I spent the past two weeks researching top internet entrepreneurs.
By successful entrepreneurs, I mean people who share valuable content and add value to the advancement of human consciousness and quality of life.
I’m not a fan of Instagram and Tiktok Influencers. Maybe some are doing a good job.
I come up to the conclusion that they have things in common beyond working from their laptops.
1. Email Lists
“Email has an ability many channels don’t: creating valuable, personal touches — at scale.” — David Newman
Almost every one of these entrepreneurs said, “ I wish I’d started collecting email earlier, and I wish I’ve connected with my email list more often”
With the surge in the use of Instagram, Tiktok, and Youtube, many argue that email marketing is dead.
It’s far from the truth.
Ali Abdal considers emails as the bridge between free content and paid products. 99% of his content is for free, and he doesn’t push his products on his Youtube video. He uses emails.
Diago Forte makes 90% of his revenue in one week in April and one week in September by launching his online cohort classes to his 40,000 email subscribers.
Forte said that “creators should focus on building a 5000 subscribers email list before thinking of selling any products.”
Almost all successful online creators create quality content with the sole purpose of educating and collecting emails.
2. Systems
“A good system shortens the road to the goal”- Orison Swett Marden
They have systems in place.
Justin Welsh said, “People think I wake up every morning and I think of what I should post. I treat it as a business”
Everything is mapped out from the number of times the post, the topics, and even the post format.
I started mapping out my weekly post, and it made a huge difference. I used to look around during my walk from home to the office, searching for a prompt for my essay. It wasn’t an efficient strategy.
Creating systems helps keep consistency in productivity and branding. It makes them look professional as well.
It allows for automatizing repetitive tasks and freeing time to improve other areas of the business.
3. Favorite Platform
“Focus on how to be social, not on how to do social.”- Jay Baer
A common strategy is to be omnipresent by sharing content across all platforms.
I’ve noticed a different trend in analyzing my favorite solopreneurs strategies.
Justin Welsh focused heavily on LinkedIn, David Perell’s favorite platform is Twitter, Ali Abdal is known for his Youtube videos, and Tim Dinning is famous for his LinkedIn and Medium articles.
Benjamin Hardy built his email list by posting mainly on Medium.
I think the platform choice isn’t random. I built my first business on Instagram, but I wasn’t able to replicate the success on Instagram for another business.
A better strategy is to build an audience on one main platform and tailor the content for other platforms.
5. Quantity
Excellence comes when we balance quality with quantity. ― Amit Ray
When we’re building a house, quality wins over quality.
Quality matters over quantity when we’re building a product, and safety is crucial.
When it comes to creating an online business based on creativity and content creation. The first 100 articles will be low quality; the first 100 videos will look terrible. The first ideas might fail.
Peter Nomad failed on his first 70 online businesses. Eventually, he became a millionaire when he found an idea that worked.
His strategy is to ship more.
Tim Denning writes 40 articles a month, and Justin welsh shares daily on LinkedIn and Twitter. Ali Abdal has 474 videos on Youtube at 15 income streams at the time of writing this article.
Visit Justin Welsh’s website, and you will be astonished by the number of valuable articles there.