Let’s talk about money, baby! And where money comes from.
Whether it’s funding or acquihires, angels or convertible notes, debt or income, money is the topic we all looooove to talk about (and pretend not to care about).
Lemme be straight with you: I love me some money. And I don’t mind admitting it.
Growing up, I lived in what should have been a firmly middle-class household, but somebody (not me) was terrible at managing money. Sure, we had a computer and internet access (yay!) but new clothes were an incredible and rare treat, car problems were financial disasters, and our power and telephone service got turned off on a semi-regular basis.
“We can’t afford” was a phrase that was ground into my brain. There were grooves. It took me a long time to get over it, and it gave me all kinds of complexes.
Today, thanks to my product business, I get to enjoy the luxury of having a financial cushion big enough to buy a new car… in cash. (A fancyish new car — or 2 to 3 Toyota Yarises!) I love the sheer relief it brings to be able to wave away financial problems such as sudden repairs, unexpected bills, even the cost of same-day hotel dry-cleaning and airline upgrades… or falling in love with a one-of-a-kind piece of art on a trip. Whatever, it’s only money. No worries.
(The extra buying power is fantastic, but not worrying is the greatest luxury of all.)
The size of my cushion isn’t what gives me that relaxed attitude, though. No, I’ve known many who had greater annual incomes (personal income), with more money in the bank, who were nevertheless fearful and anxious. Always hawk-eyed, watching for the tiniest bit of excess. Nope, that cheerful, relaxed attitude isn’t about sheer volume of cash.
The root of my financial chillaxing is this simple fact:
Whatever happens to my finances, I know I can make more money whenever I want.
No shit, this is an actual fact, one I’ve proven to myself over & over through the past 10 years of product empire building. (And before that, it came in a flavor of I can get another job whenever I want, which was also a source of relief, although not nearly so empowering.)
Probably this makes me sound like a glib douchebag, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take, because sharing this shit is important to me:
Nothing makes me happier than helping other people learn this way of looking at the world. And watching them make it happen.
My hope is that you’ll read this little essay today and be inspired to figure out how you can get a little of that attitude for yourself.
A Real-Life Illustration: Hello, Last Minute Ireland!
Back in 2011, we missed our friends’ over-the-top special event in Dublin: Funconf.
So when the event rolled around again the following year — which was also the last Funconf ever! — I told myself there was no way in hell I’d miss it. But, having dropped over $130,000 for a mortgage down payment just a month before, our financial cushion wasn’t as robust and hearty as I like it. And at 999€ (times two!) for the conf tickets alone, it wasn’t a tiny expense.
My husband, Thomas, is the cautious one. “We don’t have the money,” he said. I answered him: “What are you talking about? We can make the money.”
And so we did.
We took a two-fold approach:
- reinvigorated sales of his latest tiny tech ebook on prepping images for hot new (at the time) retina screens through a couple blog posts and many tweets
- offering a coupon for our newly finalized HTML5 Mobile screencast workshop to our mailing list
We made the trip happen…without dipping into our cushion, or even creating a new product.
We’re talking over $5,000 in a matter of days, dear reader. One email to the mailing list alone brought in over $2,500 of new sales.
That is the true power of assets, conceived and properly deployed. That’s the power of what I like to call True Wealth™. Like a relaxed attitude about money, True Wealth isn’t about the cash: it’s a combination of knowledge, skills, process, assets…and gumption.
Um, but Amy, you and Thomas are… special
It’s easy for me because I’m famous. Right?
First off, I really wouldn’t say I’m famous. Slightly internet famous in a few narrow circles, maybe. Thomas, my husband, is pretty damn hot in JavaScript land but without careful tending of his public image, even his star power is slightly tarnished.
Even so, I hear this a lot: “Well, you’re famous.” “If I had 19,000+ Twitter followers like you do, I could do it, too.”
