I feel like the opening anecdote is a swing and a miss. Miss Excel doesn't teach people how to get rich, she teaches people how to use Excel. I can't say whether it's good or bad content but it's not get-rich-quick hustle spam.
You want to learn about business? Pick up the biographies of successful businesspeople. Even then, beware of survivorship bias.
Note that these successful people will never write a book titled “how to be like me” but instead just write books narrating their stories and allow you to choose what to learn from it.
To add, I think there’s just something about people wanting the easy path that causes them to fall for these grifts.
I kind of doubt those biographies are very useful. I'm sure they're interesting. Even stuff written for the purpose of helping other become successful has been heavily edited, like How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I hate this adage. I've taught, a lot. At universities, in high school, and to adults. The idea that people who can't do can teach is not remotely true. Most people can't teach effectively. If you can't do something you also probably can't teach.
It's because business skills are mostly learn-by-doing skills. No matter how many books you read about bicycle riding techniques, you're not going to ever be able to do it unless you've actually given it a try and scuffed your knees a bit.
Not all skills are like this, of course - you probably want your doctors and scientists to be people who actually read the textbooks and paid attention to their professors.
(Couldn't resist. My degree, BTW, was in Education and I get pretty steamed too when people denigrate teaching. It was because of amazing teachers I have had that I pursued it for a career — somehow writing software came along though and I got sidetracked.)
Many people who teach, especially in this space, are shitty teachers. This doesn't mean teachers are always shit.
The right mentor with the right amount of the right advice will save you weeks/months/years of pain when taking a specific path, by putting you on the right path, connecting you to the right people, and saving you from mistakes that could cost you a lot mentally, financially, temporally.
Those who can't but try and fail and those who never even try are generally forgotten. That leaves behind just those who are successful at doing and/or teaching as the subject of ... aphorisms.
Feynman taught. He taught because he wanted to understand better.
The difference is that there are clowns who teach to maximise the youtube algo and there are real teachers who do it to actually make a difference or selfishly learn themselves.
This is a profession as old as time. "Get rich quick" books and seminars, MLM schemes, the entire "hustle" culture in general. Remember the most profitable venture during the gold rush wasn't digging in mines but opening inns and selling shovels.
If there is a true secret to building wealth then people who know it aren't going to go around telling everybody for $50/mo.
In your analogy, the folks selling these courses are probably more like the people selling claims to gold-less plots. Maybe some gold-finding sticks, too.
Not worthy, but society is having a conversation about what to do with these types. Especially with how easy technology has made it to grift. That’s a little more on topic.
So, maybe worthy.
Pitchforks and torches for grifters with Porsches.
I don't think the article's title really matches up with some of the examples outlined in the article.
That is, most of the time when I hear "influencer giving advice on getting rich", I think of it as total bullshit, and that type of advice ("Dropship on Amazon!!") is nearly universally BS.
But I think it's fine, and actually great, to get real technical advice and classes online. I mean, I haven't seen what advice she gives, but the whole intro about "Miss Excel" doesn't seem like she's "teaching you how to get rich", she's just showing the ins-and-outs of Excel, and some features that may be unfamiliar to some folks, in a fun and engaging way. Heck, those are the types of "1 person company" stories that I think should make it to the top of HN! As another example, one time I was between jobs and I got really into baking, so I paid for some online baking tutorials by https://www.kseniapenkina.com/ , who specializes in a type of glazed "mirror cake". The tutorials were worth every penny and I had a ton of fun making my pastries.
I guess it depends on how much depth you get in each $50 course. The classic MLM book scheme involves spoon feeding one nugget worth 5 minutes explanation over each one of a dozen books or courses.
My impression is that the article was contrasting the first couple profiles with the other ones. But I don't think it was very clear about that, and I felt bad for the people featured who do seem more legitimate, since they were lumped in with the rest.
> find your target market, “start with why,” and build your “click funnel.” (“Click funnel” is a term that comes up often in online marketing speak; the basic idea is turning your existing connections into paying customers by sending them increasingly irresistible emails.)
This part is an error.
In actuality, "click funnel" refers to the SaaS product called ClickFunnels (www.clickfunnels.com), pioneered by marketer Russell Brunson.
Thanks to Brunson (and his books, Expert Secrets and DotCom Secrets), he's helped create a movement of people who aim to build their own info businesses (courses, 1-on-1 coaching, etc.).
A "funnel" is not "sending them increasingly irresistible emails." It actually refers to upselling customers. A person purchases a product (like a book) at $9.95, then on the next page, you upsell them and offer them a $97 course, then a $197 course, then a $997 live course, etc.
Interesting. That up-sell flow appears to be how the Financial Samurai blog works. Ditto Ramit Sethi, whose website/book appears to be the allusion for the article's title despite not being covered in the article.
