma iOS UI Kit • Responsive mobile app templates for iOS
• Design System UI Kit • Design system templates
  

Databases

• CyberLeads • 1,000+ handpicked companies that raised millions
• Free To Use Sounds • Library of royalty-free sounds
• ChatGPT Prompts • 1,000+ prompts for lawyers, recruiters, marketers and more
  
  

🛠 How to Build Digital Products

• Build in public to earn trust.
  • Vensy has built Notion Planner in public.
  • Eelco Wiersma shares the new features of SaaS UI in public.
  • Josh W. Comeau made $550,000 with CSS for JavaScript Developers. He was sharing short recordings of the course in public.

• Presell to validate demand.
  • Jane Portman presold UI Audit (now free) for $3,500.
  • Jay Clouse got 40 pre-orders for Podcast Like The Pros.
  • Ayush Chaturvedi presold Make Money with Words for $512.

• Build an audience to get early customers.
  • Quentin Villard made $3,000 by sharing TIMS with his audience.
  • Xavier Coiffard says building an audience helped him launch UserBooster.
  • Arvid Kahl used his audience on X (Twitter) to launch Zero to Sold. He sold 350 copies of the book in 24 hours.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Digital Products

• Use affiliate marketing to get others to sell your product.
  • Gabe Ragland offers a 50% commission to Divjoy affiliates.
  • Kerry Godsall offers a 50% commission to How to Sketch affiliates.
  • Rob Austin and Michael Andreuzza offer up to 70% commission to Wicked Templates affiliates.
  • Ryan Sager says Who Sponsors Stuff attracts customers through inbound inquiries and referrals. It makes $100,000 ARR.

• Use digital products as lead magnets. It’s easier to sell to warm leads.
  • Nicole Osborne offers a free Agency Growth ebook.
  • Dan Martell offers Growth Playbooks by SaaS Academy.
  • Modest Mitkus offers free resources for making digital products.

• Use social media to drive traffic from your existing audience.
  • JPatz is showing music beats on TikTok.
  • Chris is promoting his SEO course on YouTube.
  • Matt Olpinski embeds Project Proposal & Contract Bundle in his blog.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Digital Products

• Offer lifetime deals to get early users, feedback and revenue.
  • Pixel True has a $299 lifetime deal for illustrations.
  • Seth Kramer has a $159 lifetime deal for No Code MBA.
  • Landingfolio has an $89 lifetime deal for all UI components.

• Offer a one-time pricing to lower mental overhead.
  • Doing Content Right costs $300.
  • Podcast Cover Templates cost $19,90.
  • SaaS Conversion Strategies cost $157.

• Offer recurring plans to get predictable revenue.
  • Mark Anderson sells cartoons for up to $75 per month.
  • SaaSFrame offers SaaS layout examples for $14 per month.
  • Andrew Kamphey sells Better Sheets for up to $29 per month. He made $200,000+.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• Companies will use side project marketing to get more leads.
  • Clientjoy is a CRM for small businesses. They offer contract templates for freelancers and agencies.
  • Surfer SEO is a content creation platform. They have an SEO Writing Masterclass to help you optimize your writing for SEO.
  • Karthik Sridharan runs Flexiple, a recruiting agency. They made free illustrations that attracted 150,000 visitors in 24 hours.

• Platforms for selling digital products will offer real-time help to educate users. Sellers have a high lifetime value for platforms and this boosts customer success.
  • Kajabi helps you make and grow digital products with 1:1 sessions.
  • Teachable helps you make better digital products with group coaching.
  • Thinkific helps you launch online courses with growth and marketing calls.

• Creators will crowdsource content to build products fast.
  • Pieter Levels crowdsourced the chapters for MAKE.
  • Lokesh Gupta wrote Art of Email List Growth based on insights from top email marketers.
  • Gergely Orosz made $14,000 with The Tech Resume. He based the book on insights from recruiters and hiring managers.o Philip Kiely made $39,141 with Writing for Software Developers. The book is based on interviews with software developers and writers.
    
    

😠 Haters

“Digital products are easy to copy. It’s hard to build a moat.”
To boost value, base your digital product on your personal brand, unique experience and provide great customer support.

“Digital products are prone to piracy.”
This is true. If you’re worried about piracy, it can be wise to choose another business model.

“Some digital products get out of date fast.”
Some digital products are evergreen. For products on fast-paced topics, offer lifetime deals to boost the perceived value or sell updated versions as “new” products.

🔗 Links

1. ​Made $550,000 with a Programming Course • The thread behind this report.
2. Building a Report on Digital Products • The tweet behind this report.
3. 77 Best Digital Products to Sell • List of digital products for bloggers, freelancers and more.
4. How I Made $3,000 With a Digital Product • Build, launch and grow a digital product without tech skills.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Ebooks • Learn from the lives of others and explore new worlds.
• Data as a Service • Gain a competitive edge by fueling your decisions with the right data.
• Email Courses • Deliver promised transformations in a scalable way.
• Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Find your highest point of leverage.
• Audience-First Products • Validate products, build distribution and stay accountable.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Sam Schrup and Sahil Sangani. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0138 — Digital Products has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 28 Digital Product Examples (133% More)
• 9 Ways to Build Digital Products (200% More)
• 8 Ways to Grow Digital Products (167% More)
• 10 Ways to Monetize Digital Products (233% More)
• 7 Predictions (133% More)
• 10 Links (150% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to sell “sawdust”?
• (📈 Pro) Who makes $3,771 MRR with tweet templates?
• (📈 Pro) How to get to market faster?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $7,569 with an NFT ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to lower market risk?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $100,000 by flipping websites?
• (📈 Pro) Who grew to $120,000 ARR by giving away products daily?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $1,000,000 with 2 Notion templates?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a value ladder?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $170,000 by selling stock photos?
• (📈 Pro) Who made $839,968 by selling music beats?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost perceived value?
• (📈 Pro) How to get high-ticket sales?
• (📈 Pro) What 7 digital products you can make with AI?
• (📈 Pro) How to price your digital product?
• And much more…
  
