Welcome to Ghost Business 👻 Your weekly (mostly) Tuesday email, where we turn $1 into thousands building these weird but simple side hustles

But Does It Suck?

Sorry… Your ideas suck. Most do. But don’t worry, so do mine.

Everyone has THE idea, well some people do. Some people have the free time to work but no ideas.

So how do you know which idea to work on and which ideas suck?

It’s one of the most common questions I get from people just looking for some side cash to folks making 7 figures getting out of the rat race.

In this email I’ll break down exactly how to test ideas (for cheap) and how to build them from square one.

So let’s figure out, do your ideas suck?

The MVP (Getting your first customer)

6 step program… Whenever a new idea gets finds its way into my hard head, I like to follow these steps. Now, these aren’t concrete steps but its a process of filtering out the bad ideas from good.

1. Write it down. Now this is obviously good for me so I can write you guys more content like this. But it’s also good for you so you can remember your ideas (trust me you won’t if you don’t write them down) and see if there’s a pattern

2. Find who is already doing this idea; what size is the company, do you need any special skills, degrees, tools, licenses, etc.

3. Buy, check out and talk to the people/company currently doing it. VERY IMPORTANT STEP. Ask: How did they get into it? What would they do differently? What advice do they have for you?

I’m going to stop here for a second because I can’t stress this step enough! 

This is also a great way to find mentorship.

It’s also very important because of Weighted Credibility.

What is Weighted Credibility?

Let’s say you have an idea, we’ll call it Z. You tell a random on the street your idea. The random says “Idea Z sucks!” You don’t know this person and they have 0 credibility. So I wouldn’t put any weight behind this statement.

Let’s say you tell your mom about your idea and she says “Idea Z sucks!” Your mom knows you and loves you but has no experience in the field for your idea, so this feedback has little weight behind the statement (even if she has your best interest at heart)

Let’s say you tell a mentor that has made $1m already with this same idea 20 years ago. And they say “Hey! Idea Z sucks!” This mentor has your best interest at heart AND is highly credible in the field of your idea. This has huge weight behind this statement and you’ll want to listen very carefully to what they have to say.

Find the people with the Weighted Credibility to help flesh out your idea. Okay back to the steps.

4. Test it out with friends and family. Just ask…

5. Develop an MVP. This can take many forms but in the simplest terms, its spending as little money as possible on your idea while seeing how much interest you can generate with it.

Here’s an example of mine of an MVP that didn’t work out:

• My wife makes amazing custom teas for the household

• I thought this was an amazing product that others might like

• I created a few posts across social media touting the benefits of the teas and seeing if I could ship samples to folks

• I received less than a handful of inquiries

• Result: THAT IDEA SUCKED. But it was fine because we ultimately didn’t spend any money before we needed to!

6. Get feedback from your MVP. What do people like about it? Do they share it? What would they change? What would make them share this with others? etc.

That’s it! You’ve spent very little money so far and have received tons of (credible) feedback from your idea to see if it sucks or doesn’t.

And the moment you’ve been waiting for… You can FINALLY pour your families life savings into it 😂 

Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

1 Million Ideas… This process can take some time and little cash but that’s worth it. One of the worst feelings (and I’ve been there) is spending a ton of money on an idea that doesn’t go anywhere.

So steal this process from me to avoid all of my mistakes… and bad ideas…

(As usual each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea)

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike 👋 

p.s If you love side hustles, I bet you have friends that love em too. So don’t be stingy, share Ghost Business with them by pressing the below button!