Perhaps they are conflating terms, but a "funnel" (sans "click") exists outside of Brunson's product, and are a well established sales technique. They aren't really an upselling technique, but are what you would imagine the word describes: large numbers (less qualified) in the top, small numbers (most qualified) in the bottom.
Random related story: At my 2nd year of college, one of my buddies got into the dropshipping fad after watching courses on YouTube. He drop-hipped cheap bracelets from AliExpress and actually made profits...guess how? He advertised that he was donating 10% of its revenue to people affected by terrorist activities in my country (Nigeria)...turns out people fell for the marketing, and he did not donate one dime.
He left college shortly after and now sells online courses on dropshipping and building businesses, LMAO
> He advertised that he was donating 10% of its revenue to people affected by terrorist activities in my country (Nigeria)...turns out people fell for the marketing, and he did not donate one dime.
There's a fine line between "marketing" and lying, and this is plainly on the wrong side of it.
In general though, I try to take any claims where "a portion of the proceeds" supposedly funds some charity with a huge grain of salt. It's difficult/impossible to tell how truthful the business is being about the amount donated.
Whenever I see FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) influencers, almost without fail, the "hidden" story is that they:
- Inherited money / property / etc.
- Started to dabble in stock 5-10 years ago, right before / during the greatest bull-run so far
- Work in tech / finance / law / general high-paying white collar job
- Dual income, spouse in similar profession
But the big talking points are of course how they like to make coffee home, and how you can save 2 bucks a day on doing that. Or how hustling 2-3 hours doing some menial online job will bring you extra 10-20 bucks a day, which adds up over 10-15 years.
edit: Also, related to the article, I have noticed a considerable uptick of these "YOU NEED TO KNOW THESE 5 [insert some software] TRICKS" tidbits. Just 10 minutes ago I was scrolling Instagram and got a bunch of vids like that promoting excel tricks, chatgpt tricks, etc.
The fire people also don't tell you that if you retire early you're existing standard of living will dip and then stay that way. So as long as you like hustling forever to get cheap deals you'll be fine, otherwise you'll be retired and poor and considering becoming unretired.
This type of marketing has existed for a long time. The classic example being “learn to get rich by buying my $20 book” which is just a list of random advice.
i read Donald Trumps "how to get rich" when i was a kid in the early 2000's. What a worthless book. So yes, influencers will always exist, if there is any niche to make money, someone will always fill that hole.
You’re correct that the influencers aren’t average, but how would you expect someone to have a top 1% outcome without some input variable being top 1%?
To retire early you have to either:
- Start with more than average (inheritance, scholarships)
- Earn more than average (tech/finance/legal/medical career, dual income)
- Save more than average (live well below your means for decades)
- Return more than average (luck, skill, or risk)
There’s plenty of get-rich-quick gurus with crazy schemes, but in the financial independence space specifically most content I’ve seen is realistic that you’ll have to drastically outperform in one area (an 8 figure exit is hard to mess up) or do two or three consistently well for 10-20 years (develop a high income skill and avoid lifestyle inflation).
> You’re correct that the influencers aren’t average, but how would you expect someone to have a top 1% outcome without some input variable being top 1%?
You’re missing the point: The parent comment was saying they those 1% influencers are in the 1% often due to things like 1% lucky timing (buying stocks at the right time, buying real estate when it was cheap), but that doesn’t make for interesting content.
So instead, they do mental gymnastics to downplay their lucky position and try to peddle it to the average viewer as generic advice.
> most content I’ve seen is realistic that you’ll have to drastically outperform in one area (an 8 figure exit is hard to mess up)
“Just do an 8 figure exit” is purely aspirational advice for someone browsing FIRE forums. Starting a business, building it, and then selling it for 8 figures isn’t the kind of thing you learn from FIRE influencers on Reddit or whatever, but it’s exactly the kind of dreams they pretend to peddle.
I know a few who have pulled this off, and they all follow the same plan:
- Right out of high school start a 3/4 year, low-debt, in-demand college/university program. Finish on time, don't change major halfway.
- Standard white collar desk job
- find a partner, live with them but don't have kids. NOTE: critical that the partner share the same mindset so that you can encourage each other rather than create conflict.
Low spend is highly levered because it both increases your saving rate and also decreases your burn rate post-retirement. Very doable to retire pre-40 even in the current clusterf** of an economy.
Absolutely not for everyone though! It reminds me of people who can run ultra-marathons: it takes incredible patience and determination as you watch everyone around you jump off the cliff like a herd of bison, or get swallowed by one of the many once-in-a-lifetime economic busts that have impacted this generation. I imagine it will be pretty surreal to be retiring when most people your age will still be $N00,000 in debt.
I'm not at all one of these people, but I really enjoy knowing them(I know 3-4 couples going down this path at varying stages). They've taught me a lot, and I'm really rooting for them to succeed.