  

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🧘 6 simple habits
💬 A speech-to-text app
🎞️ An AI video generator
💰 Building a $1B startup at 23
❓ 12 questions to guide your work
🪝 A book on habit-forming products
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Ka Yi Hui unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🤖 Elie Steinbock launched Full Stack AI on Product Hunt

🎨 Simon launched Design Rack

💼 Sarim Khalid launched AI/ML Jobs on Product Hunt

🤾‍♀️ David Getchel updated Random Hiit

🧰 Errol Tiozon​ hosted a Trends Pro workshop on Profitable Customer Acquisition with Lead Magnets

🧠 Hj Barraza, Peter Elkins, Pavels Gurskis, Ioannis Bakagiannis and Don Ho unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-day standup streaks

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎞️ HeyGen shared by Maciej Cupial
A tool to make high-quality videos with AI avatars

🪝 Hooked shared by Tony Tong
A book on building habit-forming products

❓ 12 Favorite Problems shared by Harsha MV
An essay on using questions to guide your work

📘 Read This

Lifestyle and Habits that Will Upgrade Your Life

Here are 6 simple lifestyle changes that will improve your health and productivity:

• Avoid sugar
• Learn to box
• Lower your screen time
• Meditate every morning
• Drink cappuccino over espresso
• Nap for 30 minutes during the day

🌟 Founder of the Week

Avy Leghziel

“Loving Trends Pro. Great people willing to help each other.”

Avy is building Avyleg.com. He works with companies and professionals who feel stuck with their strategy, management practices or work processes.  He shares his wisdom and resources in his free newsletter, Masters of Babel.

What’s your most important habit?
Reading the newsletters I am subscribed to every morning. I’ve been doing this for 5 years.

Great content helps me jump-start my brain better than coffee.

What are you reading right now?
A History of Ideas by Jacques Le Goff.

Ideas are at the core of any great product and service.

Excellent execution is a function of unorthodox ideas.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A browser extension that automatically hides LinkedIn posts that include expressions such as “It’s been an honor”, “I am humbled” and “Exciting news!”. This would help me sift through the noise better.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
MurmurType. It helps me transcribe and translate my speech.

And ChatGPT Plus.

What are you bullish on?
Micro-education businesses

People are losing faith in traditional education and training frameworks.. If these businesses build state-of-the-art methodologies, our human capital will get much more effective.

What are you bearish on?
Automated content creation.

We are past the point of no return. People are sick of reading cliches and SEO-oriented obvious formulas.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🖖 Open-Source AI

I’m not a programmer. This report helped me find tools to play with AI without learning how to code.

What else?
Feel free to reach out to me on Avyleg.com or  X (Twitter) if I can help in any way.

Exclusive Deal: Avy is offering Trends.vc readers a 10% discount on consulting and training services. Use this form to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) Scheduling tools
  
• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities

👀 Watch This

High School Dropout Builds a $1B Startup at 23

Samir Vasavada founded Vise, an asset manager for financial advisors.

Here’s how he’s building a $1B startup at 23 years old:

• Have as many failures as fast as possible.
• Talk to your customers. Watch how they use your product.
• Have the right people that are solving the right problem at the right speed.

That’s how startups grow.

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎙️ An interview with Dru
✍️ The benefits of writing
🧰 A directory of 1,000 tools
🎛️ A dashboard design guide
🤖 A tool for chaining AI models
👥 How to get your first 1,000 users
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Formula for success: double your rate of experiments.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Onu Ocholi and Keihan Popal unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🚀 Eddie Forson launched EnVsion AI on Product Hunt

📅 Ash launched Review My Year

💼 Maisha Cannon was featured on the Trap Chat podcast

🛠️ Simon got the first paid listing on Hand Picked Tools

🎙️ Dru Riley was interviewed on the Where It Happens podcast

🧰 ​Kevin C. Whelan​ hosted a Trends Pro workshop on ​Starting as a Fractional CMO​

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🤖 Leap AI shared by Yuyu
A tool to add AI models to your workflows

🎛️ Dashboard UI Design shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A guide to designing user interfaces

🧰 1000.tools shared by Breno Ferreira
A curated directory of the “1,000 best tools”

📘 Read This

How to Start and Scale a Consumer Business

How to acquire your first 1,000 users:

• Go where your target audience is
• Talk to friends and colleagues
• Talk to targeted strangers
• Get physical placement
• Work with influencers
• Make viral content
• Get press

Do things that don’t scale.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Don Ho

“Three thoughts:
I’ve been a Trends Pro member for a week. It was a great experience:
1. Got feedback on my startups’ website which led to positive changes.
2. Daily Standups keep me focused and motivated.
3. Re-reading all Trends Pro reports.“

Don is building Launchpad Legal. It offers legal services, startup information, and guidance to help first-time founders start and grow their businesses.

What’s your most important habit?
Keeping an abundance mindset. I may have a bad day, but I rarely have two bad days in a row.

I spent the last 20 months building a startup that failed. Lessons learned. With that knowledge, I started 2 new businesses.

What are you reading right now?
Just finished Company of One by Paul Jarvis. My failed startup was an attempt at a “homerun” business, with the largest team I would have ever led.

I read this book to reset my mindset about what a “successful” business means.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A luxury version of OpenTable where I could call a week before I wanted to have dinner and get into any restaurant (this was the concept of my failed startup).

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Reflect.app. It’s a note-taking app that integrates seamlessly into my workflow. It’s a perfect combination of Roam Research and Evernote. Anything I add gets backlinked and connected: tweets, emails, ideas and more. 

What are you bullish on?
In-person meetings. Studies have scientifically proven that  remote meetings don’t stimulate the brain as much as in-person meetings.

What are you bearish on?
College degrees (unless you want to become a doctor, lawyer or anybody where a degree is a must).

The system is flawed:

1) Expensive and encourages going into debt.

2) The “jobs of tomorrow” may not be the same as “the jobs of today”.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔥 The FIRE Movement and 😍 Personal Brands. The two most important topics to me right now, personally and professionally.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities
  
• (📈 Pro) Time tracking apps for productivity

🔧 Try This

Writing is a Thinking Tool

Writing can improve your decision-making, creativity and productivity.

