This is the #57 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

But today’s issue is different.

Subscribe now

This is the last Tuesday issue of my newsletter.

From now on, I will only send you a Friday issue with golden nuggets. Here is why:

• I kinda write an actionable essay in MakerBox Blog every Wednesday (subscribe here to get it tomorrow). Two essays in two days is too much for me.

• I want to make Friday's issue x10 better (you will see for yourself this week)

So, yeah. This is the last time we see each other on Tuesday (🥹🥹🥹)

It was a remarkable run. Here are my 3 favorite Tuesday issues.

• #48 Weekly Dan — My challenges

• #38 Weekly Dan — 4 Levels of Positioning

• #26 Weekly Dan — 10 more hours

I wanted to do AMA today.

But forgot to collect questions in the previous issue.

Luckily, I have a ChatGPT to help me out. Let’s roll.

1. How do you uniquely position digital products in crowded markets?

Here is a time-and-true framework:

1. List all possible competitors to your product (both technological and traditional)

2. Pick one competitor that people mention most frequently. It will be your nemesis

3. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your nemesis

4. Pick one weakness that is a deal-breaker for a huge target audience segment

5. Build your whole positioning around it

For example, this is how Beehiiv differentiated from Substack (flat pricing vs. revenue commission).

There is more nuance. But this framework is a good starting point.

2. Share a standout solopreneur marketing success story.

I love what Lilian is doing on Twitter.

He nailed design-led growth. Every feature update goes viral, with dozens praising his design skills.

A great example of audience building without threads and giveaways.

3. What's your strategy for balancing free vs. paid content?

Always start with paid products.

I heard this story a million times:

1. A creator builds an audience with free content / products

2. They try to monetize the audience with a paid product

3. Audience rejects monetization because it thinks it’s a scam

Here is a better alternative:

1. Create a paid product

2. Build an audience around your paid product

3. Introduce some free products (if your Conversion Rate isn’t sufficient)

But don’t introduce too many free products. Usually, one freebie at the moment is enough.

4. Can you suggest unconventional marketing tactics for solopreneurs?

Here are two:

1) Sell your main product for $1 for 24 hours. You will get tons of emails to upsell later.

2) Add a quarter subscription. Not everyone is ready for your annual subscription.

You can read 13 more here.

5. How do solopreneurs effectively use storytelling to stand out?

Your fight with a nemesis is exciting. Just as any battle between good and evil.

But here is a thing.

Nobody wants ONLY to watch you win.

People want to see your challenges and failures too. Because they make your wins more significant.

Takeaway? Spend at least 40% of your time sharing the dark part of your journey.

6. What's the impact of collaborations on solopreneur success?

Partnership marketing is great for the scale stage. Do it.

But if you are only getting started, there is a more important thing. You must build a network of 10-20 Entrepreneurs who care about your success.

They will write you wonderful Product Hunt comments, retweet your launch tweets, and share honest feedback without charging you money.

And the best part — you can build this network without awkward Zoom calls. Just engage with their content on Twitter and connect in DMs.

7. How should solopreneurs adapt to changing social media algorithms?

Build an email list.

The sooner, the better.

8. What are key email marketing optimization techniques for solopreneurs?

People love curated content.

Spend 1 hour filtering last week's best content to get tons of clicks. If you get tons of clicks on free content, you will eventually get tons of clicks on your paid products.

9. How can customer feedback drive digital product innovation?

There are 2 models for Solopreneurs:

1. You know your niche well enough → You can ignore most negative feedback and rely on your vision

2. You don’t know your niche well enough → You need to listen to feedback

Each model has a risk of building a terrible Frankenstein.

But picking one approach will save you a lot of time.

10. How will emerging technologies shape indie entrepreneurship and marketing?

My three predictions:

1. You either leverage AI or human-touch

2. Audience building is a must for every indie business

3. Micro SaaS for different target audience segments → Vertical SaaS for one target audience segment

I am terrible at human touch.

That’s why I will build a vertical AI-powered SaaS for Solopreneurs.

That’s it!

Now you know me better.

Thank you for reading this last Tuesday's issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 7 (?!) golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

Learn the only 5 acquisition channels Solopreneurs need in 2023

Actionable ebook + Positioning workshop.

Download it here.

This is the #57 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 42 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

Less focus, more results

Works every time with me:

• Stopped scheduling Twitter content → +500 followers

• Stopped caring about newsletter growth → +100 subscribers

• Haven’t aggressively promoted MakerBox Blog → >55% Open Rate

These metrics are still important to me. But I don’t wake up to fix them. My mood is not affected by their fluctuations. We are in separate worlds.

If it’s growing — perfect. If it’s not growing — it will grow eventually.

I create content for myself. A little company is welcomed, but not required.

MakerBox update 🐌

Just opened the beta test of our first no-code tool.

It doesn’t have a name. Or a sexy domain. Or a favicon.

It’s an okayish version to test the flow and improve the product.

If you want to give it a try, reply to my tweet.

Here are my 3 lessons from this process:

1. It took me 2 days to learn Bubble basics. It took me ~5 days to build the first version with Zapier and OpenAI. This is mind-blowing compared to learning programming. If you don’t use no-code right now, you should think twice.

2. This is the MVP of a bigger AI tool we want to build. Our goal is to check if Solopreneurs want to outsource more marketing to AI than just copywriting. I don’t want to waste one month of building for the “life lesson”.

3. Building is different from marketing in one critical aspect. In marketing, your biggest problem is understanding where to head (is it SEO? if so, how to approach it?), and then the process is routine. But the building is different — it’s quite clear where you are heading feature-wise, but building these features is always a challenge. It’s a nice mix.

Random Observation 🔮

Indie Entrepreneurs ship too much ignorable products.

These products are not terrible. But they are stuck at the bottom of your to-do list.

Here are 5 signs of ignorable products:

• Too narrow problem that doesn’t happen often

• Status-quo solution is pretty much okay

• Unnecessary subscription in the recession

• Overwhelming landing page without a clear CTA

• “Small bet vibe” product that will be shut down in 2 weeks

Your MVP shouldn’t be fantastic. It just should suck too much.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

Does you target audience care about AI?

My prediction — all niches will be soon divided into 2 categories:

• Target audience cares about AI, so a business embed it asap

• Target audience doesn’t care about AI, so a business focus on human touch / privacy / efficiency

Decide right now to stop getting FOMO from Twitter hype.