Of critical importance -- percent of your income that you spend is the most relevant variable.
Over simplified, but if you can survive on 5% of your income, it won't take you long to be able to sustain that standard of living indefinitely (assuming you're able to save / invest the majority of the remainder).
Exploiting people that want easy answers and the illusion of everything being in their control has always been easy money for those willing to do the exploiting. Social media has made it easier than ever by providing ample reach and viral messaging.
I mean, what do you expect? If you work in a high paying job, it's tempting to start increasing your lifestyle spend (eating out every night etc). If you want to retire early you have to save that money, which means making coffee at home etc.
Why the fixation on coffee? If you bought a $5 latte every day you went to work, you’re look at, what, a bit more than $1200/year? If you make $150K/year, that is a perfectly reasonable outlay that won’t compromise your retirement plans. The key is having a balanced life. If you can’t help but buy every shiny thing you see, then that’ll be a problem. But the advice of these Internet personalities is just as poorly balanced in the direction of asceticism. Obviously this is a non-starter for nearly every normal person.
I think the problem is that people are fascinated by schemes that are extreme and highly unbalanced. Even the idea of FIREing… why are so many people obsessed with the idea of retiring early? Why not find a job that isn’t soul sucking and do that? Hey, maybe you get paid less, but maybe you’d have some coworkers you actually like and don’t mind spending time with. You have to be patient with your life to do that, and patience and balance aren’t sexy or exciting, I guess.
The other thing so many overlook is that achieving your FIRE goals by living like a pauper means you have to continue to live like a pauper in retirement to make the numbers work. Otherwise, if you want to live those retirement dreams, plan on saving a whole lot more than the 25x the influencers tell you you need.
I'm not fixated on coffee? I said eating out every day and coffee as two arbitrary examples.
I think most people, definitely myself, find happiness in simplicity. Mindlessly consuming more and more luxury items as you progress in your career seems empty, even if you can afford it. And anyway, I prefer making my own food because it's less wasteful, cheaper, and I can make it how I want it
The difference between someone with a high paying job who doesn't retire early, and one who does retire early, has nothing to do with eating out every night or buying coffee. That's the point.
There's a big difference between spending, say, $50 a day and spending $100 per day, in terms of how much money is needed to retire and how much you can save.
A tech worker might make $200 a day after taxes. $5 on coffee isn't huge but in NYC etc it's pretty easy to blow $60 a day eating out and $100/day on rent, and that stuff can add up to where you hardly save anything.
Plus the biggest factor in how much you need to retire is what your expenses are. Significantly lowering your expenses boosts the savings rate but it also lowers that target number.
For me, it's a question of values. I'd rather live frugally and have more freedom than trade away more of my time to have more stuff and convenience in my life. For others, the balance is different.
I get what you're saying, but simply put - that coffee isn't going to do sh!t compared to being able to save 60% of your combined take-home paycheck, because you're living rent-free in your parents fourth home / inherited apartment / moms basement.
But it's much easier for these influencers to use these simple and everyday examples of how to save money.
Or they're incredibly highly leveraged. They bought one home, fixed it up, rented it out, worked up to 20% equity and then immediately went out and got another mortgage and then another, etc. Many of them are one mistake or rate change away from the collapse of their "empire".
> - Work in tech / finance / law / general high-paying white collar job
> - Dual income, spouse in similar profession
These are totally legitimate ways of making more money and achieving an early retirement though. There's no deceitfulness there... Sometimes you do want the high paying job!
Absolutely. But few want to hear "Go to a good school, study hard for 4-5 years, work really hard toward interviews, and then go grind at FAANG/Investment Banks/MBB/etc. for 15 years, and move somewhere cheap", when they could
"Make a million bucks in just 5 years by flipping condos"
"Become wealthy by trading crypto / stocks, I did it in two years!"
It’s also bizarre how many FIRE influencers fit the description of the linked article: Their primary income is related to being some sort of FIRE influencer. They downplay it as much as they can, but it’s impossible to escape the reality that their financial situation is due to peddling financial advice to others. The advice, of course, is always about what other people should do, but it can’t be about how they make their money because that would shatter the illusion.
> - Work in tech / finance / law / general high-paying white collar job
Hypothetically, if somebody wanted to make their goal in life obtain a "high-paying" job, why can't they obtain one? If somebody can theoretically go to a 90 day bootcamp, get a junior level job, and within 5 years go from $40k/yr -> $140k/yr... is it mission accomplished?
I'm not saying "I believe everybody can bootstrap their way to $100k/yr no matter what within 5 years". I know people have families, handicaps, obstacles to overcome, it's not easy or everyone would do it, etc.