• The great explainer: If you can write it, you can truly explain it.
• Memory enhancer: You better retain information when you retrieve it from your own mind.
• Creative tool: Writing helps to track your ideas and make unique material for creative content.

Writing can unlock parts of your mind that are harder to access otherwise.

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies…” — George R.R. Martin

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to write ebooks faster?
• How to boost visibility?
• How to get early readers?
• Who got $12,000 by preselling an ebook?
• How to build an email list?
• How to reach new audiences?
• How to reach book lovers?
• How to fund your ebook?
• How to add value with bonus resources?
• Who made $200,000 with an ebook generated by ChatGPT?
• How to chat with ebooks?
• How to craft a great story?
  
  

🔍 Problem

You need an easy way to learn from the lives of others and explore new worlds.

💡 Solution

Ebooks offer an endless library that travels with you wherever you go.

🏁 Players

Ebooks

• The Embedded Entrepreneur • How to build an audience-driven business
• Landing Page Hot Tips • How to build effective landing pages
• Doing Content Right • How to build successful blogs and newsletters
• Deploy Empathy • Practical guide to interviewing customers
• The Pathless Path • Imagine a better story for work and life
• 22 Laws of Digital Writing • The rules of sharing knowledge in the digital age
• Team Lead 101 • Manage and grow engineering teams in small startups
  

Ebook Tools

• Gumroad • Publish and sell ebooks
• Canva • Design the cover and layout for your ebook
• ChatGPT • Get help with storytelling, editing, proofreading and more
• Hemingway • Check your writing complexity
• Magic Author • Write, translate and format your books
• Ulysses • Focused writing with proofreading and editing assistance
  

Ebook Publishing Services

• StreetLib • Distribute ebooks and audiobooks to worldwide book retailers
• Ebook Launch • Edit, design and format ebooks
• Pique Publishing • Writing, editing and design services for ebooks
  
  

🛠 How to Write Ebooks

• Repurpose your existing content to get to market faster.
  • Michael Hyatt turns his best blog posts into books such as Platform.
  • Victoria Kurichenko turned this article into an ebook on ranking higher on Google.
  • Anthony Moore used his older content to write ebooks such as What Extraordinary People Know.

• Write in public to boost your visibility.
  • Michele Hansen wrote Deploy Empathy in public.
  • Kevon Cheung wrote Find Joy in Chaos in public.
  • Arvid Kahl wrote The Embedded Entrepreneur in public.

• Base your book on interviews. Take the guesswork out of what to write.
  • Darko wrote Zero to Users based on interviews with indie hackers.
  • Lokesh Gupta wrote Art of Email List Growth based on insights from top email marketers.
  • Docu Magazine wrote Docu Books with interviews and images from street photographers.
  • Philip Kiely wrote Writing for Software Developers based on interviews with software developers and writers. He made $39,141.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Ebooks

• Use your ebook as a lead magnet to build an email list.
  • HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform. It has free ebooks on marketing, sales and more.
  • WordStream helps to manage online ads. It has 7 Fundamental Facebook Advertising Tips.
  • Springly helps to manage nonprofit organizations. It has A Guide to Nonprofit Networks to help you start one yourself.

• Go on podcasts as a guest to reach new audiences.
  • Rachel Maddow talked about Prequel on Pod Save America.
  • Arvid Kahl shared the making process of his books on Uncommunity.
  • Alex Hillman shared the lessons from The Tiny MBA on The Business of Freelancing podcast.

• Work with reading clubs to share your book with book lovers.
  • Sapphic Book Club lets authors submit books for readers to review.
  • Adam Grant hosted a book club with a giveaway of the Tokyo Vice ebook.
  • Rebecca Dekker offers free copies of Babies Are Not Pizzas to book clubs.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Ebooks

• Use crowdfunding to get early revenue, customers and feedback.
  • Don MacDonald raised $9,268 for Machiavelli.
  • Rob Walling raised $108,837 for The SaaS Playbook.
  • Nikki Jefford raised $6,000+ for Spellcaster Wild Card.

• Sell your books on multiple platforms.
  • Arvid Kahl sells his ebooks on Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, Gumroad and more.
  • David Gaughran sells his ebooks on Amazon, Apple Books, Rakuten Kobo and more.

• Add value with bonus resources such as templates, checklists and more.
  • Tomek Rudzki wrote The SEO Playbook. It has an SEO checklist with 140 items.
  • Sleepless Yogi wrote HTML to React. It has project ideas, code examples and more.
  • Mohamed Keita wrote How to Start Your Vending Business. Which comes with a contract template, buyer checklist and more.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• Authors will use AI to get help with writing, editing and visuals.  
  • Joe Popelas shares how he made $200,000 by selling books generated with ChatGPT.
  • The Mystery of Chimney Rock is a visual novel based on the book “The Mystery of Chimney Rock” by Edward Packard. The backgrounds were generated by Midjorney and upscaled with Topaz Gigapixel AI.

• We’ll use AI to chat with books. We’ll be able to ask questions, get summaries and more.
  • PDF.ai lets you chat with any PDF document.
  • iChatBook lets you ask questions to your ebooks.
  • BookAI.chat lets you upload and chat with ebooks.
  • REDiron Bookmate lets you chat with an ebook with your voice.
  • YouAi MindStudio made Book AI that turns ebooks into chatbots.
  • Sahil Lavigna let you chat with his book The Minimalist Entrepreneur.

• Authors will build paid communities and offer their ebooks for free to paid members.
  • Mark Manson offers his ebooks for free to paid subscribers.
  • Paul Millerd offers The Pathless Path for free to paid subscribers of his Pathless newsletter.
  • Dickie Bush, Nicolas Cole and Daniel Bustamante offer 3 ebooks for free to Ship 30 for 30 members.
    
    

😠 Haters

“There isn’t a lot of money to be made with ebooks.”
Many authors write books because they want to tell a story, feel fulfilled, build a legacy and more. If you want to make money, it can be wise to choose another business model.