Great Resource 🏈

I only read Bubble documentation this week.

But I still got a good article for you. My article.

I curated 15 out-of-the-box marketing ideas for Solopreneurs.

And what makes it special — it’s my first attempt to write together with ChatGPT. Right now, the split is 70:30, with me leading the process. Sounds like a potential.

That’s it!

I hope today’s golden nuggets brought you clarity and fresh ideas for the next week.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

Learn the only 5 acquisition channels Solopreneurs need in 2023

Actionable ebook + Positioning workshop.

Download it here.

This is the #56 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Let’s talk about your content marketing today.

Subscribe now

I never planned to have a career in content production. Like many Creators, I hated writing in school. Pointless torture.

My first content attempts were terrible.

Poor structure, questionable value, vague positioning.

But 5 years of consistency make magic. And today, I will share 3 secrets I learned from the best content marketers. Let’s dive in.

Red pill 💊

Nobody needs another fitness blog.

You can’t win the audience's attention if you feel like 200 other websites.

Here is a framework to fix it.

Be Morpheus. Give your audience a choice:

• Red pill — learn the truth and explore the rabbit hole

• Blue pill — ignore it and come back to regular life

Most will ignore you. Some people will even start hating you. But a fraction will become your loyal fans who want to consume every piece of content.

Your red pill can be about anything. But it’s always a challenge to the status quo:

1. You can build a profitable company without hiring anyone

2. You can be fit while eating junk food

3. You can travel with a $20 daily budget

Find your red pill. Create a life-changing content around it.

Two levels of awesomeness 🥸

There are two types of users in every niche:

• Newcomers — people who are just started (or thinking about getting started)

• Professionals — people who are pretty good at what they are doing

And they need two absolutely different types of content:

• Newcomers need actionable and tactical content. They need to understand HOW to do a new activity. They need specific instructions to follow.

• Professionals need thought-provoking and strategic content. They need to understand WHAT else they can do and WHY they need to bother about it. They need fresh ideas to spark the brain’s engine.

You need to decide where your target Persona falls into. And if you think, “It’s in the middle”, think again. Nobody needs actionable strategist content.

• In marketing, newcomers need a guide, “How to Analyze Your Target Audience” and professionals need an essay, “Why Your Target Audience Can’t Help You”.

• In productivity, newcomers need a Notion template, “How to Set Business Goals and Actually Hit Them” and professionals need a swipe file, “Operating Systems of the Best Fortune 500 CEOs”.

Find your level of awesomeness. Ignore the distractions.

Shoulder weight-lifting 🏋️

Nobody likes to feel stupid.

I don’t. Do you?

Exactly. Your audience is no different.

They don’t want to be told, “you are the problem”. Even though, sometimes, they are the problem. They don’t want to feel stupid.

Your content marketing should repeat one thing over and over:

Dear User, you are perfectly fine.

But there are unfair things that are stopping you from the bright future.

You don’t deserve it. That’s why I will tell you how to fix them for free.

You are not stupid. Obstacles around you are.

You’ve just picked the weight from their shoulders and thrown it away.

There is no chance your users will not fall in love with you after this.

• You don’t see the results in the gym? It’s not you; it’s the bad food they serve you in fast-food chains. Here is how to cook better food at home.

• You don’t get leads from cold outreach? It’s only because your tools suck. Pick these five products, and you will be brilliant as always.

Annoyed users fight. Flattered users buy.

That’s it!

Now you know how to create world-class content. Create something useful tomorrow.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. And a special March bonus.

So you can grow your business with clarity.

This is the #55 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 52 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

Last week, I promised to write an article about ChatGPT and Marketing.

And I did — How to Use ChatGPT to Improve Your Marketing (5 Prompts)

But here is a fun fact.

I have written 19 articles on our blog. And it felt the same every time — good enough content, let’s publish it. No attachments.

This time it was different — I had goosebumps every minute of writing. It felt too good to share for free. It didn’t feel like marketing.

I guess that’s a good north star emotion.

MakerBox update 🐌

We are launching MakerBox Newsletter on Monday.

And there are 2 insights for you.

1) I still don’t believe that Sveta agreed to name it “Marketing Bay”. But this is genuinely my finest branding work. Please remember my peak.

2) We understood that we educate too much.

• Twitter — education from personal experience

• MakerBox Blog — education from structured theory

• Freebies — education from paid products

• Weekly Dan — education from self-reflection

One thing is clear — there is a lot of “how to do X”. But not enough “can I do it?”.

That’s why we decided to focus on the inspiration. Our goal is not to show our authority but rather motivate by spotlighting other Makers.

If this sounds fun, subscribe here to get the first issue.

Random Observation 🔮

A random copywriting tip — use more bullet lists.

Reading bullet lists feels terrific, isn’t it?

• Text stands out

• Easier to skim

• Oddly satisfying circles

When I see a wall of text with 10-line paragraphs, I see the writer as a lazy amateur.

When I see a bullet list, I see the writer as a professional.

You know what to do.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

Do you need all these metrics?

I knew 30 metrics by heart in my first VC-backed startup.

• What is the current number?

• What is its benchmark?

• What was the average for the past 3 months?

It felt exciting to be data-driven. Felt elitist.

But looking back now, it didn’t make a lot of sense.

Sure, that’s a lot of metrics — but do you act on each one?

The only metrics I know now:

• Total revenue

• Daily visitors

• Number of email subscribers

More focus → More results.

Great Resource 🏈

I got AI-pilled this week.

Built a small tool to generate the Heading 1 for landing pages. Didn’t like its monetization potential — shut it down after 15 minutes.

Now I am building a Content Plan generator for Twitter Creators. I love writing tweets but not brainstorming them. This tool should solve my problem.

The resource that helped me a lot on this journey — Rob’s swipe file of ChatGPT prompts.

100% Free and well-structured — what else can you ask for?

That’s it!

I hope today’s golden nuggets brought you clarity and fresh ideas for the next week.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. And a special March bonus.

So you can grow your business with clarity.

This is the #54 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

I just ate 4 chicken wings and 5 tacos. Let’s talk about your marketing funnel.

Subscribe now

Marketing funnel is a boring topic.

But you can’t ignore it. Otherwise, you will end up getting 1 customer from 1000 website visitors. Ouch.