It's just... why waste your time being influenced by people on social media saying "boy oh boy do I wish I was making $100k/yr+" but not be willing to sacrifice for 5 years to make it happen?
First off, their target audience (the FIRE crowd) aren't HS kids yet deciding what path to take, but rather young adults and adults either still in college, or those that have graduated college and worked a couple of years. The IDEAL target audience for FIRE are fresh grads that simply hate working.
I mean, sure, they can advocate that you go and "grind LC" to land some FAANG-type job, but that market is already established ("HOW TO LAND A FAANG JOB" influencer-sphere), most regular folks don't want to spend another 3-5 years and money on college, but rather look for things they can do right now - so they seek FIRE-influencers that will preach about flipping houses, becoming a landlord, minimizing costs/living frugally, diversifying your portfolio on real estate/stocks/crypto/etc.
Nothing wrong with that - but they tend to let out some crucial details, like how they themselves managed to get a $50k down payment straight out of college. Or how they managed to put $50k on certain companies (Tesla, anyone?) or crypto during the boom.
Simple: never listen to influencers about anything. They are not your friends. They are paid to sell you things, and in almost all cases, with zero disclosure of that.
Even so, algorithms such as YouTube will try to force us to see influencers' videos as popular. No matter how many times you press the Disinterest button for a particular video, or the Hide Channel button, similar videos are constantly shown to you.
Sometimes I'm wondering where you draw the line between influencer, "youtube personality", and "person with quite a few followers" though. I mean, on a basic level the third category seems to not even live (or just supplement their income) from YT money, the middle category is not obviously selling something, just producing stuff people seem to like to watch...
$997 for information you can get for free, in approximately a bazillion places on the web?
I wouldn't call Kat Norton a scammer. If you can figure out how to package 35-year-old information in a way that people will pay money for it (and it's not incorrect), more power to you. Sooner or later, it will be corporatized, like everything else, so grab the money fast.
This is as old as the guy from Rich Dad Poor Dad, who got rich by selling the book about how to become rich.
And it’s what happens when the system doesn’t make sense.
People are doing this because the system tells them the main goal of the game is to make money.
Would people still work on these things if they couldn’t make money off of them? Or better yet, if they didn’t need any money at all in the first place?
Oh, older. In the 1970s and 1980s there were ads in the back of Popular Mechanics and the like that advertised pamphlets that you could send away for from people who "made it big" and "wanted to share it with others" but asked for a small fee ($5 or $10, which was more than that is today) to show that you were "serious" about wanting to learn the secrets to become rich.
I’ll bite: that book really taught me the importance of passive income. Now passive income is a fundamental idea with better materials covering the topic. However for me, and perhaps others, it was an eye-opener when it came out. That lead to really believing in SaaS early on, which lead to good financial outcomes for me years later.
It’s like saying Lord of the Rings is just yet another book series about elves and orcs and ents.
I’m bootstrapping a startup and in parallel also released a course 6 months ago (unrelated to startups or making money, FYI).
After 4 months, the course had made more profits than the startup in 3 years. It has also taken less time to build (5months total to plan, record and edit)
I was both happy and sad when that happened, because as much as making money by teaching others is gratifying, my dream is to build and grow product startups.
However it taught me two valuable lessons about why people buy things:
- contrary to an online SaaS tool, a course is something you can buy anytime and then consume whenever you want in the future, with no expiration date. so if you see a good offer or love the product at first sight, there is no need to wait and postpone the purchase decision. This increases conversions + makes limited promotional offers more effective
- Seems weird but simply owning a course is enough to bring people significant value, that’s why most of them don’t even bother to watch it. It gives them an “insurance” that they have the knowledge handy whenever they need it. It’s perceived as an investment that will come in handy someday. This also drives purchases.
I considered becoming a full-time course creator, because it’s easier than building a startup, but my heart isn’t in it.
So instead I’m trying to apply the lessons learned to my startup:
- how can I offer a product people can purchase anytime and use whenever they want?
- can I make my product valuable to own, and not just valuable to use?
I think doing both could significantly improve conversions.
It is! And especially when you’re the dev type and not necessarily a natural at promoting yourself…
Building the audience took about a year and a half. But what made it easier is that I didn’t set out to build it just to sell the course, it was mostly a byproduct of trying to form connections and get more awareness for my startup. Then the course was just a way to capitalize on it even more.
The thing about these courses, especially if they're about tech and advertised on twitter or reddit, is that they don't have to be directly about startups or making money. You simply have to reference money on your feed, and vaguely connect your course to this, and people buy. You can release a course just based on Rust, and people will still flock to it because your bio references making 50k a month or whatever the case may be.
Nothing will ever sell as much as the mere potential of the buyer becoming rich or attractive. There are entire billion dollar industries based on this. People have become NYT best sellers because of this pitch.