“Some of the ebooks you shared have print versions.”
While this is true, a lot of strategies we shared work for ebooks and physical books.

“Ebooks are prone to piracy.”
This is true for all digital products.

🔗 Links

1. ​This Ebook Made $499,585 • The thread for this report.
2. Writing a Report on Ebooks • The tweet behind this report.
3. How to Write a Good Story • Universal elements that all good stories need.
4. How to Make an Ebook • How to write, publish and market an ebook.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Micro-Education Businesses • How to learn new skills fast.
• Build in Public • How to break through the noise.
• Presales • How to get early customers and feedback.
• Personal Brands • How to show why you are worth trust and attention.
• Self-Publishing • How to publish “long-tail” books with more control and upside.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Stewart Townsend and Avy Leghziel. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0137 — Ebooks has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 17 Ebook Examples (143% More)
• 15 Ebook Tools (150% More)
• 7 Ebook Publishing Services (133% More)
• 8 Ways to write ebooks (167% More)
• 11 Ways to grow ebooks (267% More)
• 9 Ways to monetize ebooks (200% More)
• 8 Predictions (167% More)
• 11 Links (175% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to build a connection with readers?
• (📈 Pro) How to break through the noise?
• (📈 Pro) How to crowdsource content for your book?
• (📈 Pro) How to find valuable topics to write about?
• (📈 Pro) How to build an engaged audience?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a strong community around your book?
• (📈 Pro) How to get others to market your ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to keep more royalties?
• (📈 Pro) How to control publishing?
• (📈 Pro) How to upsell high-ticket products?
• (📈 Pro) How to make money with affiliate links?
• (📈 Pro) Which ebooks have thousands of unique covers?
• (📈 Pro) How to turn readers into students with companion courses?
• (📈 Pro) How to price your ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to promote other products inside your ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How to generate B2B leads with ebooks?
• (📈 Pro) Who shares the strategies used to earn $210,000+ with an ebook?
• And much more…
  
  

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📚 A collection of life advice
🎵 190+ music marketing resources
💲 A workshop on founder-led sales
🚀 Takeaways from The Lean Startup
🌐 How to rank on Google with AI content
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Mistakes are how you grow. It’s part of the game.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Rahul Kahani, Onu Ocholi, Keihan Popal, Trilok Hebbur and Sebas Guerrero unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🌟 Abhishek Kumar was featured in Starter Story

📈 Sumant Yerramilly launched The Assembly Partner on Product Hunt

💰 Ivan Zografski reached $300,000 ARR

🚀 Giovanni Vanini launched his NFT platform at TEDxLecco

🤖 Maisha Cannon presented at an AI learning event

🧠 Vikram Aditya unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💲 Founder-Led Sales shared by Eddie Forson
A sales workshop for early stage B2B companies

📚 Excellent Advice for Living shared by Cameron Rambert
A book about life wisdom

🎵 Music Marketing Stack shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A directory of 190+ resources for promoting music

📘 Read This

Google Search and AI Content

Here are some answers to your questions about AI content and Google Search:

• Does Google ban AI content?
• Should you use AI to make content?
• Will AI content rank highly on Search?

In short, Google rewards high-quality content. However you make it.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Joe Montanino

“I just joined Trends Pro. Standups keep me accountable. Fellow founders help me progress with expert advice. Looking forward to solving progress together in Masterminds.“

Joe is building Bigrobot. A subscription-based design agency that designs SaaS, web and mobile apps.”

What’s your most important habit?
Time-blocking my day the night before. This helps me to stay focused and efficient.

What are you reading right now?
Man Uncivilized by Traver Boehm.

What product or service do you wish existed?
An app that lets you document your life by adding memories of personal and world events.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
How We Feel. It helps me track my feelings during the day. 

What are you bullish on?
No-code website builders, such as Framer, that cater to designers.

What are you bearish on?
I’m bearish on the“Design Thinking” process. I think this process will be replaced by more nimble ones that are as effective, if not more so. 

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
♾️ Unlimited Services

This report is packed with insights that are helpful to my design agency.

Exclusive Deal: Joe is offering Trends.vc readers 25% off on a 1-month design subscription at Bigrobot with the code TRENDS50.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Favorite online communities
  
• (📈 Pro) Time tracking apps for productivity

👀 Watch This

The Lean Startup Summary

Many people think that a great idea is key to success.

In reality, ideas are not that great. It’s execution that matters.

Here’s a framework for building products that customers want and will pay for:

• Build: Your MVP should have the most crucial features only.
• Measure: Track the performance and collect feedback.
• Learn: Improve your product or pivot based on data.
  
  
  

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💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎥 A 7-figure YouTube business
🔄 A process documentation tool
⭐ A collection of animated SVGs
💯 100 ideas on how the world works
🔋 Why you should track your energy
📩 A directory of newsletter best practices
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Be kinder than necessary.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Patrick Reker, Parminder Singh, Rafael Servatti, Areeb Pasha, Jong-Chan Chung, Sebastian, Taras Frank, Julien Collet, Sagar Shah and Jed Crystal unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

📩 Katt Risen built Newsletter Giants

🎞️ Errol Tiozon made a TikTok video that went viral

💼 Bernardt J. Vogel built a live job database

🎓 Rupert Wade launched a product demo for Applaud

🧑 Cameron Rambert updated his personal website

🚜 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about AI in agriculture

🎙️ Stewart Townsend led a workshop on How to Boost Sales as a Podcast Guest

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🔄 Tango shared by Daniel Berggren
An automatic process documentation tool

🔋 Energy Audit shared by Eren Suzer
A method to easily track your energy and focus on meaningful tasks

⭐ Loaf shared by Chuck Hardy
A collection of animated SVG icons

📘 Read This

100 Little Ideas

Here’s a list of 100 little but important ideas on how our world works.