That’s why I collected 6 dead-simple tips you can apply tomorrow morning to get more customers.

Focus on different types of acquisition channels

Don’t do LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at the same time. Relying only on algorithms is the highway to a mental breakdown.

Instead, have different types of acquisition channels in your marketing mix.

• High-control channels (Cold outreach, Email list)

• Algorithmic channels (Twitter, TikTok)

• Long-term channels (SEO, YouTube)

Start with a high-control or algorithmic channel. Then add the remaining two.

Activate everywhere

You don’t grow by getting more website visitors.

You grow by getting more users that understand your product’s value.

And the good news — you can “activate” uses beyond a free trial.

Whenever you write emails, share freebies, or showcase your product demo — you need to hit one spot with your positioning. Repeat the same benefits over and over again. And you will get more people that understand why you are awesome.

Reduce the number of clicks

Marketing rule you can’t deny:

The more clicks you have, the lower the Conversion Rate you get.

Do you really need all these fields to create an account? Do you really need to open 10 emails to get the first promotion of the product?

No, you don’t. Reduce the friction to buying your product. And, surprise-surprise, more people will buy it from you.

Nurture, nurture, and nurture

If 1% of your website visitors buys your products, you have a solid Conversion Rate.

But what about the other 99%? Do you have a product for them?

Most people are not ready to buy on the spot. But they are okay with giving an email, subscribing to your account, or joining the community.

Help them with falling in love with your product. On their terms.

Focus on upselling

Again, only 1% will buy your product. Do you prefer to sell it for $19 or $39?

Easy choice.

Upsell your customers. They already “bought” your value proposition. They don’t care if you ask them to pay $20 more. Especially if you offer x3 more value in return.

By the way, if you are selling SaaS — an annual plan with 2 free months is a weak deal. It’s just not desirable. See what Grammarly does — do the same in your product.

Create “shareable” moments

Don’t expect word-of-mouth in the first 12 months. It’s not a reliable acquisition channel.

If it happens — good, you got yourself a bonus. If not, you have acquisition channels to focus on. But don’t be obsessed with getting recommended.

Still, there is one thing you can change to improve your word-of-mouth. Increase the number of use cases where your customers can screenshot your product and share it with their friends to make THEMSELVES feel better.

You can’t bribe someone to love your product. But you can nudge them.

That’s it!

Now you have a few marketing ideas for Wednesday. Your dream marketing funnel is one change away. Okay, maybe two changes.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. And a special March bonus.

So you can grow your business with clarity.

This is the #53 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 20 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

Not going to lie; I am getting massive FOMO from AI hype.

It feels different this time. It feels like a new industrial revolution (I wasn’t around when it happened the last time, but I heard stories).

And one question is constantly on my mind.

Why right now, the only marketing use case of AI is a copywriting?

There is a huge potential beyond this:

1. Defining positioning

2. Designing marketing funnel

3. Creating email marketing sequences

4. Structuring SEO keywords

5. Generating content matrix for Creators

Nobody likes to do these tasks. They are b-o-r-i-n-g.

That’s why I have 2 ideas:

• Free content on marketing with ChatGPT (will try next week in MakerBox Blog)

• Paid product to do it smoothly (will launch an MVP in 2 weeks)

Hyped about the hype.

MakerBox update 🐌

We have robots on Mars. But we still don’t have a reliable data attribution to understand where your sales are coming from.

Especially if you are using no-code tools.

You can only hope that a new customer came from your Twitter thread with 6 likes.

I can’t live with it. So I created the hack:

1. A new customer buys one of our products

2. We offer them an exclusive gift in exchange for survey completion — “How did you find MakerBox?”

3. We get a clear answer. They get value.

Will share the results of how it goes.

Random Observation 🔮

I wrote about this 40 issues ago. But it’s worth saying one more time.

Stop adding a subscription model to every goddamn product.

Not everything should be recurring revenue. Do you like paying for 20 subscriptions? I bet you don’t. Your customers feel the same.

Here are 3 signs that you don’t need a subscription:

• People don’t use your product every day

• The problem you are solving is not critical (wealth, health, security, happiness)

• Your product is in the early stage (lack of features, poor UX)

There is life beyond $9 monthly.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

What is the most impressive statistics you can showcase?

Your website visitors don’t get excited from reading the word “supercharge” 5 times on your landing pages. Even a little bit.

They forget 99% of your marketing copy. Not just the next day. The next minute they close your landing page.

You can’t change it — words are boring.

Everyone says the same thing with the same hooks. But there is a solution.

Find a product statistic so powerful your users won’t be able to forget it.

One week later — I still remember 17% from the lemlist’s recent launch.

Great Resource 🏈

We will change our CTA in the MakerBox Blog on Sunday.

Paid products → Freebie “5 Acquisition channels for Solopreneurs in 2023”

The plan is simple — collect the email, share free value, and hopefully get a sale.

I designed the email sequence’s structure. And then found that Thomas Frank implemented almost the same flow and got great results.

Insightful thread to improve your email marketing game.

That’s it!

I hope today’s golden nuggets brought you clarity and inspiration for the next week.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. And a special March bonus.

So you can grow your business with clarity.

This is the #50 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Today let’s talk about the possible future of MakerBox.

Subscribe now

Indie Entrepreneurs already know their weaknesses.

We just are not ready to embrace them. I have a framework to fix it.

Imagine that you go 6 months in the future.

Your business is shut down.

What could be the reason?

Here is how I use this mental model to ensure MakerBox is safe.

Twitter goes nuts 🤯

We get sales from Twitter. We get support on Product Hunt launches from Twitter. We build partnerships on Twitter.

And lately, it’s turbulent as crazy. If it continues to be this way, we risk losing our best acquisition channel. The worst part — we don’t have a decent alternative.

What can we do to prevent it from happening?

• Double down on SEO

• Grow and nurture an email list

• Build an audience on LinkedIn (cringe and painful)

No recurring revenue 🎢

I love one-time payments. “Pay once and use the product forever” is the ultimate cheat code to convince users.

But it’s also constant uncertainty — how much will we earn this month? It can be $10 000 or $1000.

What can we do to prevent it from happening?

• Launch a no-code product with a subscription

• Launch a paid newsletter

• Launch a high-ticket marketing coaching

Not niched enough 🐙

I always struggled to narrow myself down. The same thing happened with MakerBox.