And so I'm not surprised at all your course has made substantially more than a serious startup product. While it's true, courses are perpetual, the ones with high quality content aren't really - they have to be rewritten and recorded over again with updated information. If this wasn't true, then MIT would have stopped posting newer courses online years ago. So these courses often have very little to do with content or sales channel, instead again it goes right back to this potential to become rich. It's a very very powerful motivator to spend. So powerful they spend, and never care about the content, hence being unwatched. They do it over and over again, making everyone else richer ironically.
So make sure you're well aware of that before making any crucial decisions about your startup, not all lessons are meant to be applied to it.
And that’s actually a third thing I learned from selling this course: selling people the outcome works better than selling the product.
One of the reasons why my startup isn’t there yet is because I focus too much on trying to sell the product, and almost never mention the outcome (in reality, I’m not even sure what that is). With my course I did the reverse and it worked better.
I don’t plan to take any drastic decisions about my startup, just experiment and see how it performs. But I appreciate the heads up.
Oh yeah that's a very common thing for bootstrappers specifically, the obsession over product sometimes to the detriment of everything that surrounds it.
Good luck, I hope your startup exceeds your expectations!
I am not sure that I would conflate the success of your course to mean much about the relative success of your startup.
I think there are a few other things to consider that are specific to your situation (as an outsider it's been interesting to watch). In my mind, your course has a few extra things going for it - one it's aspirational and people like to imagine the best version of themselves, two the solution you're selling people has the potential to give them a lot of leverage (building an audience has provided you leverage after all), and three you have credibility in the space by virtue of having already done the thing. Of these, I think the promise of giving your customers leverage is the most important value, and people trust you enough to buy it due to your credibility.
I think these aspects don't apply quite as cleanly to Logology. It has a different kind of problem to solve - the "I need a logo and am willing to spend some money getting something decent but not a lot of money to hire a designer to do it for me" problem. It solves something specific, but doesn't provide potential leverage in the same way (once I have a logo, I have a logo - how many of those will I need in my life?). It also may be a narrow niche that you've more fully exploited. So if you're thinking about how to apply your lessons with Logology I would personally tack on how to add leverage too as they all go hand in hand in my mind.
I’m trying to figure out what was so magical about the course that I can apply to a more regular product startup. The fact that it sells logos is just how it is now, but what other things could we sell that makes people get 10x perceived value, like the course does. give them leverage as you mentioned.
And it’s not just the product. A different positioning could do wonders as well. For example a logo sounds finite and one time, but unlimited branding assets and advice to build your product arguably sounds way more valuable. And it doesn’t require much change in our core product, just different positioning, put different features forward and rework how the product is delivered. But the core is the same.
I’m probably just too optimistic but really excited about this, feels like this course thing opened my eyes.
My kids and I play a game - we look at YT videos and talk about how this person really makes money. It's fun "defense against dark arts" by critically examining any proposal they see.
I dont understand why people are even interested in these fools. On how they want to share their vision on how to get rich, independent and other crap. I also think its a big fundamental flaw in our society. People should be interested in people who can actually do something useful for society. Follow those people amd see them as an example. 10 times more guaranteed success. And you feel a lot happier then all these jealously infected people.
Everyone* wants to improve their financial situation... A smaller group are able to see that the get rich scheme itself is someone executing someone else's get rich scheme. That's why people listen to these people.
*= Some people are happy where they are but that's a VERY small percentage
Understanding behavior of other people (measured against my own mind's sensibilities) is the single greatest mystery I'm still grappling with since the introduction of the smartphone (when the ~99% entered the server and social media really took off).
Made me realize that a good chunk will part with their money for practically anything. Tbh in recent days I'm more and more considering to forget my personal ethics for a while and try to collect some dumb money as well.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadIn the video, he revealed that he actually made $95kish from real estate. Made 900k from YouTube and sponsored posts.
Pretty much true for most “investment” channels
You want to learn about business? Pick up the biographies of successful businesspeople. Even then, beware of survivorship bias.
Note that these successful people will never write a book titled “how to be like me” but instead just write books narrating their stories and allow you to choose what to learn from it.
To add, I think there’s just something about people wanting the easy path that causes them to fall for these grifts.
Not all skills are like this, of course - you probably want your doctors and scientists to be people who actually read the textbooks and paid attention to their professors.
Literally the best thing you can do to increase your understanding of something is to teach it to someone.
– Woody Allen
(Couldn't resist. My degree, BTW, was in Education and I get pretty steamed too when people denigrate teaching. It was because of amazing teachers I have had that I pursued it for a career — somehow writing software came along though and I got sidetracked.)
The right mentor with the right amount of the right advice will save you weeks/months/years of pain when taking a specific path, by putting you on the right path, connecting you to the right people, and saving you from mistakes that could cost you a lot mentally, financially, temporally.