• Pareto Principle: 80% of outcomes are driven by 20% of events.
• Fredkin’s Paradox: The more equal the options, the harder the decision.
• Skill Compensation: People who are good at one thing tend to be poor at another.
• Boomerang Effect: Persuading someone to do one thing can make them do the opposite.
• Normalcy Bias: Underestimating the odds of disaster by assuming things will keep functioning the way they’ve always functioned.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Vikram Aditya

“Just joined Trends.vc Masterminds. I teach fundraising and storytelling. Looking forward to progressing together.“

What’s your most important habit?
Waking up early, reading and writing. This helps me stay sharp.

What are you reading right now?
Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. It seems that I found the right tech, messaging and market. Finding the right positioning is our next priority.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Superhuman for emails. Apple Notes for organizing information. LinkedIn Sales Navigator for building partnerships.

What are you bullish on?
Artificial intelligence. It helps to build products that offer outcomes instead of software.

What are you bearish on?
API wrappers, general-purpose AI tools and third-party AI tools for big platforms.

• API wrappers have a weak moat.
• General AI tools try to be the jack-of-all-trades.
• Big platforms will eat up small apps by adding similar AI features themselves.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
NFTs and DAOs — they helped me launch DaoLens which evolved into Crunchit.ai.

Niche AI Models — a great piece to learn more about AI.

B2B SaaS — an evergreen report that I often revisit.

Exclusive Deal: Vikram is offering Trends.vc readers 25% off his Maven Course. Message Vikram on LinkedIn after filling out this form, or drop an email to vikram@crunchit.ai with the subject line: “TRENDS DISCOUNT FOR COURSE”.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Running an eCommerce store
  
• (📈 Pro) Time tracking apps for productivity

🎧 Listen To

Building a 7-Figure Business on YouTube

Lucy Bella Simkins runs one of the world’s largest language learning YouTube channels.

What started as a passion project, turned into a 7-figure business.

Lucy shares the challenges, strategies and reflections on building her online course business.

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💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

“I could never say what I wanted to say in a song, with games I find it much easier.” — Jazz Mickle

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to build indie games faster?
• How to piggyback on popular games?
• How to build an engaged community?
• How to get early feedback?
• How to find beta players?
• Why should you use cloud gaming services?
• How to fund your game?
• What are million-dollar, one-person indie games?
• What are some great indie game accelerators?
• How can indie games tap into other forms of media?
• How to build a moat?
• How to find a great idea for your game?
  
  

🔍 Problem

We are tired of the same genres and game mechanics.

We crave new experiences.

💡 Solution

Indie games experiment with game mechanics, stories, genres and themes.

They take creative risks to offer unique game experiences.

🏁 Players

Indie Video Games

• Among Us • Complete tasks and fight impostors on a spaceship
• Minecraft • Build, explore and survive in a blocky world
• Stardew Valley • Cultivate land, raise animals and mine resources in a rural village
• Escape the Backrooms • Try to escape eerie rooms while avoiding hostile entities
• Terraria • Explore, build, fight and survive in a 2D world
• Undertale • Role-playing game where choices matter
• Into the Breach • Control powerful mechs from the future to defeat an alien threat
  

Indie Tabletop Games

• I Feel Attacked • Game about the people you love to hate
• Untamed: Feral Fractions • Control animal factions to take down the enemy stronghold
• Castles by the Sea • Build and populate a seaside kingdom
• Proxy War • Become dictators, rebels and politicians
• The Morrison Game Factory • Puzzle adventure that blends board games, escape rooms and interactive fiction
• The Old King’s Crown • Claim an empty throne of a crumbling kingdom
  
  

🛠 How to Build Indie Games

• Use a starter kit to save time building and optimizing your game.
  • Starter Kits by Kenney help you build platformers and first-person shooters in Godot.
  • Creator Kit: RPG helps you build a simple RPG with characters, quests and dialogues in Unity.
  • Interaction System Starter Pack helps you save time coding interactions in Unreal Engine.

• Take inspiration from popular games to stack the odds in your favor. If people enjoy them, chances are they will enjoy yours too.
  • Paper Trail is a mix of Gorogoa and The Monument Valley.
  • Eric Barone says Stardew Valley was inspired by Harvest Moon.

• Build a unique game by experimenting with genres and game mechanics.
  • Pyre combines role-playing games and sports.
  • Crypt of the Necrodancer combines roguelite and rhythm genres.
  • Creature in the Well combines dungeon crawl and pinball games.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Indie Games

• Build your own community to foster loyalty and get feedback.
  • Pirate Software has a Discord channel where you can learn more about Heartbound.
  • Last Epoch has an official subreddit and a Discord channel with updates, player discussions and more.
  • Vampire Survivors has a Discord channel. You can talk to fellow fans, hear about updates, join challenges and more.

• Build in public to earn trust, feedback and early fans.
  • LathanumStudios is building Soul Split in public.
  • Henrik Djerf is building Project Beyonder in public.

• Add your game to cloud gaming services. Let your fans play your game from anywhere in the world.
  • Celeste is available on Xbox Cloud Gaming.
  • Home Behind 2 is available on GeForce NOW.
  • Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is available on Gamestream.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Indie Games

• Sell early access to get early funding and feedback.
  • Last Epoch is releasing updates based on the early access feedback.
  • Heartbound uses early access to get feedback and fix bugs on the road to launch.
  • Inkbound offers early access to get feedback and add features suggested by players.

• Offer battle passes. They reward players with in-game items for playing the game and completing challenges. Players can buy battle passes to get access to content or battle pass levels to progress faster.
  • Brawlhalla has battle passes with unique cosmetic rewards.
  • DrainLive has a battle pass with character skins, coins and more.
  • STALCRAFT has battle pass levels with weapons, themed skins and more.

• Sell digital goods such as soundtracks and artwork. Give players something they will enjoy outside of the game menu.
  • Roots of Pacha sells a bundle with 28 soundtracks.
  • DAVE THE DIVER sells Digital Extra with a digital art book and 54 soundtracks.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see more million-dollar, one-person indie developers.
  • Eric Barone built Stardew Valley which sold 20,000,000+ copies and made $30,000,000+.
  • Markus Persson built Minecraft. It sold 4,000,000 copies before its official launch and became the best-selling video game ever.

