Hey! Chris here, I'm the interviewer in this audio.
Josh Doody teamed up with me to lay out a sensible plan for making good use of your day job to become well-prepared for the transition. We cover things like:
* how much money you need to save
* how to save it while controlling expenses
* how to start marketing before you ever quit your job
* how long before you can quit your job (the most popular question)
I don't usually address "how to get started" questions on my podcast, but so many people were asking how to make the transition from day job to freelancing that I felt like I should.
If anyone has questions about the episode or about the topic in general, feel free to post 'em up and I'll answer as best I can. :)
I agree with all of this, those 3 elements are critical. However, the issue I keep coming back to is "how do I figure these 3 things out before I launch a product?"
Nathan at ConvertKit has built an incredible business, and he's earned every bit of it the hard way. However, not everyone is going to have the financial or emotional stamina required to launch a product first, watch it struggle, and figure out the positioning later. For a lot of us, if we don't get the target market at least ballpark-right the first time, we aren't going to be able to see a product through the process of trying this positioning and that positioning until we find something that works.
So, how can we improve our chances of getting "purchasing power", "purchasing desire", and "market mass" right up-front, before we invest time and energy in creating a product? Are there any particular exercises or processes you recommend that will help us find and/or evaluate different markets?
Sometimes it takes me a day or two to get the transcripts up. I don't have them for every episode yet, as I just introduced the feature 3 or 4 episodes ago, but I'll have one up for this episode soon.
Hey! Interviewer here. This is my recent talk with Connie Holen, who is kind of a badass - how many web designers do you know who are former fighter pilots? O_O
Anyway. Connie is pretty cool and she figured out some useful things about running a freelancing/consulting biz. If you want to chat about the episode or have any questions, I'll be around.
The people who bought the book found the content super-useful, but the subject matter just did NOT catch on as something my audience was willing to spend money on. I found d a real pain point, just not one that was compelling enough. I also prompted it poorly.
Here's hoping my 3rd book does better! I feel optimistic about the profit potential of self-publishing, generally speaking. As has been mentioned here, you have to market it well AND have a compelling subject matter with a hungry audience. It's not easy.
Thanks for mentioning my book! I'm glad you found it useful.
To answer the OP, I learned tons doing my first podcast:
- It was the first time I'd used WordPress to build a site
- It was the first time I'd edited audio with Audacity
- It was the first time I'd used any kind of opt-in form to build a mailing list
- It was the first time I did any kind of automated social media marketing
- It was the first time I'd done long-form interviews with people
- Etc
GREAT experience. The best thing was making friends with all my guests. I was bummed when the podcast ended, but it was time.
I'm gearing up to start a new podcast right now, for freelancers and consultants. It should be launching next month & I'm pretty excited about it.
Where do you see these?