I’m spending $3k every month to launch new online businesses (in public)

I’m spending $3k every month launching and testing new business ideas and sharing everything I learn here.

The inspiration for this comes from Tim Ferriss’s Real World MBA and a bunch of case studies that were born in the articles wake. Pieter levels launched 12 startups in 12 months. So did Monica Lent, Yong Fook, and many others.

If you read those case studies you’ll notice that the goal isn’t really to launch 12 businesses; its to get out of your own friggen way.

And I’m definitely in my own friggen way.

I overthink ideas. Or jump from one project to the next. Or create something, only to talk myself out of shipping at the last minute.

So doing this challenge, in public, will give me the constraints and accountability I need to break the pattern.

The constraints:

• One new project launched every 30 days

• with clear success and failure metrics

• If something is showing strong signs of success at the deadline? I’ll increase the deadline to 60 days

• $3k investment per project (more budget if project is extended)

The type of businesses I’ll test …

Most of those ‘12 startups in 12 months’ case studies focused on SaaS products

But I’m not a technical founder. And while I’d love to learn to write code (or no-code), trying to learn a new skill and build something in 30 days just ain’t going to happen. Sometimes just stacking skills is another form of procrastination.

So I’m going to focus on where my skills and experience lies: content or community based businesses.

Like newsletters, communities and digital products.

But how are you going to validate a content business in 30 days?

I don’t know yet.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But I’m moving forward anyway because that’s the whole point of this challenge.

And you might roll your eyes at what I’m about to say next:

I’m not going to validate my projects on money alone.

That’s what I used to do.vMy last business was an portfolio of SEO driven content sites, monetized with ads and affiliate partnerships. The question I always asked before launching one of those sites was “how much money can this make?”

Not a bad question to ask when launching a business. It worked and that business made bank.

But it left me wanting more out of life.

How does that quote go? How you spend your days is how you spend your life? Something like that. Well I was spending my days chasing money and it got dry.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to launch a business that won’t make money.

That would be dumb.

The business has to make money, but it must also…

• Be fun to work on - I must find the topic fun, or it must scratch my itch, or be in an area I have deep curiosity about. It must energize me.

• Give me interesting friends - the topic must give me the opportunity to build relationships with humans that I find interesting.

• Allow location & time Independence - once running, the business doesn’t depend on me personally to keep running, and it must allow me to take extended periods of time offline (eg 30 days) without imploding

  

So at the end of 30 days if the business ticks those boxes…AND I can see a clear path to profit, I’ll consider it a success.

LFG?

Want to see what happens and learn from my mistakes along the way?

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