This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Oh my gosh, what's up? Welcome to a new week and indeed the last week of 2020. What a year it's been. Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start with that. That would take a while and I like to respect your time.
So instead of going into all of that, let me just say I very much appreciate you listening. Thank you for joining me this year. Now I first told the story of my friend Brett Kelly many years ago in the $100 startup and then on the tour for that book. This was a very popular story. His side hustle became a tremendous success.
Brett authored a guide to Evernote. You know the software Evernote? Well, if you don't know it, it's some software that allows you to keep notes. And Brett wrote a guide to this software called Evernote Essentials. He wrote a guide, he sold it for pretty small amount of money.
I think $15 a copy, maybe $25 a copy, whatever it was, it changed his life in many ways, first of all financially, but then also in allowing him to leave his job and write other guides while relying on what was largely passive income of thousands of dollars a month coming in quite reliably. So in the book, I explained a few characteristics of why that kind of project was successful, but that was a while ago. So today's caller is wondering, all these years later, would this model still work today? How might it apply to her? How might it apply to you?
As I said, it's a great question, especially if you're setting goals or otherwise trying to plan something for 2021. So quick shout out to our sponsor. Thank you sponsor. And then we'll jump into the question, does that model still work? [Music]
Hello, Chris, this is Carrie and thanks to you and your team for this podcast.
It's been really helpful to me. In the $100 startup, you wrote about Brett Cowley and his guide to using Evernote, which sold thousands of copies and made him a lot of money. Do you think this model still works today? What kinds of software or apps should I look to write a user guide for? My thinking is that some would be more popular than others, but I'm not sure what the critical factor is.
Thanks, Chris. - Thank you so much, Carrie. I'm so glad you're out there. I actually have not thought about the story for a long time, but I used to talk about it frequently because it was such a shining example of this new economy that we all live in. Brett Cowley, this dude, basically, he's just like a normal guy, was a fan of Evernote, a software program, and there was no official manual for it, so he decided to create his own.
And he documented everything, wrote up all these tips and tricks, and sold it for a pretty low price. And I don't know what the total numbers are, but I know he was making more than $100,000 a year from this one guide for multiple years. So huge, huge success. Can it still be done now? That's the point.
And my answer is yes, it can, absolutely. Like it is more competitive now in some ways. Some things have changed, et cetera, et cetera, but the model is still very much doable. It's not just doable, it is done. We've actually featured a number of stories on the podcast of people who've done something like this.
It's essentially the model of monetizing your expertise, which is what I'm encouraging you to do pretty much every day or at least a couple of times a week. And remember, everyone's an expert at something. It's not just, you know, did you go to college? And if so, what is your college degree in? Or, you know, what are you doing at work?
What is your profession, your vocation? Everyone's an expert at something, probably more than one thing. So let's break it down a bit because Kerry says, you know, what's the difference between, you know, a guide that does tremendously well like this and one that doesn't? I think the number one thing is topic. Okay, so choosing the right topic in the beginning.
And here's a specific tip for that, 'cause some topics are gonna be more popular than others. Anything that is professional or can be professional, anything that can be associated with work in a career will be better than some kind of guide that is about, let's say, "The Bachelorette" or playing a particular iPhone game. I'm not saying those couldn't sell too, but they would probably sell for a much lower price. So anything professional. There's all kinds of software for photographers and developers and musicians, filmmakers.
I'm just naming a few things there. Pretty much any profession has specialized software. And there's also software like Evernote, which can be used, you know, for work or for home or for life or for whatever. Now, another reason why Evernote Essentials was so popular was because it was the only one, at least at first. So you might think, well, Photoshop, you know, Photoshop is huge.
Yes, it is huge, but there's also a ton of resources about Photoshop already. So it really helps to kind of delve in and get specific and see what is new, like what's coming out now, what is the thing that people need to learn next year? Figure that out and write your guide about that. And then last but not least, I would say having a marketing plan is key. You can't just write it and hope to make a lot of money.
Having a marketing plan is key. Think from the beginning, how are you going to get this out there? Who can you connect with? Who is your target market? How can you reach that market?
Like all that stuff is really important. But to answer the question, I would absolutely not hesitate to recommend this model to someone. Like it's totally worth spending time on. So as we are at the end of the year here, if you're thinking about next year, if you're thinking about what to do next, well, maybe consider what topic you could advise on. Figure out where your expertise is and do some research.
All right, that's it for today. You've got a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. I'm wishing you well throughout the rest of the holidays. Thank you for joining me. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Sidussle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
