This post is one part of a 7 part bootstrapping guide from Amy and Alex. This is part 7 of 7. Want to get the rest of them, in order? Sign up to get the guide here!

So let’s wrap this series up with a story about a failed launch, and how you can avoid the same mistake.

It’s every bootstrapper’s worst fear:

Reload, no new messages. Reload, no new messages. Your brand-spanky-new product is online, open for business, you announced its launch, and… crickets.

Where are the early adopters?

Where are your first sales?

Are you a failure? Did you not validate? Does nobody want it??

What does it mean!?

Hold up. Don’t have a heart attack. What does it mean? In all probability it means nothing more and nothing less than this:

You skipped the boring, poorly defined, non-rewarding work… and went straight to the fun stuff, the stuff you know, the stuff that got you into your career — design, code, writing. And then, when you were “done,” you simply put your product online and waited for the cash to roll in. All it takes is a good product and it’ll sell itself, right? Wrong.

Whoops.

This an incredibly common mistake — probably the third most common mistake we see. But, no bones about it, it’s definitely a mistake. It’s not just “a part of life.”

If you can build a product that provides value, you can launch to instant sales. Full stop. It’s not just possible, it’s repeatable and predictable.

All you’ve gotta do is play your cards right:

Kill a pain people actually have … for people who pay for things Ensure your pitch is super persuasive Get people stoked up to buy it … and get their eyeballs on that pitch Close the sale You learned all about how to do these steps in the first several emails of this series.

And in the last part, you learned about ebombs — droppin’ knowledge on your readership to build your readership. These things go together, my friends. That’s how you create that cycle above.

Here’s how you make it happen, once you’ve found your paying, problem-solving audience online and Safari’d the crap out of them:

Take your long-ass list of pains that you’ve Safari’d. Write little blog posts, or make little videos or podcasts, or little slide decks, or little code snippets that help kill tiny, laser-focused aspects of those pains. These are ebombs. Drop your ebombs where your audience hangs out (aka Watering Hole) On each ebomb, give your readers a call to action (CTA): Get on my email list for more of this awesomeness. Email the list more ebombs. Say, once a week. Rinse & repeat. Then, when you’ve built up a warm, tidy little list, you can prep for your launch.

Launch content is made of ebombs. It’s not wildly different. A Launch Sequence is simply tailored ebombs that are relevant to your product, written to be read in a sequence, where each one is both useful but tantalizing.

Each ebomb in a Launch Sequence builds up to the next ebomb, and that builds up desire for the product.

That’s it. Really, that’s it. That’s the process.

Sounds boring, right?

Yup, it can be, if your goal for a product biz is just to be able to noodle about Doing Your Thing (dev, design, writing). But if your goal is to help people and make money, launching may be difficult, but it’s fun.

Why do I say it’s “difficult”? It’s such a simple process. I know it sounds simple, and it looks simple, and therefore it looks easy. Right?

But a simple-to-understand concept doesn’t mean it will give you easy execution.

Creating magnetic content, and a desire-building launch, will be difficult if…

you haven’t done it before if you don’t know which pains to write about … or how to find them in the first place or how to write a pitch that tantalizes or how to persuade Which, of course, is exactly what you’ll learn in the 30×500 bootcamp and exercise program. Our lessons are laser focused, our process is step-by-step, and the live exercises and guidance keep you on the track to building your business, brick by brick.

(See what I did there?)

As easy to understand / tricky to implement it may be, it’s absolutely worth every second of effort & education you put into it. This process works.

Here are excerpts from 4 emails from 30×500 alums that landed in my inbox just in the past day:

“The landing page brought me 100 subscribers” “This ebomb exploded (80 tweets)” “Got my first 2 signups!” “I’ve had 7 nice replies thanking me for the info in the hour or so since I sent it and 2 enquiries about doing some consulting work” Boring? Maybe. Repetitive? Maybe. Profitable? Absolutely. Where there’s muck, there’s brass. If you’ve enjoyed this series — especially if it’s helped you take action — please hit reply and tell us what you learned and applied.

Amy & Alex

p.s. Still looking for more guidance? We have another 30×500 Bootcamp coming up soon. If you want to skip the line, contact us and ask us to send you a link to apply before our official launch.

Our Bootcamps sell out all 30 seats in just a couple of hours after launch, so applying early is the best way to make sure you can get a spot!