In these times of stay at home, I believe some people have more free time to start a side project. I know I do. So I am wondering which online business I could create to make a few quids.
I know some people here have set and are running their business online successfully and I want to set this thread so people could share tips and what they know have worked.
I have tried a couple of years ago without much success to run a dropshipping website but I am keen to try again.
Anyone who have some good knowledge of affiliate marketing, dropshipping or anything else or if you have some good ressources to share I think it would benefit a lot of people here .
It would be quite good, if someone can shed light in this topic. May be someone who ran Emperor and then started their online business, more like a success story would be really good to learn from.
I am currently building my online business, haven’t made any real money yet but I just continue. You can read about my adventures here: Astronaut’s Adventure Logbook
Thanks, I have read your thread. I have gone through affiliate marketing, blogs, teeshirts, pod. All this boiled down to marketing, to me. While it was fun, I did lose some money so maybe my approach was not the best one.
What I found is that all these concepts are cool, but in execution, making them work either required specific skills, enough budget or being 100% of the time on it (not a side hustle).
I found BlackDragon resources about entrepreneurship interesting though. He just get out a new book on a concept he called location independent Alpha Businesses .
I’ve been running an online business for several years, and the past few months have been nuts. We did close to 6 figures in May, and then ran into some gov issues due to some regulatory wording updates stepping on a few of our established marketing claims… so that took a while to figure out, but we managed to avoid any serious repercussions (aka fines) and everything is back to normal now. Almost.
As for me being away from the forum, in addition to being crazy busy with work I took some time off for a vacation in June, partly because it was my birthday and also because my wife is pregnant (very pregnant now) and it was our last chance at a vacation before the little one arrives in September.
But, of course, where I’ve been isn’t what the question was about.
Since I started running subs, I’ve had an insane amount of growth with my business as well as my personal mindset surrounding wealth and business in general. Relative to last year, my personal income has more than doubled over the past 6 months and is approaching 3x when you factor in my side hustle income.
So what do I do?
I’m a C-level exec (and head of operations) for a biotech company that does B2B and B2C sales for distribution of our products. I also do some affiliate marketing and print-on-demand products for myself. I have dabbled with dropshipping in the past, but the shipping situation right now makes conventional dropshipping (Shopify store with products from Aliexpress etc) not very viable. I like easy, and automated.
If I had to start again right now, I would 100% go for affiliate marketing, especially with offers that helped people either improve their health or make money. I almost wish I could start there again, lol… In the past year my company has spent well over $100k on legal and consulting fees for products in a highly litigious and heavily regulated sector. Pushing affiliate links would be simpler.
As for recommendations…
Chad Bartlett and Franklin Hatchett all have very solid (and free) affiliate marketing training on YouTube. I’d start there. (edit: removed one suggestion that actually doesn’t do affiliate training, my bad)
To succeed, you need 3 things.
A landing page + an email list tool (Check out Convertkit, it does both for a very good price)
A good offer that converts decently well (Digistore, Clickbank, etc is full of them)
Traffic
#3 can be the hardest part when starting out, but if you’ve got some $$ to invest, you can get a head start with basic Google ads or Facebook ads. I use both, they’re useful for different things so I don’t consider one better than the other. I’m just getting into YouTube ads, so I’ll hold off on judgement for that for a while yet. A couple of years ago my wife set up a Pinterest account for my print-on-demand shop and that’s still consistently driving 80%+ of the traffic & sales for that. The shop is fully automated, so it takes almost no time to operate. Took a while to get everything set up, but it’s been passive ever since.
Congrats (I know every parents like to hear this ).
I have heard about this pure combo squeeze page + google/fb ads. But I have been burned in the past with FB ads: fun but a money grabber. I met a guy who is just doing that but in a legit company and at business level (million £ on ads), I thought it was “nuts” but I mean if it works…
I think because affiliate marketing consistently come back as a good opportunity I will look deeper at your two YouTube links. Right now, I am pondering which option can bring income on short term (3-6 months).
Lol. But jokes asides, I like 3 things in your business
the rapid scale you managed to give it (maybe it is a time distortion, but to me it seems that it took you less than six months to build the website, have a community etc). (maybe a good starting capital I dont know?).
the fact that you are 2 founders. I have a side hustle (B2C solar panels installation) and I have been working on it with a partner. But he is not equally motivated to get things done or motivated by the same aspects of the business. I feel like I should not expect the motivation to come from someone else than me.
your framework to create innovation. I dont know how sustainable it is to “constantly” innovate like you do, but you seem to have a model/a technique. Or maybe innovation is not constant but you know how to manage the hype, cant really say
I know your motto is Action, but there is a good chunk of planning on the background, maybe past experiences building business or just acumen.
Depending on the affiliate network payout schedule, you could receive a payment in as little as a few days. The main network I work with has a 60-day lag time for payouts, but does consistently deliver checks each month. Yes actual paper checks, they must think it’s 1995 or something… I could easily live off these payouts if that were my only income, but they’re not so I stash them in my business holding account for future investments etc.