• We’ll see accelerators for indie game developers. They will help with marketing and sales.
  • Indielab Games helps to grow indie studios from the UK.
  • Appodeal has an accelerator for mobile games and apps.
  • GameFounders helps indie studios launch games and demos.

• Indie games will tap into other forms of media. Such as animations, movies and TV shows.
  • Cuphead has a Cuphead Show.
  • Minecraft will have its own movie.
  • Among Us has an animated series in the works.
    
    

😠 Haters

“This is a hits-driven business with a low chance of success.”
Most indie developers make games out of passion. If you want to make games to get rich, this may not be the right business for you.

“Game concepts are copied a lot. It seems that there’s no strong moat.”
In games, execution is everything. They have more moving parts than software. Experiment with story, characters, visuals and game mechanics to make a unique game.

“You’re not indie if you’re working with a publisher.”
A lot of great indie developers work with publishers to market their games. While keeping full creative control. You can go alone or sacrifice a part of your revenue for better visibility. It’s a matter of priorities.

“Some of the indie game developers you shared have dozens of employees.”
Some studios started as a one-person or a small team. Some got funding and hired fast. Some got acquired right after they made a successful game.

🔗 Links

1. ​Let’s Talk About Indie Games • Thread for this report.
2. Building a Report on Indie Games • The Tweet behind this report.
3. Getting Started in Indie Game Development • How to pick the right game idea, engine and assets.
4. The Point of a First Level • How to give a great first impression with the first level.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Find your highest point of leverage.
• Startup Studios • Take a systemized approach to building companies.
• Self-Publishing • Publish “long-tail” books with more control and upside.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Tim Jones, Holger Sindbaek and Amit Das. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0136 — Indie Games has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 16 Indie Video Game Examples (129% More)
• 14 Indie Tabletop Game Examples (133% More)
• 8 Ways to build indie games (167% More)
• 14 Ways to grow indie games (367% More)
• 10 Ways to monetize indie games (233% More)
• 12 Predictions (300% More)
• 13 Links (225% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) Why do game demos matter?
• (📈 Pro) How to involve the community in the development?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost your game’s visibility?
• (📈 Pro) How to build hype around your game?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost the reach of your game?
• (📈 Pro) How to get free marketing on social media?
• (📈 Pro) How to find relevant audiences?
• (📈 Pro) How to get help with distribution?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost replay value?
• (📈 Pro) How to market the game by using unique content?
• (📈 Pro) How to keep your game interesting?
• (📈 Pro) How to sell “the same” game twice?
• (📈 Pro) How to make game assets with AI?
• (📈 Pro) What makes games fun?
• (📈 Pro) What are the 7 game design mistakes?
• (📈 Pro) How do accelerators help indie developers grow?
• (📈 Pro) How to make beautiful game graphics?
• (📈 Pro) How to make realistic sound effects?
• (📈 Pro) What are popular game mechanics?
• And much more…
  
  

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

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💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📅 How to plan your week
👨‍🍳 A list of OpenAI API guides 
🎬 An AI-powered teleprompter app
🧠 The key skills every founder needs
🪴 50 ways to make your life greener
📚 A book on becoming the key person of your industry
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Join the community you want to build your products or services for.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Sahil Sangani, Peter Elkins, Ioannis Bakagiannis, Pavels Gurskis, Joe Montanino, Don Ho, Marc Kreuzer, Shreyans Bhansali, Pierce P., Rob Blake and Avy Leghziel unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

💰 Simon sold his side project

🎙️ Abhishek Kumar was featured in Lex Roman’s podcast

💡 Prabhjot Singh Lamba was accepted to Microsoft Founders Hub

🔥 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about hype in tech

👨‍💻 Elie Steinbock made a video on the code behind Shadcn CLI

🤖 Eddie Forson wrote about AI in UX research

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎬 BigVu shared by Darren Travel
An AI-powered teleprompter and video editor

👨‍🍳 OpenAI Cookbook shared by Elie Steinbock
A collection of guides and examples for using OpenAI API

🧠 Key Skills for Founders shared by Royce Johnson
A list of skills every startup founder needs

🎧 Listen To

Questions to Ask When Planning Your Week

Planning your week can help you stay focused and avoid wasting time on tasks that don’t matter.

Here are a few questions to help you plan your weeks better:

• What do you want to accomplish this week?
• Is your to-do list for this week realistic?
• Do you have time for yourself?

🌟 Founder of the Week

Kevin C. Whelan

“I love being a Trends Pro member. The Trends.vc team shares a concise yet in-depth summary of niche businesses that people are growing to huge success. They help you find hidden gems few people know about.“

Kevin is building How to Sell Advice. He helps independent marketers create highly profitable businesses selling their expertise, not just their hands.

What’s your most important habit?
Morning exercise. It gives me mental clarity and energy which help me do my best work the rest of the day.

What are you reading right now?
Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestly. He shares a great formula for building interest and selling expertise.

Another book by Daniel is Key Person of Influence. Highly recommended.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A service that would turn all of my training, writing, resources and consulting calls into:

1. Quality content for different social media platforms.

2. Searchable knowledge base of everything I know.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Dropbox Dash. It is a search bar for all of your cloud storage, email, calendars and project management apps.  

What are you bullish on?
Hybrid consulting which combines personalized advice with access to additional resources, training and community—for a reasonable cost.

I’ve been building my membership around 1:1 sessions, group calls, community and a content library. Self-learners with lower budgets can access content and community for self-paced learning.

What are you bearish on?
AI as a threat to people who sell their expertise. It is good at reproducing content. Original thinking is a unique blend of knowledge and nuance. Which AI lacks.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🤓 Consulting is the best one.