We do everything: landing pages, positioning, newsletters. And for some people, that’s a huge plus — a vertically integrated product to fix every problem. One-stop shop.

But for most people, it’s an objection — Are you really good at everything, or maybe I should find a specialist for each issue?

What can we do to prevent it from happening?

• Focus on marketing only for Solopreneurs

• Pick one marketing area and focus on it

• Decrease the number of offers

Too many distractions 🥴

To illustrate the point, we have:

• Weekly Dan newsletter (Substack)

• MakerBox Blog (Ghost)

• Customers + Future marketing newsletter (ConvertKit)

That’s three email marketing services in the two-person business. And it’s happening with acquisition channels, content marketing funnels, and operation processes. Messy.

What can we do to prevent it from happening?

• Simplify marketing funnel

• Stop doing marketing campaigns that generate <20% of the results

• Decrease the number of tools we pay for

That’s it!

I hope now you want to implement this framework in your business. It’s not pleasant because it forces you to think of negative consequences. But it’s better to think about them than to experience them.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

We collected our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs.

So you can grow your business with clarity.

This is the #51 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 15 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

We spent 3 days riding the North of Bali. A perfect ending to the crunch month.

It was a nice journey with waterfalls, dolphins, and cold coffee.

But yesterday, I found myself on the top of a 1200m mountain. On the bike with failing breaks and a wife afraid of heights.

Not because I am brave.

But because I am dumb and didn’t know there was a mountain in our route

People say, “don’t waste time planning; take action”.

And it’s fantastic advice most of the time.

But sometimes, a little bit of planning is a good thing.

MakerBox update 🐌

We had a Product Hunt launch on Monday. We won the #1 Product of the Day.

Here is the craziest part:

• This wasn’t a brand-new product – just a collection of 5 of our products

• Our launch tweets got almost no traction

• We didn’t do any mind-blowing distribution

But we won.

Why? Because we are lucky to have 100 people who want us to win.

We build this audience from 2 sources:

• Partnerships on Twitter (testimonials exchange, 1-1 calls)

• Unannoyed customers (transparent sales funnel, no email spam, somewhat good product)

You don’t need a new breathtaking product. You need people who want you to win.

Random Observation 🔮

Marketing gurus will tell you to “always be closing”.

You must handle all possible objections, nudge people to click the CTA button, and reactivate undecided users. Do everything you can to get a new sale.

Sure, you can do it. But here is the real question.

Should you do it?

The more you persuade, the worse customers you get.

• Best customers buy your products on the spot

• Okay customers need some data to make a decision

• Worst customers need to be sold on

If you don’t want to get lost in constant support tickets and useless feature requests, maybe you need to be less convincing on your landing page.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

Are you writing for lurkers?

I don’t engage with content.

I read. I think about it. I even mention it to my friends.

But I (almost) never like, comment, or share it. I am a lurker.

Surprisingly, 99% of your audience is like me. Adapt your content marketing to talk to them.

Great Resource 🏈

I didn’t read or watch anything slightly intellectual this week.

Sorry.

But I still have a gem for you. My three Spotify playlists to get things done:

• Altar

• Berlin Techno

• Ambient Techno & Minimalism

That’s how MakerBox was built.

That’s it!

I hope today’s golden nuggets brought you clarity and inspiration for the next week.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. Now with Parity Pricing

This is the #50 Issue of Weekly Dan (🥳🥳🥳)

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Today let’s talk about my growth hacks.

Subscribe now

I am lazy.

That’s why when I find a working growth idea, I use it everywhere. Less time brainstorming, more time getting the job done.

Today I will share my 5 favorite growth hacks. Steal them for your product.

Plain emails

The biggest marketing myth — you need pretty emails.

We generated ~$7000 from 2 emails like this on Black Friday.

3 lines. 109 characters. Each character generated $64.

This landing page structure

All our landing pages have the same structure.

Why reinvent the wheel when you have a working system?

Here are 9 blocks we use over and over again:

• Hero block — Heading 1, product description, product screenshot, quick social proof, CTA buttons (positioning in 15 seconds)

• Problem agitation — the problem our product solves and the negative consequences if this problem is ignored

• Value proposition — rational, emotional, and social value from solving the problem with our product

• Social proof 1 — testimonials from users who solved their problems with our product

• Product features — three strengths of our product (focus on benefits)

• About us — a quick story on why we are not scammers + awards or press mentions

• Social proof 2 — testimonials from opinion leaders who endorse our product

• Pricing — two or three plans with one highlighted (usually, upsell)

• FAQ — five to seven objections that we want to handle

This structure sells.

And here is my guide to implementing this framework in your business.

Expensive pricing plan

If users have more money, let them pay you more money.

I will die on this hill. That’s why each of our products has an upsell plan.

And you know what is crazy? Most of our sales are coming from upsell plans.

For example, 12 of 15 sales of MakerBox Bundle are coming from the Ultimate plan.

Asking for testimonials

I learned this lesson one year ago.

It changed my life. I am not joking.

If you don’t ask people for testimonials, they won’t give you testimonials

Now I ask everyone for testimonials:

1. New customers are offered to write a testimonial in exchange for asynchronous marketing consultation

2. We ask all customers to write testimonials in exchange for one free MakerBox product (once a quarter)

3. We ask opinion leaders to write a review on us (aka, Dan is a cool guy, you can trust him)

4. We plan to get 3-5 success studies with detailed results from using MakerBox products

If you get one takeaway from this issue, ask people for testimonials.

A surprisingly high percentage will give you them for free. This will boost your conversion to the moon.

Free backlinks

SEO is tiring.

People build products for years, but their Domain Authority is < 10. That’s not a sexy signal for Google.

We were lucky enough to get to 18 DR in 7 months. Without asking anyone to give us a backlink.

How? We just submitted our product everywhere.

Here are 8 platforms with DA >30 that give do-follow links for free:

1. Product Hunt

2. BetaList

3. Indie Hackers

4. Starter Story

5. Side Projectors

6. Swipe File

7. CtrlAltCC

8. Notion Everything

A perfect exercise to get more organic juicy from Google.

That’s it!

I hope these growth ideas inspired you to do marketing next week. If so, then my mission on Earth is complete.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. Now with Parity Pricing.