One important thing to note… don’t bother with Amazon affiliate stuff. They’re pretty much useless now. I still have live Amazon links, but only because it’s less work to leave them in place than to find better options. The $$ isn’t worth it to build any new ones, since the commissions dropped to nearly nothing a while back.
@Fire and myself have considered opening an online academy teaching people exactly how we’ve done what we have, disclosing numbers and everything, but opted against it because it’d take up too much time right now and we’d be giving potential competitors a blueprint on how to take us on directly (not to mention, it wasn’t going to be cheap). Rest assured, we’re not afraid of competition, but as you’ve seen with the last scam company that tried to steal from us, people wouldn’t use that information to innovate. They’d instead try to mimic us and become a cheap ripoff. BTW, that last company tried to get defiant and take our warnings not to steal from us as an empty threat – they learned their lesson and changed all their stuff up. Don’t steal from us.
But anyway, I will give everyone some starting advice without revealing too much. There is one secret to how we pulled it off, and maybe one day I’ll explain. That being said (since I’ve said this before): This is your friend.
No starting capital. $1000, most of which was spent on incorporation, infrastructure and buying basic equipment. We used old ass computers, etc. but figured out how we could maximize their use. @Fire is a boss at this. I’m a bit bougie when it comes to my equipment, but he’ll get the absolute maximum use out of anything before upgrading.
I specifically sought out partners that had the same drive for innovation and largely thought the same as me (seriously, it’s to the point where I can start talking about an idea and @Fire will be able to finish that idea). Also, we are both hyper aware of our strengths and weaknesses and it just so happens that where I’m weak, he excels and vice versa.
We also, on the regular, semi-switch roles. Why? When you’ve been doing something for a long time, it’s easy to get stuck in the same thought patterns. You need someone to come along and shake things up, make you feel uncomfortable. Some of the things @Fire has presented in his new role definitely made me feel scared and I resisted a bit, but I forced myself to back off and let him do his thing. The end result? Pure brilliance, and we’re already seeing crazy results. He came up with some crazy stuff that’s going to propel us into insane profitability in 2020-2021.
Likewise, recently, I became much more interested in scripting and building subs. I looked back at everything he had created since SubClub started and in a flash of inspiration, came up with the Ultima build. Sent the details to him, the results to the tests, etc. The result? Well, you’re all experiencing the results. Also, already came up with the successor to Ultima, which may possibly work with major subliminals (don’t expect this until the end of the year or early next year).
Your team is your lifeblood. You cannot do it alone, and you cannot do it with someone who isn’t as motivated as you. If your partner isn’t on your same wavelength, drop him and scale back operations until you find someone that fits. Don’t settle.
Also, ignore a lot of the nonsense you hear online and on television, especially about quitting your day job and working on your business full time. It can add unnecessary stress. Both @Fire and myself are well-paid outside of Subliminal Club. What that means is, every penny we’ve made has been reinvested back into the company. Now… that being said, we did live like kings while in Paris, hahaha.
Trust me, we’re not running on old equipment anymore. We have no need for outside investment, we carry no debt and we’re 100% solvent. Companies are always hitting us up trying to get a piece of pie. We turned down a $150k cash investment this week alone. @Fire’s response was quite hilarious, especially when in the terms, they wanted to dictate HOW we could use those funds.
Yes, this does mean we work a lot. This does mean that I have less time to watch television and play video games. The solution? Don’t watch television and play video games unless you’re winding down. I’m not going to lie and say the TV isn’t on – I actually require noise in the background to work. But I put on a show that I’ve watched so many times that I don’t even need to pay attention. Right now, it’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
There is a method to the madness, but I can’t reveal that. But this method is why we’re ahead of everyone else, and why “new competitors” have to steal / mimic our stuff rather than use their own ingenuity. And even then, they can’t do it right because they don’t understand WHAT we’re doing – hence why they look like a cheap off-brand. We’re Mountain Dew and they’re Mountain Lion, if you catch my drift.
But the number one rule is – we listen to our customers. If we release a product and the large majority of people aren’t responding well to it, we won’t pursue it. We won’t blame you and keep making stuff that no one wants. Yes, we experiment a lot, but we know going in that those experimental products may not sell well. And then again, sometimes they do.
I was always wondering, do you actually see each other or are you doing most of the stuff remotely? (Especially in the beginning, as I can no imagine you have a big headquarter )
Both. We just acquired a 3000 sqft. facility for multiple uses. @Fire travels (traveled) a lot. His passport has so many stamps that he’s running out of space.
Really appreciated the insights . Several gems here
I think your post highlights (to me), that when with a small capital and I cannot outsource, there is no really way around doing the deep work. I can see how Limitless Ultima can help learning new fields (like marketing )
I have a clickbank account somewhere… the landing page should be easy. The most foreign part I will have to learn will be understanding effective paid traffic methods (FB/GOOGLE).
Good to know, as these are the most popular affiliate videos on YouTube.
I also get the sense that both of you, @SaintSovereign@Fire, are extremely passionate/interested in
the subject matter of SubClub, the products your creating, the service you provide, and human potential in general, which I imagine makes it easier to work so hard.
or if you have some good ressources to share I think it would benefit a lot of people here 
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. Several gems here 
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