Most parents believe they are too busy to start a side hustle, but as a busy dad of 3 running my own digital product business, I’m here to bring you some good news:
There are still ways to make it work, and that’s exactly why I wrote the guide you’re about to read.
We’re about to go through every part of the process, step-by-step so you can launch your own business in a weekend or two.
The cool part is you can take what you already know, whether it’s a skill, interest, or hobby, and turn it into income on the good ol’ internet.
And if you play your cards right (I’ll give you the cards), you can run this whole thing in 1-3 hours a day.
I’ve said a lot of words already without saying much, so let’s get right into it:
The Most Important Step Is Often Overlooked
I’m not much of a gambler, but I’d be willing to put money down that the most important step is to answer the question:
“Who do you want to serve?”
Not figuring out the most profitable niche, or the most evergreen topic, or what’s trending right now…
But that one thing you’re always happy to talk about or help people with, because that will keep you in business so much longer than those who are just in it for money then quit because they started to build a business they can’t stand.
If nothing is coming to mind right away, here’s a shortcut:
Think about the big 3 niches of health, wealth, and relationships and your biggest strengths in each of those categories.
Or if you have a specific skill, interest, or hobby, see how it can possibly relate back to one of those categories.
Feel free to drop a comment and I can help you with this.
After you figure out who you want to serve, the next step is figuring out how to serve them which I have a much simpler answer for:
The Fastest Way To Start Getting Paid
Some may scoff at what I’m about to say and think it’s not worth it, but there’s a reason I suggest this method, especially if you don’t have much time.
The method?
It’s the $5 ebook funnel.
The entire goal of this is to get you paid asap to build belief in yourself and your ability to earn online.
There are also some long term strategies involving additional products or price increase strategies, or both, but it all starts here.
Here’s What You’ll Need To Set It Up
You don’t need to set up an LLC, design a logo, or put together a full website right now, but there are a few things you’ll need:
*Affiliate link disclosure: If you decide to purchase a Kit subscription from my referral link below, I will earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
- *Kit (affiliate link) – This is primarily an email marketing platform, which you’ll need eventually, but it’ll also let you sell digital products, collect payments, and deliver them to your customers automatically.
- A dot com domain name – I use NameCheap for most of my domains (look for coupons online by the way). You’ll need this to send emails with Kit later on, and it’ll give you a much more professional look
- Business email – This just might be my opinion, but to me… nothing screams “I’m not serious” more than doing customer support with a Gmail or Yahoo email address. I use Google Workspace and ZohoMail is a solid option as well.
- Google Docs/Word – This is where you’re going to actually write your ebook and export it to PDF. More on that in just a bit.
- Canva – I haven’t found an easier way to create an ebook cover than this, and it keeps getting better over time.
- MyEcoverMaker – This will turn your flat ebook cover into a cool, more appealing graphic for marketing materials
How To Actually Create Your eBook
The first step is to create an outline which solves a specific problem for the audience you want to serve.
For example, one ebook I wrote which sold 50 copies and led to further business was about how to write emails that sell.
My market was constantly running image based emails with 75% off discounts just to make a sale, and my method helped more people sell full price so they stopped losing money and started building a more premium brand image.
When you write this outline, take people step by step through solving that problem without straying too far from the topic.
Once the outline is done, writing the ebook becomes super easy because all you do is expand the outline and include insights, stories, and examples to add depth and increased understanding.
This ebook doesn’t have to be super long either.
My most popular ebooks were between 16-36 pages of size 18 font, some with images and some without.
Once you write the ebook:
- Create your cover in Canva,
- Include the cover on the first page of the doc
- Export it to PDF
- Upload it to Kit
Now you’re ready to start selling, so let’s get into that:
How To Find Customers
Right now, the simplest way to find customers is by posting on social media, and while any platform can work…
There’s a specific approach I recommend that makes it a whole lot easier to stay consistent long term, which is where the real magic happens.
You only need 3 things:
Once you have this set and ready, let’s get everything prepped for business:
Set Up Your Profile The Right Way
The first step is to upload a high quality headshot in good lighting, ideally with a pleasant, welcoming expression as your profile picture.