This is the #49 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 11 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

We got mixed feedback for the new MakerBox homepage.

It was designed to interrupt the pattern and hook users with the story.

But most people just got confused.

So we had the dilemma:

• Ignore the feedback and assume that we are smarter than everyone

• Accept the feedback

Simple decision.

You either accept or play against the feedback. Pick one option and stick to it.

MakerBox update 🐌

We are doubling down on email.

Here is what we’ve done and what we plan to do:

• Published a personalized welcome email sequence for each product

• Started to collect emails in MakerBox Blog more straightforwardly

• Will change CTA in MakerBox Blog: from “check the paid products” to “subscribe to get freebie” (+ upselling email sequence)

• Will launch MakerBox marketing newsletter in 2-3 weeks

We are tired of the Twitter circus and random sales.

It’s time to build a system that works without stressing us out.

Random Observation 🔮

Bought the big idea, remembered small things

• People don’t buy your product because of the feature X

• People don’t remember your product because “you can level up their marketing”

But they would love to buy your product to level up their marketing because they remember you have a feature X.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

How often do you ask people to pay you money?

The more, the better.

Works everywhere: marketing emails, CTA buttons on the landing page, blog articles, and reactivation flows.

Great Resource 🏈

Want to launch a course in 2023?

Read this thread. Rob nailed it.

That’s it!

I hope today’s golden nuggets brought you clarity and inspiration for the next week.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

Get profitable in 2023 with MakerBox Marketing Bundle

Our best actionable resources for Solopreneurs. Now with Parity Pricing

This is the #48 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Today let’s talk about my challenges.

Subscribe now

My buddy Marc posted a gem yesterday. He shared three stressful things on his Entrepreneurship journey.

Usually, Solopreneurs don’t share such fears publically. Tweeting another MRR screenshot is much easier than revealing your intimate thoughts.

I want to be real too.

That’s why today I will share five challenges that drive me crazy these days.

Revenue dependency

February started great. We were getting constant sales every day.

Not going to lie; waking up to $300 sales notifications is amazing.

And then suddenly nothing. The four last days — 0 sales.

And on the back of my head, I know we have a Product Hunt launch next Monday, and everything will be back fine. But what if not?

The uncertainty of one-time purchases is painful. You have a micro panic attack if you don’t see new sales one day. It was true 6 months ago. It is still true today.

No tribe

Everyone is saying, “You need a loyal tribe of fans”. Okay, but how can I get one?

Sure, I have Twitter followers and Newsletter subscribers. (and I appreciate you all!)

But I don’t feel deep belonging to any community out there. It’s just random people doing random stuff.

There are no loyal tribes of MakerBox customers or Weekly Dan readers.

And this loneliness bothers me.

Constant micro failures

I don’t think I failed big in the last 6 months. All strategic bets worked out more or less on decent levels.

But if I analyze the micro level — oh, boy, it’s a mess.

• My newsletter is not growing fast enough

• SEO results are random and insufficient

• The “Positioning That Sells” launch was far below expectations

• My Twitter growth has almost plateaued

• MakerBox’s home page confuses most users

80% of the time, I deal with the consequences of my failures.

It’s not a pleasant exercise.

Switching from education to building

I am tired of educational resources. I have nothing new to say and need a break to get inspiration. The idea of building tools for some time sounds perfect.

But this transition is scary.

It means stepping out of my comfort zone. And if I fail there, it will be clear that I am not that good at marketing. Ouch.

Not doing enough

I have a constant inner fight about the amount of work I need to do daily.

One part of me wants to go monk mode until I see $10 000 monthly revenue.

The other part of me (with common sense) wants to have a more diverse lifestyle.

So it’s constant overthinking if the day was productive enough. Every single day.

That’s it!

I hope that reading about my challenges will make it easier to solve your own problems. Because you will know that it isn’t always a shiny success and hockey stick growth. Sometimes it’s just anxiety and overthinking.

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

1) Get more sales with the positioning your audience can’t ignore

My actionable video course to improve your marketing.

2) Get 100 more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

3) Let me roast your landing page

It will be painful. You will love it.

This is the #47 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 29 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Easlo is the Notion king on Twitter.

Cool story – he bought MakerBox Roasting a while ago.

The crazy part — he made a lot of changes from my feedback.

Check the landing page of Second Brain out. It’s exceptional 🤌

Personal Insight 🤯

Don’t describe every nuance on your landing page.

Let people desire the unknown. Let them use their imagination.

They don’t need to know about the features that <1% of customers use.

Say less, be heard more.

MakerBox update 🐌

Introducing MakerBox Bundle was the best growth driver in 2022.

We increased our average order value x2 without decreasing the Conversion Rate.

And now we are launching it on Product Hunt on 28 February. We will add a premium package with my course and Sponsor This Newsletter. And a few limited bonuses.

Here are 4 reasons we will double down on MakerBox Bundle in 2023.

1. One CTA is better than six. We got a lot of harsh feedback that our home page was confusing. Reducing the number of CTA buttons from six to one will (hopefully) make it more straightforward.

2. People hate transactions. It’s a science-backed fact — people prefer paying one-time big than multiple times small. So it’s easier to get $199 from selling one product than $199 from selling 6 products.

3. Easier marketing funnel. Imagine the complexity of the marketing funnel to sell 6 different products. Tons of emails, offers, and landing pages — duh.

4. Better audience. If the person can pay $199, they can (likely) buy a $499 product. Simple.

Random Observation 🔮

The beloved Twitter algorithm has changed (again).

Here are my observations:

1. If the tweet doesn’t get traction on 10-20% of your audience, it won’t be shown to anyone (TikTok algorithm in a nutshell)

2. Likes and RT from big accounts don’t matter this much anymore

3. Replies for mid and big accounts matter WAY more

4. People engage with images and videos WAY more than with threads

I stopped putting a lot of effort into content creation on Twitter.

From now on – random tweets that I am not afraid to lose.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

What can be seen as unexpected in your niche?

You won’t grab the audience’s attention by doing the same thing your competitors do.

You need to break the wall.

It can be a provocative positioning, new user acquisition channel, fresh content marketing format, or different pricing model.

Goal — surprise your audience.

Great Resource 🏈

Crash courses are awesome.

You get the critical value in 2-3 hours. Without fluff and unnecessary details.