Bzzzt. Untrue, my friends. Lots of famous people can’t sell a damn thing. And lots of totally un-famous people sell lots. (Psst: I wrote a blog post about this very topic.)
Which brings us to my next story, about my student, Brennan Dunn.
Yes, today Brennan runs a product empire of his own. If you’ve heard his name, you probably know about one of his two businesses doubleyourfreelancing.com and rightmessage.io.
But as recently as 5 years ago, Brennan had under a thousand Twitter followers, triple digit subscribers, and almost zero name recognition…and any microscopic bits of “fame” he had were, at the time, brand new. Consulting was still his primary source of income.
After taking our 30x500 Product Launch Class in 2012, Brennan really put his blood sweat and tears into launching his first SaaS product Planscope. Around 9 months in, Planscope was earning $3,200/month and growing nearly 10% month over month.
At that rate, Planscope had the potential to be earning over $120k/year in revenue before the end of it’s second year. That’s the power of compound growth: it seems slow, but boy does it really add up.
Obviously, as Brennan’s teacher, this makes me super proud. And it’s especially awesome when you consider he was working on Planscope part time.
But at the time, $3,200 a month wasn’t enough for him to quit consulting…or join us on our last minute trip to Ireland.
Brennan’s Last Minute Ireland!
Brennan wanted to go to Funconf, too — but, after a lengthy vacation and unexpected medical bills, he found himself thinking, “We don’t have the money.”
Brennan was thinking like my husband, Thomas.
To me, that sounded like a challenge. And call it a personality flaw, but I find it harrrrrd to resist a challenge.
So I sneak attacked him.
While we were chatting about something completely different, I dropped a subtle bomb into the conversation, talking about our plan to pay for Funconf:
Amy Hoy: the upside of having a mixture of products is we can do a sale on the infoproducts to raise some cash
Amy Hoy: which is something I wanted to talk to you about
Amy Hoy: you’re obviously going balls to the wall on Planscope, but have you thought about doing an infoproduct for a cash infusion?
One of Brennan’s best traits is he never needs telling twice. He took the idea and ran with it.
Brennan realized that he had:
- experiences he could share & teach
- a process for coming up with profitable product ideas
- an audience (starting with existing Planscope customers and leads) to learn from & reach out to
- the skills to write a persuasive sales pitch
- the confidence to choose a value-based price
- the tools & techniques for launching
And so he made a bet with his wife.
As he told me,
Brennan Dunn: but my bet with her was, “If I can make enough to cover the flight and ticket between now and then on something new, can I go?”
Brennan Dunn: I think she probably didn’t believe me, and ended up accepting the bet 
Brennan Dunn: because $4-5k in 2 weeks on something brand new didn’t seem very plausible to her (i.e. I’m not even close to that with planscope and it’s been like 9 months)
Mrs. Dunn was right to doubt, don’t you think? It doesn’t sound very plausible, does it? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that this was just a couple weeks before the conference itself? No way, man.
And yet.
Brennan took his assets & process & skills — items 1 through 6 from the list above — and he whipped up a pitch that’d appeal to the audience he already had (Planscope customers), based on what he’d learned from interacting with them. He noticed that they have lots of problems, and pricing is a big expensive one.
He turned what he knew pitch into a simple page to pre-sell the product: a short little digital workbook.
He called it Double Your Freelancing Rate.
He gave it an ambitious, value-based price. (After we nudged him to charge more.)
He shared it to his existing audience. He tweeted. He got retweeted.
He wrote one blog post about the book— then another, meta post.
He contacted a few industry leaders, got interviews and links…
And that little ebook brought in $6,000 in pre-sales alone. Before he wrote it.
Ladies and gentlemen, Brennan went to Funconf. We all had a great time.
This Isn’t a Story about Conference Tickets
This story is about more than a trip to Dublin and a crazy conference. That’s just the way it begins. The first tiny, seemingly unimportant brick on the stack.
Once you realize you can “make money happen,” once you’ve proven to yourself that it works…what else changes?