What else?
Thanks for highlighting me! Everything I do lives at https://kevin.me and gets distributed outward from there. If anyone is looking to dig deeper into any of these ideas, that’s where you’ll find them. 🙏

Exclusive Deal: Kevin is offering Trends.vc readers 30% off annual Mindshare Learn plans for the first 20 people. It includes access to a library of training, templates, live workshops and private Slack community exclusively for marketing consultants. Use this link to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) A directory of GPTs
  
• (📈 Pro) Running an eCommerce store
  
• (📈 Pro) What to expect from influencer marketing

🔧 Try This

50 Simple Ways to Make Your Life Greener

Expert tips on how to be kinder to the planet – from cooking and cleaning to fashion and finance.

All without complicating your life.

• Recycle: Sort waste into different categories.
• Minimize packaging: Take your own containers to shops.
• Shop locally: The shorter the food chain, the less waste it creates before reaching you.
  
  
  

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

⛰️ The peak-end rule
💡 How to vet startup ideas
🤥 A tool to run AI models locally
🍔 A book on the history of In-N-Out
🎥 A YouTube transcript downloader
🎨 A curated library of web design inspiration
🎞️ How to get 10,000,000 views per YouTube Shorts
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🎙️ Milly Tamati launched the Generally Curious podcast

🚀 Simon launched 20X Hosting

🎥 Prabhjot Singh Lamba built a YouTube transcript downloader

📩 Elie Steinbock got Inbox Zero approved for Gmail API usage

🏦 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about generative AI in finance

🤝 Abhishek Kumar landed a large market research client

🧠 Kevin Galang and Zac Qi unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-day standup streaks

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💡 How to Vet Ideas shared by Dru Riley
A framework to translate problems into viable business models

✨ pinokio shared by Stewart Townsend
A tool to run AI models locally

🎨 Web Design Inspiration shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A curated library of design inspiration from around the web

👀 Watch This

How to Get 10,000,000 Views per YouTube Short

Jenny Hoyos is an 18-year old YouTuber who averages 10 million views per video.

She analyzed thousands of Shorts and knows how to make one go viral.

Jenny shares how to make anything go viral, how to make perfect short-form videos and what platform to pick to succeed.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Kevin Galang

“I’m a big fan of the Trends Pro Community. It has been a major influence on me as a founder.“

Kevin is building A Team Overseas. An agency that saves your time by matching you with executive assistants for your specific needs.

What’s your most important habit?
Having a quarterly planning doc where I define goals, projects, ideas and more.

Every week, I go through the doc, review the week and plan the next.

This helps me to stay focused and keep track of the main goals.

What are you reading right now?
In-N-Out Burger by Stacy Perman

The book is about Harry Snyder, the founder of In-N-Out Burger. He inspired the way I run my company.

He didn’t get distracted by the industry changes, focused on his work and made sure to do it the best.

What product or service do you wish existed?
An app to pick a board of directors that is made up of founders that I look up to. Such as Steve Jobs, Harry Snyder, Charlie Munger, Sam Walton, David Ogilvy and others.

They would appear as AI models trained on their previous work and biographies. Which I can ask to guide me based on my weekly reviews, plans and priorities.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Loom which saves me time recording and sharing videos.

What are you bullish on?
Business development. There are industries where the buyer decisions happen via relationships:

– Healthcare/hospital software ($30B+ market)

– Manufacturing software ($15B+ market)

– Some startups buy from each other because the founders know each other

What are you bearish on?
Having emotional relationships with AI as strong as with humans.

Many tools try to replace personal trainers, therapists, coaches and more. I don’t think they will win in the long run.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🛠️ Growth Tools

This report helped me learn growth strategies.

Exclusive Deal: Kevin is offering Trends.vc readers $100 off per month to people who want an executive assistant from A Team Overseas. Email Kevin at kevin@ateamoverseas.com to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) Feedback on newsletter
  
• (📈 Pro) Running an eCommerce store
  
• (📈 Pro) What to expect from influencer marketing

📘 Read This

The Peak-End Rule

We judge experiences based on the feelings we had at the peak and the end.

Getting a tattoo hurts but people come back to get another one.

This rule plays a role in customer experience and influences how customers feel about your brand.

Here’s the science behind the peak-end rule:

• We don’t remember more peaks: Identical peaks leave the same impression.
• Recent peaks are more effective: We remember recent positive feelings better.
• We remember long peaks: The longer the positive feeling, the better we remember it.
  
  
  

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📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

“I’ve sold millions of dollars of work this way.” — Brett Williams

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to get early clients?
• Who is building unlimited services in public?
• Where to find qualified prospects?
• Why should you offer a demo call?
• How to lower market risk?
• How to onboard clients without friction?
• How to build lead lists?
• How to earn predictable revenue?
• How to retain clients for longer periods?
• Who runs million-dollar unlimited services?
• Why do traditional agencies offer unlimited services?
• What tools make it easier to manage unlimited services?
• How to deal with demanding clients?
• How to position yourself as an industry expert?
  
  

🔍 Problem

Businesses need design, development and marketing work done.

Without a complex buying process.

💡 Solution

Unlimited services let customers outsource tasks with a predictable price, scope and time frame.

🏁 Players

Unlimited Services

• Baked Design • Product and UX design by Nick
• Stakeholders • Automation services for growing companies by Justin Watt
• Video Husky • Video editing services by Justin Tan
• UnlimitedAppDevelopment • Web and mobile app development
• Phasma • Design for tech companies by Hermione Gogou
• Conversion Factory • Design, copywriting, brand optimization and more
• ManyPixels • Logos, web design, illustrations and more
  
  

🛠 How to Build Unlimited Services

• Build in public to earn trust, early customers and feedback.
  • Nick is building Baked Design in public.
  • Ch Daniel is building SaaSPad in public.
  • Justin Watt is building Stakeholders in public.
  • Brett Williams shares lessons learned while building Designjoy in public.

• Reach out to prospects via social media, job boards and referrals. It’s easier to sell your services to someone who needs the job done.
  • Davor Egyed used warm outreach and grew Derokki to $7,800 MRR in 17 days.
  • Luka Mlakar applied to companies on LinkedIn and job boards looking for services provided by Flowout.
  • Cameron Baughn runs DesignFriend. He sends cold emails to recently funded startups and companies with open designer jobs.