It seems obvious, but it’s easily overlooked or rushed and can really make a difference in engagement and follower count.
I even used a tool on X (back when it was Twitter before the whole paid verification was pretty much a requirement to use the app) that allowed me to test profile pictures on my fitness account and the result was surprising:
A good quality picture of me working out in the gym didn’t perform half as well as a clear headshot at home, even on a fitness account.
Just something to think about…
The Next Step Is Setting Up Your Bio
The best profile picture in the world won’t mean a whole lot without a reason to pay attention to you, which is where the text in your bio comes in.
Ideally, you bio will answer the following:
- Who you serve
- How you serve them
- Social proof
While you don’t necessarily have to follow this like a script, the closer you are to answering these 3 things, the better your results will be.
You’ll also want to include a link to your ebook landing page from Kit so people can easily buy from you.
In the early stages, we don’t want to mess with any of those those link list apps or even a newsletter at this point, because the first goal is to get your first few paying customers ASAP.
And the final aspect of a good bio is creating a really good pinned post, which you can use one of the following formats:
- Share a short transformational story introducing you and how you got into what you do
- Show proof of results, either your own or a customer/client
- Sell the benefits of buying your ebook with a link
This pinned post will get a lot of views over time, so make it count.
It might take some time to set all this stuff up right, but it can really be the difference between getting results or not, even with the exact same posting strategy.
Speaking of content strategy…
The Last Step Is Your Threads Content Strategy
There are 2 parts to a proper Threads content strategy.
The first one is mandatory, and while the second one is technically optional it will really speed things up for you.
Let’s get into it:
Strategy 1: 3-10 posts per day
This is where we’re going to open up Buffer and start scheduling content to go out throughout the day and week.
More is better on this app, because you’ll get more opportunities for reach, growth, and sales, as well as data you can use to make better posts in the future.
I truly think the bare minimum is 3 posts per day which should be simple enough because it’s primarily a text based app, although images with a good caption can do well too.
As for what to post?
A healthy mix of these kinds of posts will do you well:
- Insights on overcoming problems in your niche
- Stories and experiences about your niche
- New ways of thinking about your topic
- Personal proof of results
- Results of people you’ve helped
- Personal posts to humanize you in a world of AI content
- Very occasional ebook promo posts, ideally with the link in a pinned comment, or by simply dropping the name of your ebook without a link at all which gets people curious
You can also pay attention to what formats and trends other successful creators (especially in other niches) are posting and use them as inspiration.
Strategy 2: The Other People’s Content Method
As of writing this, Threads is an engagement based platform, meaning posts with more engagement always seem to perform better.
An easy way to get more engagement is by networking and making friends, and commenting on other posts both inside and outside of your niche is a great way to do that.
On top of that, commenting on posts will get your name and face out there which will lead to more profile visits, so even if they don’t end up following or engaging…
Maybe they’d like to simply become a customer instead.
The strategy here is to leave 5-10 thoughtful comments a day, add to the conversation, and have fun with it.
Simply put, your content strategy is to post good content and post good comments.
Here’s Your 4 Week Action Plan
- Week 1: 1 hour per day creating problem solving ebook, setting up Threads, and Buffering posts when you can
- Week 2: 1 hour per day building funnel and once it’s set up, shift a bit more focus to scheduling Threads posts and comments
- Week 3: 1 hour per day scheduling posts, commenting, experimenting with post formats, and paying attention to which posts do better
- Week 4: 1 hour per day scheduling posts and commenting, and doubling down on formats that work for you
Beyond week 4, you simply continue posting, commenting, experimenting, and building your winning content format library to keep getting more reach and growth.
And that’s that.
The cool thing with this whole method is the principles behind it can be used to grow any business on any platform.
But if you’re brand new to the digital product business, I truly believe the $5 ebook funnel + Threads is the way to go right now.
It’s still going to take time.
It’s still going to take effort.
But once that first sale comes in, it’ll all be worth it.
Any questions? Drop a comment and let me know.
Talk soon,
-Gabe