What happens when you stop thinking of money as something that happens to you, and start thinking of how you could happen to money?
Could you use this technique to quit your job, or quit consulting, months sooner? To take a sabbatical? To fund the development of a bootstrapped product, to give you runway without investment?
It’s like being your own angel investor. Only there’s nobody riding your ass…and you get to maintain full control and 100% ownership.
I’ve used the Be Your Own Angel approach over & over to do the seemingly impossible. Without BYOA, we couldn’t have funded the development of Noko or Sweep. Or taken months off to handle Thomas’ immigration and our international move back to the US. I couldn’t have quit consulting when I did.
That’s power.
Brennan did it too. Because after he made that first $6k on presales and shipped the finished version of Double Your Freelancing Rate to rave reviews, Brennan continued selling the finished workbook. Then…
- In 2013 he revised DYFR into a full blown course additional guides and support systems to help his readers raise their rates.
- By 2014 he had multiple products for sale under the Double Your Freelancing banner.
- In 2016 years later he sold Planscope to focus entirely on growing the DYF business and platform
- During 2017 he started development on a new SaaS that automated many of the personalization techniques that he used to turn DYF into a rocketship business - now a separate product business of it’s own.
If you’re dedicated and savvy, you could BYOA too.
How’d Brennan get this way?
I certainly can’t claim credit for Brennan being a savvy go-getter. I also have nothing to do with his ability to teach people how to raise their freelance rates (he created a booming consultancy before I ever entered the picture).
But of this list of the experience, skills, process, & tools he used to create that windfall:
- experiences he could share & teach
- a process for coming up with profitable product ideas
- an audience (Planscope customers) to learn from & reach out to
- the skills to write a persuasive sales pitch
- the confidence to choose a value-based price
- the tools & techniques for launching
Items 2 through 6 were learned, built, & honed in my product business class, 30×500 Academy. He’s told us directly, and more than once, “You definitely kicked my ass in the right direction.”
Amy Hoy: so how does it feel now to know that you have the ability to “make money happen” when you want?
Brennan Dunn: it’s liberating, and addicting
Brennan Dunn: liberating because, unlike with a “job” or even putting all my eggs into a single SaaS basket, I’m in complete control of growth.
Brennan Dunn: like, I could survey enough of the new audience to figure out what I have to offer them next (i.e. the freelance -> consultancy course)
Brennan Dunn: and deliver more value for more money, filling my pockets and filling their heads
Isn’t this the best virtuous cycle ever? If this sounds like the kind of addictive habit you’d like to craft for yourself, then 30×500 Academy can help you, too.
30x500 has changed a ton (and for the better!) since Brennan took it, but the simple goal the course is designed around has not changed a bit:
To help you learn how to think & act like Brennan in the story above.
To recognize the value you bring to the table; to spot opportunities, and pounce on them; to look at the world in a different way, where you’re in control; to preserve your precious time; to market, to sell, to ship.
It’s true, I love the financial freedom & security that my product business gives me. I love hearing from happy customers. I love having an impact; getting to do a million different things; knowing that nobody could ever fire me, or change my work against my will.
But what I really, really love is this:
Watching 30x500 students kick ass.
Watching them learn what I’ve learned, what students before them have learned, and experience the joy of working directly with the people whose lives they touch. Disintermediating away clients, committees, and bosses, and getting straight to the quick.
Watching people like you feel, for the first time, the joy of realizing they can choose how much they want to earn.
And see the letters they get from their customers as they help them kick ass.
Seeing them give the same great advice and encouragement — sometimes even better! — to their fellow alumni.
There’s nothing better.
I know that, every year, I’m helping my students start product businesses that collectively earn many multiples of our own yearly revenue.
I get to be a human lever for awesome. And train new human levers for awesome!
Day by day, we move the world. Even if we only move the world a little bit, for a hundred people here, a thousand people there, we’re still moving the world.