If you can record a crash course for your audience — do it.

This is the crash course I took to learn Bubble. It’s fantastic.

That’s it!

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

1) Get more sales with the positioning your audience can’t ignore

My actionable video course to improve your marketing.

2) Get 100 more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

3) Let me roast your landing page

It will be painful. You will love it.

This is the #46 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Today let’s talk about marketing advice.

Subscribe now

Another thread

Everyone on Twitter has a piece of marketing advice.

And everyone wants to be right.

But this is how it looks for users:

1. Increase the price

2. Decrease the price

3. Focus on one acquisition channel

4. Don't focus on one acquisition channel

5. Do SEO

6. Don't do SEO

7. Email marketing is dead

8. Email marketing is not dead

It’s not very helpful. Here is why.

Why doesn’t it work?

Most marketing advice falls into one of these three categories:

• Advice to sell, not to help. Creators share tips to catch your attention and sell their products later. That’s why they prioritize shiny and catchy ideas over boring and time-tested. No one enjoys reading about “studying your target audience”. But it’s way more exciting to download SECRET FRAMEWORK to boost revenue in 7 days.

• No context. We don’t know what happened before and after the Creator implemented their advice. We don’t know their target audience, sales metrics, and marketing goals. We only get the tip of the iceberg and think it’s 100% applicable to our situation. In most cases, it’s not.

• No skin in the game. I can share the dumbest advice on Twitter, and I have zero responsibility before you. You didn’t pay me money, and I don’t know your context. If you execute it and fail, that’s on you.

Does it mean you need to stop reading marketing advice?

Absolutely not (especially don’t stop reading my marketing advice)

But you need to change the way you act on it.

What to do instead?

This is a simple 3-step system that I personally use to reduce the noise and feel more confident. It helped me to stop getting FOMO from reading Twitter.

1. Read as much marketing advice as possible. On every marketing topic from every marketing expert. That doesn’t mean you will apply every piece of advice to your product. But you will better understand the big landscape of possible solutions.

2. Set your marketing boundaries. It’s critical to define what you won’t do, even if the best expert on this topic will recommend doing it. And suddenly, you will see that 80% of the advice doesn’t pass this filter. It will be way easier for you to ignore these tips without getting anxious about missing out.

3. Challenge yourself with ideas that pass through the filter. Prioritize and pick the best ideas once or twice a month. List all current problems and connect them to advice you think works best. Make this a recurrent meeting with strict agenda to prevent procrastination.

One week ago, we used this framework to pivot MakerBox's marketing strategy.

• 6 different products → one bundle to be focused

• no upsell product → clear upsell product that is aligned with our values

• leaky marketing funnel → cold-traffic-friendly marketing funnel

It wouldn’t be possible if we rejected the first step and ignored all advice. But it also wouldn’t be possible if we had no barriers and tried to execute every tip. Aim for balance.

3 Signs of Good Advice

But how to pick the right advice on the third step?

Just check if it fits these three conditions.

• Simple. Bad advice is hidden by layers of complexity. Aim for tips that are not just easy to understand but easy to describe to non-experts too.

• Revolution, not Evolution. Don’t expect huge results from micro changes. In most cases, you need to make a dramatic change to see a dramatic increase (or decrease) in your metrics.

• Aligned with actions. If somebody gives you advice that they don’t preach — that’s an instant red flag. Watch what people do, not what they say.

No rocket science. And that’s the best part.

That’s it!

Thank you for reading this issue. It means a lot to me 🫶

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

1) Get more sales with the positioning your audience can’t ignore

My actionable video course to improve your marketing.

2) Get 100 more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

3) Let me roast your landing page

It will be painful. You will love it.

This is the #45 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 15 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One Problem to Solve → MakerBox update

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

More before deeper

Learning a new skill is fun.

You know you can do better because you see other people do better. But you also can’t because you don’t know how. Shipping crap isn’t mentally easy.

Solution? Focus on quantity before quality.

A person who has written 100 “average” marketing emails will be better than someone who wrote one “perfect” email. And, ironically, “average” will be better than “perfect”.

My takeaway this week — do more before doing it deeper.

Problem to Solve 👹 → MakerBox update 🐌

All problems are solved. From now on, I will share behind-the-scene highlights from our Indie Entrepreneurship journey in this block.

Today at glance — How I converted to email marketing church

On an average day, we have around 150-200 unique website visitors that generate $100-$200 in revenue.

But in January, we had a lucky day — 1056 daily visitors without launching anything.

How? Sveta just wrote an inspirational banger.

Did we get $1000? Absolutely not.

We got a lot of cold traffic that wasn’t ready to buy our products on the spot. They came, spent 52 seconds on the website, and left. Bummer.

And there are two possible solutions to this problem.

1) Create cold traffic friendly landing pages

But everything about them is hilariously terrible.

I can’t write this copy and then go to sleep pretending nothing happened. Pass.

2) Create freebies to get users’ emails to warm up and upsell them later

I don’t like emails this much.

But I don’t like losing cold traffic revenue even more. A no-brainer trade-off.

Random Observation 🔮

• What % of people who saved threads about Chrome Extensions are productive?

• What % of people who saved threads with startup tools are building something?

• What % of people who saved ChatGPT swipe files are using them daily?

You don’t need tools. Especially to start.

The less noise you have, the more you focus on mastering the process. You can always overcomplicate it later. And eventually, you will.

You don’t start running by buying special sneakers, downloading the best running app, and creating five Spotify playlists for different moods.

You start running by going for a run.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

What weaknesses are you translating to your audience?

Russel Brunson’s Attractive Character is an exceptional framework for using storytelling smarter. My favorite part — Character Flaws.

We, Creators, tend to translate a “perfect” image with smooth corners and a polished surface. Because it makes us feel better about ourselves. We can’t be perfect in real life, so we pretend to be online.

But people don’t buy it. They sense insincerity because they know nobody is perfect. And that’s when you need Character Flaws.

Pick a few weak points that you have and consistently remind your audience about them. This way, they will see you as a real human with strengths and weaknesses and trust you more.

As a reminded to me, I want to translate these flaws more often:

• Being too judgemental

• Not speaking enough with people

• Being too straightforward

Luckily, having exceptional taste in GIFs was never my problem.

Great Resource 🏈

It fascinates me that David Ogilvy’s advice on copywriting is timeless.