Real teaching isn't putting up fake help videos. "consulting" sounds a lot more like what self-help life-hack types are doing anyway.
Feynman taught. He taught because he wanted to understand better.
The difference is that there are clowns who teach to maximise the youtube algo and there are real teachers who do it to actually make a difference or selfishly learn themselves.
If there is a true secret to building wealth then people who know it aren't going to go around telling everybody for $50/mo.
Not worthy, but society is having a conversation about what to do with these types. Especially with how easy technology has made it to grift. That’s a little more on topic.
So, maybe worthy.
Pitchforks and torches for grifters with Porsches.
That is, most of the time when I hear "influencer giving advice on getting rich", I think of it as total bullshit, and that type of advice ("Dropship on Amazon!!") is nearly universally BS.
But I think it's fine, and actually great, to get real technical advice and classes online. I mean, I haven't seen what advice she gives, but the whole intro about "Miss Excel" doesn't seem like she's "teaching you how to get rich", she's just showing the ins-and-outs of Excel, and some features that may be unfamiliar to some folks, in a fun and engaging way. Heck, those are the types of "1 person company" stories that I think should make it to the top of HN! As another example, one time I was between jobs and I got really into baking, so I paid for some online baking tutorials by https://www.kseniapenkina.com/ , who specializes in a type of glazed "mirror cake". The tutorials were worth every penny and I had a ton of fun making my pastries.
This part is an error.
In actuality, "click funnel" refers to the SaaS product called ClickFunnels (www.clickfunnels.com), pioneered by marketer Russell Brunson.
Thanks to Brunson (and his books, Expert Secrets and DotCom Secrets), he's helped create a movement of people who aim to build their own info businesses (courses, 1-on-1 coaching, etc.).
A "funnel" is not "sending them increasingly irresistible emails." It actually refers to upselling customers. A person purchases a product (like a book) at $9.95, then on the next page, you upsell them and offer them a $97 course, then a $197 course, then a $997 live course, etc.
He left college shortly after and now sells online courses on dropshipping and building businesses, LMAO
There's a fine line between "marketing" and lying, and this is plainly on the wrong side of it.
In general though, I try to take any claims where "a portion of the proceeds" supposedly funds some charity with a huge grain of salt. It's difficult/impossible to tell how truthful the business is being about the amount donated.
Of course, I'm aware. I questioned him about it and he just shrugged it off like it was nothing...I'm no saint, but I found that pretty repulsive.
(from memory) Molly Ivins on how GWB kept getting capital through many failed businesses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
How'd they talk about it if they haven't heard about it?
- Inherited money / property / etc.
- Started to dabble in stock 5-10 years ago, right before / during the greatest bull-run so far
- Work in tech / finance / law / general high-paying white collar job
- Dual income, spouse in similar profession
But the big talking points are of course how they like to make coffee home, and how you can save 2 bucks a day on doing that. Or how hustling 2-3 hours doing some menial online job will bring you extra 10-20 bucks a day, which adds up over 10-15 years.
edit: Also, related to the article, I have noticed a considerable uptick of these "YOU NEED TO KNOW THESE 5 [insert some software] TRICKS" tidbits. Just 10 minutes ago I was scrolling Instagram and got a bunch of vids like that promoting excel tricks, chatgpt tricks, etc.
Blind is riddled with these folks too.
To retire early you have to either:
- Start with more than average (inheritance, scholarships)
- Earn more than average (tech/finance/legal/medical career, dual income)
- Save more than average (live well below your means for decades)
- Return more than average (luck, skill, or risk)
There’s plenty of get-rich-quick gurus with crazy schemes, but in the financial independence space specifically most content I’ve seen is realistic that you’ll have to drastically outperform in one area (an 8 figure exit is hard to mess up) or do two or three consistently well for 10-20 years (develop a high income skill and avoid lifestyle inflation).
You’re missing the point: The parent comment was saying they those 1% influencers are in the 1% often due to things like 1% lucky timing (buying stocks at the right time, buying real estate when it was cheap), but that doesn’t make for interesting content.
So instead, they do mental gymnastics to downplay their lucky position and try to peddle it to the average viewer as generic advice.
> most content I’ve seen is realistic that you’ll have to drastically outperform in one area (an 8 figure exit is hard to mess up)
“Just do an 8 figure exit” is purely aspirational advice for someone browsing FIRE forums. Starting a business, building it, and then selling it for 8 figures isn’t the kind of thing you learn from FIRE influencers on Reddit or whatever, but it’s exactly the kind of dreams they pretend to peddle.
I know a few who have pulled this off, and they all follow the same plan:
- Right out of high school start a 3/4 year, low-debt, in-demand college/university program. Finish on time, don't change major halfway.