• Offer a demo call to learn more about prospects and answer unique concerns.
  • Storehelper lets you book a demo of their Shopify development services.
  • Flow Sparrow offers a free call to share solutions to your website problems.
  • GoDesignGo offers a discovery call to help you learn more about their services.
    
    

🌱 How to Grow Unlimited Services

• Make it easy to sign up to lower friction.
  • Flowspark lets you sign up in 2 minutes.
  • Product Alchemy lets you sign up in 1 click.
  • Davor Egyed redesigned Derokki to offer fast sign-ups.
  • Brett Williams says it’s faster to sign up to Designjoy than to buy a t-shirt.

• Use scarcity. Fear of missing out is a strong buying trigger.
  • Draftmade works with 5 companies each month.
  • Imperius Films shares the number of spots left for new clients.
  • Design Rack says they have limited availability and adds new clients to a waitlist.

• Use lead magnets to get the contact details of your prospects.
  • DotYeti offers a marketing report and 150+ illustrations.
  • DarkRoast offers 100+ ideas for high-impact marketing projects.
  • Design Pickle offers a guide on how unlimited graphic design works.
    
    

💰 How to Monetize Unlimited Services

• Use recurring subscriptions to get predictable revenue.
  • Buildpath offers Shopify development for $4,995 and $7,995 per month.
  • Black Mammoth offers web development services for $19,995-$31,995 per month.
  • UnicornGO charges $399-$999 per month for unlimited design, content and video editing.

• Offer a paid trial to make money while testing demand.
  • AutoGrow offers a 7-day trial for $7.
  • ViralVerse offers a 1-week trial for $77.
  • Storehelper offers a 10-hour trial package for $890.
  • Zensite offers a 7-day trial of their best plan for $999.

• Let clients pay per quarter or year. They get a discount. You get a retainer.
  • Drip Fed Design lets you pay per month or quarter.
  • Joyflo lets you save more by paying per month, quarter or year.
  • Imaginary Space breaks down its flat fee per month, quarter or year.
    
    

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see million-dollar unlimited services.
  • Hunter Hammonds grew his unlimited services to 7 figures.
  • Johnathan Grzybowski and Khai Tran grew Penji to $350,000 MRR.
  • Brett Williams grew Designjoy to ~$1,500,000 ARR and made $3,000,000 in total. He’s a million-dollar, one-person business.

• Traditional agencies will offer unlimited services to move to a more scalable business model.
  • All Hands is a design studio. They launched Rhythm with unlimited design requests.
  • HeyHiHello is a digital product and UX agency. They launched an unlimited design subscription for startups.
  • Scandiweb is an eCommerce agency. Their design team launched green pixel with unlimited design services.
  • Ebda is a full-service agency for Webflow design, development and marketing. They offer unlimited Webflow development.

• We’ll see niche B2B SaaS apps for running unlimited services. They will make it easier to manage clients and payments.
  • Breeew lets you manage tasks, chats and subscriptions.
  • Zendo helps you sell productized, recurring and custom services.
  • Queue lets you manage payments, feedback and clients in one platform.
  • Service Provider Pro is a client portal for productized digital marketing, SEO and content agencies.
    
    

😠 Haters

“Unlimited is misleading.”
The “one request at a time” rule prevents scope creep. This makes it impossible to abuse the system.

“How to deal with the most demanding clients when the cost of service outweighs revenue?”
It may be that your services are not a good fit for the most demanding clients. Those who need a full-time professional may not be your ideal customer. There are clients who have small, occasional needs for your service. This is your gold mine.

“Unlimited revisions lead to bad quality. Why bother if we can revise ‘one more time’?”
Poor execution will lead to churn and bad word of mouth. Unlimited requests and revisions are part of your value proposition. But the deciding factor is the quality of your services.

🔗 Links

1. ​$2,000,000+ ARR with Service Businesses • The thread for this report.
2. Build a Report on “Unlimited” Services • The tweet behind this report.
3. Make Millions With a One-Person Business • How Designjoy grew to $1,500,000 ARR.
4. Position Your Agency for Growth • How to position your agency as an industry expert.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​Productized Services • Stop trading hours for dollars.
• Consulting • Monetize your expertise.
• Lead Generation • Find potential customers with high lifetime value.
• Build in Public • Get early customers and feedback.
• Influencer Marketing • Build brand awareness and find customers.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Kevin Galang, Vinamra Agrawal, Stewart Townsend and Uwe Dreissigacker. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0135 — Unlimited Services has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 26 Unlimited Service Examples (272% More)
• 9 Ways to build “unlimited” services (200% More)
• 13 Ways to grow “unlimited” services (333% More)
• 12 Ways to monetize “unlimited” services (300% More)
• 8 Predictions (167% More)
• 10 Links (150% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to lower competition?
• (📈 Pro) Who got $16,112 MRR by onboarding existing freelance clients?
• (📈 Pro) How to productize yourself?
• (📈 Pro) Who got 11 clients in 3 days by launching on app platforms?
• (📈 Pro) How to build social proof?
• (📈 Pro) How to reach new audiences?
• (📈 Pro) How to build brand awareness?
• (📈 Pro) How to get warm leads?
• (📈 Pro) How to take on more clients without burning out?
• (📈 Pro) How to piggyback on someone else’s audience?
• (📈 Pro) How to look more attractive than competitors?
• (📈 Pro) How to add value with white-label services?
• (📈 Pro) How to serve clients with complex needs?
• (📈 Pro) How to add specificity to your offer?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost the value of higher paid plans?
• (📈 Pro) How to get more leads in your sales funnel?
• (📈 Pro) How to turn spare hours into revenue?
• (📈 Pro) Why should you reserve unlimited services for the highest plans?
• (📈 Pro) How to scale revenue without spending more time working?
• (📈 Pro) Who was selling a stake in an unlimited service business for $14,000/mo?
• (📈 Pro) Who offers pre-built teams for clients?
• (📈 Pro) Why agencies get stuck at $50,000 MRR?
• (📈 Pro) What marketing strategies can help you grow to $100,000 MRR?
• And much more…
  
  

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