Imagine giving a marketing tip that holds 50 years after.

You need to be that good.

That’s why I started to read “Ogilvy on Advertising”. It’s incredible, as expected.

I especially enjoy embedded old-school ads — they are basically printed landing pages.

That’s it!

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

1) Get more sales with the positioning your audience can’t ignore

My actionable video course to improve your marketing.

2) Get 100 more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

3) Let me roast your landing page

It will be painful. You will love it.

This is the #44 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Today let’s talk about lessons from my no-code plans.

Subscribe now

I need to pick the first Bubble product to build.

As tempting as building a “revolutionary” social media can be, I will stick to more reliable ideas. I will solve marketing problems that I know for sure are painful.

And today, I want to share 5 marketing problems I have in mind. I got them from 3 years of building startups and working with dozen of Solopreneurs.

Terrible landing pages

I’ve tried to solve this problem. I’ve launched MakerBox Roasting, written multiple articles, and posted countless tips on Twitter.

And there is still an ocean full of awful landing pages that don’t convert.

I don’t accept the status quo — we, Indie Entrepreneurs, deserve better landing pages. Those that tell a story, paint a desirable picture in the customer’s head, and close sales on the spot.

My idea — generate new Heading 1 with AI to sell positioning better.

No Backlinks

My personal headache.

As much as I love creating content, I hate getting backlinks. Because it’s so annoying to spam people and time-consuming to actually find these people.

But your SEO progress will be 2-3 times slower without backlinks. So, you either get backlinks or forget about free traffic.

My idea — marketplace of Solopreneurs’ blogs to exchnage backlinks

Content ideation takes too much time

Nobody wants to read AI-generated content.

The process of creating something new is inseparable from the Creator. But not every part of this process is exciting.

Brainstorming new tweet ideas is tiring. You tend to think of topics you have already covered. Because it’s easy to write the same thing than to come up with something creative.

My idea — AI-generator of tweet ideas for Twitter Creators (but they create content themselves to make it more personalized)

No one says, “it’s dumb”

Solopreneurs work alone.

There is no one to stop them when they do something stupid (and this happens a lot)

Vision is essential, but fixing its blind spots with feedback is even more critical.

My idea — product and marketing sprints with 3 random Solopreneurs

Solopreneurs hate talking to customers

Let’s face it — we don’t talk enough with our customers. You know it. I know it.

But we can also agree that this is the single most important thing to build something people want.

My idea — platform to run asynchnous video interviews with customers

This issue is a big comeback to #buildinpublic for me.

I will try to execute the first idea in February. Will share my progress on Twitter.

Mind to give me some feedback?

That’s it!

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

1) Get more sales with the positioning your audience can’t ignore

My actionable video course to improve your marketing.

2) Get 100 more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

3) Let me roast your landing page

It will be painful. You will love it.

This is the #43 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 13 new subscribers. You are nice 🫶

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One Problem to Solve

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

Content creation is way more tiring than product development

You need to repeat the same thing over and over again. Even if you already mastered the topic, you need to describe it to your audience.

And you can’t say the same pitch; you need to cover topics from a different angle. Otherwise, people will get bored.

Creating my positioning course was fun and enlightening for me. But I definitely need a break. Because I don’t know what else to say.

That’s why for the next 3-4 months, I will build no-code products with Bubble.

More uncertainty, less routine — just what I need right now.

Problem to Solve 👹

Product Hunt for Twitter threads

Every day, Creators post hundreds of Twitter threads.

And I don’t have time to read each one.

But I have time to read the 3 best threads that got the most upvotes from my community.

Random Observation 🔮

Indie Entrepreneurs should care more about their revenue

Of course, we are not greedy corporations trying to grow at all costs.

But many Founders forget about the basics — we are here to earn money. Not entertain other Entrepreneurs on Twitter for free.

And revenue size doesn’t matter. Your focus on growing it does.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

What one word people associate with your product?

And the second question — Do you use it enough in your marketing copy?

Great Resource 🏈

Marketing Examples is my favorite marketing blog.

It’s so good that I am seriously scared of losing it.

Here is a recent gem that I found — My guide to brand positioning.

That’s it!

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

1) Get more sales with the positioning your audience can’t ignore

My actionable video course to improve your marketing.

2) Get 100 more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

3) Let me roast your landing page

It will be painful. You will love it.

The day X is finally here. My course “Positioning That Sells” is LIVE 🔴

I share the 6-step system to get you more sales. Hustle-free.

Learn more here

[Special deal for my subscribers — ✅]

This is the #41 issue of Weekly Dan.

I deleted 330 inactive subscribers from my newsletters. If you are reading it, you are a nice person.

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One Problem to Solve

• One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

This MFM episode is pure fire.

Especially the idea of living your life based on the bell curve meme template.

• You are either super naive or super wise about the issue

• You are never acting like an annoying mid guy

Life-changing.

Problem to Solve 👹

Speaking for non-natives

Have you tried recording a 20-minute video? It’s torture.

Have you tried recording a 20-minute without being native in English? It’s torture².

We have Grammarly to help people like me to write better.

When will we have a tool that makes you speak better?

Random Observation 🔮

Most marketers only sell the rational and emotional value of using the product.

It’s a good start. But it’s not enough.

People are social beings. We seek validation and appreciation from other people. Your marketing can’t ignore this rule.

That’s why you should also sell social benefits from buying your product. You need to highlight how other people will see your customers. Elegantly.

• Selling a budget-controlling app? Show your users that they will be viewed as responsible adults (they want this validation).

• Selling an automation tool? Promote the idea that your users will be viewed as productivity hackers (they seek it).

Make people feel good about themselves.

They will pay you back.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

What 3 features make your product “your product”?

People don’t care about your dark mode and confetti animations. They only remember features that deliver the promised value (your transformation).

If you remove these features, nobody will buy from you. Because your product stops being “your product”. It stops being valuable.

Find these features. Promote them the most.

Great Resource 🏈

You only have 5 minutes for marketing this week?

First — 🙄.

Second — spend them on improving your Heading 1.

Corey Haines shares 7 templates that work like magic.

That’s it!

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

1) Get more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook.

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

2) Let me roast your landing page.

It will be painful. You will love it.

3) Get high-quality traffic from your audience’s favorite newsletters

Explore the database with 100+ newsletters ready to promote your product.