- Standard white collar desk job
- find a partner, live with them but don't have kids. NOTE: critical that the partner share the same mindset so that you can encourage each other rather than create conflict.
- no(or cheap) car(based on job salary, commute cost, housing price)
- no eating out
- buy cheap house or find rent-controlled housing
- learn DIY renovation skills
- take care of your health/physical condition
- no overseas vacations
- buy ETFs
Low spend is highly levered because it both increases your saving rate and also decreases your burn rate post-retirement. Very doable to retire pre-40 even in the current clusterf** of an economy.
Absolutely not for everyone though! It reminds me of people who can run ultra-marathons: it takes incredible patience and determination as you watch everyone around you jump off the cliff like a herd of bison, or get swallowed by one of the many once-in-a-lifetime economic busts that have impacted this generation. I imagine it will be pretty surreal to be retiring when most people your age will still be $N00,000 in debt.
I'm not at all one of these people, but I really enjoy knowing them(I know 3-4 couples going down this path at varying stages). They've taught me a lot, and I'm really rooting for them to succeed.
Of critical importance -- percent of your income that you spend is the most relevant variable.
Over simplified, but if you can survive on 5% of your income, it won't take you long to be able to sustain that standard of living indefinitely (assuming you're able to save / invest the majority of the remainder).
I think the problem is that people are fascinated by schemes that are extreme and highly unbalanced. Even the idea of FIREing… why are so many people obsessed with the idea of retiring early? Why not find a job that isn’t soul sucking and do that? Hey, maybe you get paid less, but maybe you’d have some coworkers you actually like and don’t mind spending time with. You have to be patient with your life to do that, and patience and balance aren’t sexy or exciting, I guess.
In fact, that's probably one of the largest "lifestyle inflations" that happens.
I think most people, definitely myself, find happiness in simplicity. Mindlessly consuming more and more luxury items as you progress in your career seems empty, even if you can afford it. And anyway, I prefer making my own food because it's less wasteful, cheaper, and I can make it how I want it
A tech worker might make $200 a day after taxes. $5 on coffee isn't huge but in NYC etc it's pretty easy to blow $60 a day eating out and $100/day on rent, and that stuff can add up to where you hardly save anything.
For me, it's a question of values. I'd rather live frugally and have more freedom than trade away more of my time to have more stuff and convenience in my life. For others, the balance is different.
But it's much easier for these influencers to use these simple and everyday examples of how to save money.
> - Dual income, spouse in similar profession
These are totally legitimate ways of making more money and achieving an early retirement though. There's no deceitfulness there... Sometimes you do want the high paying job!
"Make a million bucks in just 5 years by flipping condos"
"Become wealthy by trading crypto / stocks, I did it in two years!"
etc.
Hypothetically, if somebody wanted to make their goal in life obtain a "high-paying" job, why can't they obtain one? If somebody can theoretically go to a 90 day bootcamp, get a junior level job, and within 5 years go from $40k/yr -> $140k/yr... is it mission accomplished?
I'm not saying "I believe everybody can bootstrap their way to $100k/yr no matter what within 5 years". I know people have families, handicaps, obstacles to overcome, it's not easy or everyone would do it, etc.
It's just... why waste your time being influenced by people on social media saying "boy oh boy do I wish I was making $100k/yr+" but not be willing to sacrifice for 5 years to make it happen?
First off, their target audience (the FIRE crowd) aren't HS kids yet deciding what path to take, but rather young adults and adults either still in college, or those that have graduated college and worked a couple of years. The IDEAL target audience for FIRE are fresh grads that simply hate working.
I mean, sure, they can advocate that you go and "grind LC" to land some FAANG-type job, but that market is already established ("HOW TO LAND A FAANG JOB" influencer-sphere), most regular folks don't want to spend another 3-5 years and money on college, but rather look for things they can do right now - so they seek FIRE-influencers that will preach about flipping houses, becoming a landlord, minimizing costs/living frugally, diversifying your portfolio on real estate/stocks/crypto/etc.
Nothing wrong with that - but they tend to let out some crucial details, like how they themselves managed to get a $50k down payment straight out of college. Or how they managed to put $50k on certain companies (Tesla, anyone?) or crypto during the boom.
I wouldn't call Kat Norton a scammer. If you can figure out how to package 35-year-old information in a way that people will pay money for it (and it's not incorrect), more power to you. Sooner or later, it will be corporatized, like everything else, so grab the money fast.
And it’s what happens when the system doesn’t make sense.
People are doing this because the system tells them the main goal of the game is to make money.
Would people still work on these things if they couldn’t make money off of them? Or better yet, if they didn’t need any money at all in the first place?
The acid test, indeed. "too many hands in too many pockets, not enough hands on hearts"
The continuing popularity of that book baffles me. I've seen people recommending it even on HN.
It’s like saying Lord of the Rings is just yet another book series about elves and orcs and ents.
