šŸ™ How To Find Your Next Profitable Offer with the Lean Startup Model

without burning through your savings

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Greet from the deep,

Ole here.

Today, the AI Solopreneur crossed $260,000 in revenue and weā€™re closing in on 25,000 subscribers.

Kinda crazyā€¦

ā€¦considering that I originally saw the AI Solopreneur as a 2-3 month test project.

Test project?!

Yes. It wouldnā€™t have existed unless there wouldā€™ve been so much signal.

Which brings me to todayā€™s topic:

How to use the Build-Measure-Learn method from Eric Riesā€™ to find your next profitable business idea.

I will uncover:

  • A proven process for building a profitable product

  • Why Minimum-Viable-Products (MVPs) are so powerful

  • How to use the Build-Measure-Learn framework to build MVPs and profitable products

  • How to use the ā€œ1-Hour No-Bucks Brainstorm Buzzerā€ to build an MVP and turn it into a profitable product

At the end of this newsletter, you will be able to test, build, and improve great products using these principles.

Ready yet?

Letā€™s d-d-d-d-dive in! šŸ¤æ

I just built the ultimate free course for how to streamline your business with AI.

The AI systems inside were key in helping me scale to $275K+ revenue within 6 months.

I called it the AI Business Operator.

A proven process for building a profitable product

ā€œThe Lean Startupā€ is perhaps the most talked-about book of startup founders.

Back in 2018, I couldnā€™t scroll motivation-business-hustle Instagram once without getting the book recommended at least once.

Soā€¦

I didnā€™t have the patience to read it.

But I read a summary. To learn the basics.

And hereā€™s the idea:

A lean startup is a data-driven startup which focuses only on the necessary features for its users and cuts away everything else.

Itā€™s kind of like Mustafaā€™s GemĆ¼sekebap:

100% focus on the product features that matter (making a good Kebap), 0% time wasted on the stuff that doesnā€™t (e.g. fancy store).

(sorry for plugging this Kebap 2 editions in a row, but turns out itā€™s a great analogy for several business models)

In either caseā€¦

Because the resulting product is so lean, the profit margins are generally high.

In other words:

If you can create lean products, you can create profitable products.

You create lean products by:

1) Testing many mini-products (MVPs)

2) Getting rapid feedback on them

3) Adjusting the highest-signal product to fit your customersā€™ needs

This may sound complicated, but thereā€™s essentially 2 parts to this approach:

1) Building minimum-viable-products (MVP)

2) Testing several MVPs and doubling down on the winners.

Letā€™s dig into both:

Why Minimum-Viable-Products (MVPs) are so powerful

A minimum-viable-product (MVP) is the most basic version of a product you want to build/sell.

MVPs are so powerful because they allow you to get feedback on a BIG product idea without having to build out the entire product.

For example, Dropboxā€™s MVP was just a video demonstrating how the product would work:

They really focused only on the most basic features, and the design is ugly as f*ckā€¦

ā€¦yet this simple demo turned into a $8.82 billion company.

Think about MVPs as micro-testing Ideas:

Instead of launching a ā€œdoneā€ product, test micro versions of the idea.

This allows you to test many ideas fast, double down on what works, and cut your losses early if your idea isnā€™t popular.

Examples:

  • If you're writing an e-book, release a single chapter first to see if thereā€™s interest.

  • If youā€™re launching a newsletter, start by building a Twitter account. (this is what I did with the AI Solopreneur)

Donā€™t worry, Iā€™ll show you how to use ChatGPT to build MVPs in a secondā€¦

ā€¦but before that, letā€™s look at the other essential framework for building lean products:

How to use the Build-Measure-Learn framework to build MVPs and profitable products

The Build-Measure-Learn framework is a about start small, get feedback, refine, and repeat.

Instead of taking huge risks, you're making tiny bets based on real-world feedback.

It consists of 3 parts:

1) Build: Creating the MVP

2) Measure: Measuring the success of the product

3) Learn: Re-iterate your product based on the feedback from measurements

I love the framework as a mindset for building products, because it flips the goal from:

ā€œletā€™s building a great product on the first tryā€ (very hard)

to:

ā€œletā€™s build a product fast, test what people think about it, and improve it UNTIL itā€™s greatā€ (easier)

The secret sauce behind building great products is to put them through this cycle as many times as possible, as fast as possible.

As a solopreneur, you have the great advantage of being the only builder of the product, so you can move faster than anyone else.

This is your competitive advantage.

Now, letā€™s dive into how you can use ChatGPT to speed up the entire process of building profitable products:

How to use the ā€œ1-Hour No-Bucks Brainstorm Buzzerā€ to build an MVP and turn it into a profitable product

Based on your lean product idea, this prompt gives you:

  1. 10 zero-cost ideas on how can you can construct a low-cost MVP for your idea

  2. Ideas on how you can Measure success of the MVP

  3. Ideas on how you can get customer feedback for this MVP

  4. 10 ideas you can test with my audience on how you can add more value to the core concept based on your audience

Here it is:

I need your help with startup advice.

I am working on an idea which involves [YOUR LEAN PRODUCT IDEA].

For context,[INSERT CONTEXT]

My audience consists of [AUDIENCE CONTEXT]

Now, please answer me the following things:

1) Come up with 10 ideas on how can I construct a low-cost MVP for this

Constraints:

- Costs $0 to build
- Takes less than 1 hours to build
- Can be built without code

2) Ideas on how I can Measure success of the MVP 

Guiding questions:

- What's the OMTM (one metric that matters) of this MVP?
- How can I measure user engagement
- What outcomes could mark a successful vs unsuccessful test? (Draw a line in the sand)

3) Ideas on how I can get customer feedback for this MVP

4) Come up with 10 ideas I can test with my audience on how I can add more value to the core concept based on my audience

HOW TO USE THE [NAME] PROMPT:

  1. Fill in the [YOUR LEAN PRODUCT IDEA] placeholder with your lean product idea

    For example:

    ā€œProductivity coaching for overwhelmed solopreneursā€

  2. Fill in the [INSERT CONTEXT] placeholder with context about yourself and who you are. (If youā€™ve done the AI Audience Accelerator, write /context to use your pre-written context)

  3. Fill in the [AUDIENCE CONTEXT] placeholder with context about your audience. The more, the better. (If youā€™ve done the AI Audience Accelerator, write /audience to use your pre-written context)

    Example:

    ā€œMy audience consists of solopreneurs interested in AIā€

Hereā€™s an example of itā€™s output:

Wrap up

WHAT YOU LEARNED TODAY

  • A proven process for building a profitable product

  • Why Minimum-Viable-Products (MVPs) are so powerful

  • How to use the Build-Measure-Learn framework to build MVPs and profitable products

  • How to use the ā€œ3-Hour No-Bucks Brainstorm Buzzerā€ to build an MVP and turn it into a profitable product

This wouldnā€™t be an AIS Newsletter if it didnā€™t end on a random (food-based)

note from me.

Itā€™s dragon fruit season right now in Cyprus and I got myself a whole bag of them.

I used to think dragon fruits are lame, but now Iā€™m officially hooked.

Dragenfruits are beautiful and refreshing.

It now entered my Top 10 fruits a the #4 spot.

What do you think about it, smash that reply button.

Keep diving,

Ole

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P.S. Whenever you are ready, hereā€™s how I can help you:

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