This is the #40 Issue of Weekly Dan.

Ready to become a better Maker?

Subscribe now

Every Tuesday, I share an actionable essay for Solopreneurs.

Today let’s talk about lessons from my first video course.

My positioning course goes live next Tuesday!

And creating it was quite a roller coaster.

• In the beginning, you stare at a blank document, feeling overwhelmed with a massive backlog of tasks.

• After deep diving into the topic, you think nobody needs another product.

• Then suddenly puzzle starts to complete itself.

• And voila, you get a product that you are proud of.

I launched a lot of content products before. But creating a video course was a new challenge for me. Here are 5 learnings from this journey.

Lesson 1. Handle objections

All good ideas are already said.

I am not the first to say that you should study your target audience. I am not the first to suggest selling the results instead of the product. Everyone says it all the time.

But most Entrepreneurs still ignore it. They know it’s good advice, but they still manage to find an excuse for not listening. I know it because I do it all the time.

So it’s not enough to say smart things. You need to persuade people to listen to them.

Convincing + Valuable > Valuable

Lesson 2. Examples everywhere

Did you hate lectures in university as much as I did?

Theory, theory, and more theory. If you hear one real-world example — it’s a “success”.

And it’s not just boring. It’s pointless too. If you can’t illustrate your point with an example, it’s a bad point.

That’s why I UNO-reversed my course.

Observe real companies ->  Find patterns -> Structure them in the framework

Not going to lie — it was exhausting.

But now, I can be sure that every point in my course applies to the real world. And especially in the Solopreneurs’ context.

Lesson 3. Don’t reinvent the wheel

I heard this idea a while ago.

• Don’t start with a book — write an article.

• Don’t start with an article — write a thread.

• Don’t start with a thread — write a one-liner.

Good old advice — validate your idea before you devote months of work to it.

That’s why I returned to my old tweets and newsletter issues and analyzed what worked best. My goal was to pick ideas people already liked.

But I couldn’t just copy my old newsletter issues word-for-word. That’s why I enriched each idea with examples, deeper insights, and actionable next steps. A perfect solution to fight writers-block and create top-tier content.

Lesson 4. Simplify

Bad food is disguised with sauce.

Bad ideas are disguised with complexity.

There are a lot of nuances in positioning. You will easily find a solid counter-example on each excellent piece of advice. It’s easy to get analysis paralysis after a few hours of research.

But your customers don’t need nuances. They need a concise system that works.

Be understood > Sound smart

Lesson 5. Segment tasks

I procrastinated hard to finish the first lesson.

Until I started to segment tasks. This simple productivity tactic changed everything.

Instead of creating a “pixel-perfect” lesson, I worked in batches.

• Create a draft version of the example for the whole course

• Create a draft version of each lesson

• Plan all slides

• Create a final version of the example for the whole course

• Create a final version of each lesson

• Design all slides (actually, Sveta did it. I suck at design)

If the step didn’t require perfect grammar — I didn’t write perfect grammar. I just focused on finishing the task. Small change — significant results.

Dan (1) : Perfectionism (0)

That’s it!

Thank you for reading Weekly Dan. That means a lot to me.

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Friday with 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs ❤️

Absolutely not a CTA 🙃

1) Get more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook.

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs. (⭐️ best-seller)

2) Let me roast your landing page.

It will be painful. You will love it.

3) Get high-quality traffic from your audience’s favorite newsletters

Explore the database with 100+ newsletters ready to promote your product.

This is the #39 issue of Weekly Dan.

Welcome to 28 new people who have joined in the last week. You are nice.

Subscribe now

Every Friday, I share 5 golden nuggets for Solopreneurs:

• One Personal Insight

• One Problem to Solve

• One Long-term Trend → One Random Observation

• One Thought-provoking Question

• One Great Resource

Let’s get going.

Personal Insight 🤯

The hardest part

The hardest part in the gym is not weightlifting; it’s eating enough protein.

The hardest part in growing an audience is not content creation; it’s engaging with all replies (I suck at this).

The hardest part in building a one-person business is not hitting Product-Market Fit; it’s staying in the game long enough.

Focus accordingly.

Problem to Solve 👹

SEO audit

I hate everything about SEO.

• Only 200IQ ex-Google employees can understand PageSpeed Insights’ report

• It’s never clear if my content strategy is solid or doomed

• How can I get backlinks without writing annoying cold emails to Neil Patel?

And the worst part — I need to do SEO every week.

So, a 360° SEO audit written in the human language would put a big smile on my face.

Long-term Trend 🛸 → Random Observation 🔮

I know, I’ve killed another topic.

But now it’s meta, so I can write anything here — #bigbrainenergy.

Anyway.

Great marketing takes bravery

• You are used to your Heading 1. Creating a new one is painful and risky. But how else do you expect to increase the Conversion?

• You are afraid to make a product video that will piss someone off. People can write nasty comments and gossip about it. But how else will you create something unignorable?

• You don’t want to compare your products to competitors. People will learn that you are not the only solution to their problems. But how else will you make them remember you?

If you don’t see how people will get mad about your new idea, it’s not enough.

Thought-provoking Question 🔋

What % of your target audience's monthly income are you asking to spend on your product?

Let’s say your target Persona earns $2000 per month.

• 0.5% ($10) — a no-brainer

• 1% ($20) — solid social proof

• 5% ($100) — free content first

• 20% ($400) — dead-zone

• 50% ($1000) — call me maybe

That’s why targeting pre-ramen profitable Solopreneurs is the smartest thing to do.

(don’t mind me talking to myself)

Great Resource 🏈

Last few days, I got the urge to buy Zapier and automate everything.

But spending 10 hours setting up automation flows to save 5 minutes per week didn’t sound like a High-ROI investment.

Luckily I found Mike Cardona’s newsletter about automation for Creators.

Long story short — it’s a gem. Especially his Free Automation Guide 101.

Subscribe for free here.

That’s it!

Mind to give me some feedback?

See you on Tuesday 👋

Absolutely not a CTA 🗿

1) Get more marketing ideas with MakerBox Workbook.

A marketing co-pilot for busy Solopreneurs.

2) Let me roast your landing page.

It will be painful. You will love it.

3) Get high-quality traffic from your audience’s favorite newsletters

Explore the database with 100+ newsletters ready to promote your product.