Is my point. When the book is mostly terrible and the author is a charlatan, why continue to recommend the book instead of alternatives?
After 4 months, the course had made more profits than the startup in 3 years. It has also taken less time to build (5months total to plan, record and edit)
I was both happy and sad when that happened, because as much as making money by teaching others is gratifying, my dream is to build and grow product startups.
However it taught me two valuable lessons about why people buy things:
- contrary to an online SaaS tool, a course is something you can buy anytime and then consume whenever you want in the future, with no expiration date. so if you see a good offer or love the product at first sight, there is no need to wait and postpone the purchase decision. This increases conversions + makes limited promotional offers more effective
- Seems weird but simply owning a course is enough to bring people significant value, that’s why most of them don’t even bother to watch it. It gives them an “insurance” that they have the knowledge handy whenever they need it. It’s perceived as an investment that will come in handy someday. This also drives purchases.
I considered becoming a full-time course creator, because it’s easier than building a startup, but my heart isn’t in it.
So instead I’m trying to apply the lessons learned to my startup:
- how can I offer a product people can purchase anytime and use whenever they want?
- can I make my product valuable to own, and not just valuable to use?
I think doing both could significantly improve conversions.
Building the audience took about a year and a half. But what made it easier is that I didn’t set out to build it just to sell the course, it was mostly a byproduct of trying to form connections and get more awareness for my startup. Then the course was just a way to capitalize on it even more.
The thing about these courses, especially if they're about tech and advertised on twitter or reddit, is that they don't have to be directly about startups or making money. You simply have to reference money on your feed, and vaguely connect your course to this, and people buy. You can release a course just based on Rust, and people will still flock to it because your bio references making 50k a month or whatever the case may be.
Nothing will ever sell as much as the mere potential of the buyer becoming rich or attractive. There are entire billion dollar industries based on this. People have become NYT best sellers because of this pitch.
And so I'm not surprised at all your course has made substantially more than a serious startup product. While it's true, courses are perpetual, the ones with high quality content aren't really - they have to be rewritten and recorded over again with updated information. If this wasn't true, then MIT would have stopped posting newer courses online years ago. So these courses often have very little to do with content or sales channel, instead again it goes right back to this potential to become rich. It's a very very powerful motivator to spend. So powerful they spend, and never care about the content, hence being unwatched. They do it over and over again, making everyone else richer ironically.
So make sure you're well aware of that before making any crucial decisions about your startup, not all lessons are meant to be applied to it.
And that’s actually a third thing I learned from selling this course: selling people the outcome works better than selling the product.
One of the reasons why my startup isn’t there yet is because I focus too much on trying to sell the product, and almost never mention the outcome (in reality, I’m not even sure what that is). With my course I did the reverse and it worked better.
I don’t plan to take any drastic decisions about my startup, just experiment and see how it performs. But I appreciate the heads up.
Good luck, I hope your startup exceeds your expectations!
I think there are a few other things to consider that are specific to your situation (as an outsider it's been interesting to watch). In my mind, your course has a few extra things going for it - one it's aspirational and people like to imagine the best version of themselves, two the solution you're selling people has the potential to give them a lot of leverage (building an audience has provided you leverage after all), and three you have credibility in the space by virtue of having already done the thing. Of these, I think the promise of giving your customers leverage is the most important value, and people trust you enough to buy it due to your credibility.
I think these aspects don't apply quite as cleanly to Logology. It has a different kind of problem to solve - the "I need a logo and am willing to spend some money getting something decent but not a lot of money to hire a designer to do it for me" problem. It solves something specific, but doesn't provide potential leverage in the same way (once I have a logo, I have a logo - how many of those will I need in my life?). It also may be a narrow niche that you've more fully exploited. So if you're thinking about how to apply your lessons with Logology I would personally tack on how to add leverage too as they all go hand in hand in my mind.
I’m trying to figure out what was so magical about the course that I can apply to a more regular product startup. The fact that it sells logos is just how it is now, but what other things could we sell that makes people get 10x perceived value, like the course does. give them leverage as you mentioned.
And it’s not just the product. A different positioning could do wonders as well. For example a logo sounds finite and one time, but unlimited branding assets and advice to build your product arguably sounds way more valuable. And it doesn’t require much change in our core product, just different positioning, put different features forward and rework how the product is delivered. But the core is the same.
I’m probably just too optimistic but really excited about this, feels like this course thing opened my eyes.
*= Some people are happy where they are but that's a VERY small percentage
The influencer is able to grift money out of the audience. The audience is made up bigger fools.
Made me realize that a good chunk will part with their money for practically anything. Tbh in recent days I'm more and more considering to forget my personal ethics for a while and try to collect some dumb money as well.
His take on Tai Lopez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikuf02o6wJ0