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While I share money-making strategies, nothing is "typical", and outcomes are based on each individual. There are no guarantees.
Most people who say they don’t know what to sell online actually know more than they think. They just don’t recognize their own knowledge as valuable because they’ve had it for so long it feels obvious. That’s the problem. Expertise makes things feel simple. And things that feel simple to you feel impossible to someone who hasn’t figured it out yet.
The gap between where you are and where someone else is trying to get is a product.
The Question That Unlocks It
What do people ask you about? Not what do you think you’re good at. Not what you have a degree in. What do people actually come to you for, in real life, on social media, in your community?
If people in your life frequently ask you how you did something, how you learned something, how you manage something, how you handled something, that’s your signal. You have figured out something that other people are trying to figure out. That’s a product.
Write down the last ten things someone asked your advice or opinion on. Somewhere in that list is a sellable product idea.
Look at What You’ve Already Solved
Think about the problems you’ve personally worked through. Career transitions. Health challenges. Financial decisions. Relationship dynamics. Parenting strategies. Business systems. Creative pursuits. Technical skills you learned through trial and error.
Every one of those solutions required a journey. You started somewhere, figured things out, made mistakes, found what worked, and arrived at the other side. That journey is the product. Not because the destination is impressive but because someone who is still at the beginning of that journey would pay to get to the end faster.
You are not selling information. You are selling the shortcut through a journey you’ve already taken.
Look at What You Do Professionally
If you have professional skills, you likely have digital products sitting inside those skills that you haven’t noticed yet. A graphic designer can sell templates and design frameworks. A project manager can sell organizational systems and templates. A nurse can sell health tracking tools and patient communication guides. A real estate agent can sell buyer guides and negotiation frameworks. A teacher can sell lesson plan templates and study guides.
The professional knowledge you use every day has value to people who don’t have it. The systems you’ve built to do your job efficiently are systems someone else would pay to use. You don’t need to teach people to do your job. You just need to give them the tools that make their experience of that domain less confusing.
Look at What You’ve Learned in the Last Few Years
Recent learning is often more valuable than deep expertise, because the person who just figured something out remembers exactly what it was like to not know it. They remember the confusion. They know which parts were hard. They know where people get stuck, because they just got stuck there.
If you learned how to do something in the last year or two and it made a real difference in your life, there are people earlier in that process right now who would benefit from what you know. You don’t need to be the foremost expert. You just need to be a few steps ahead of the person you’re helping.
Validate the Idea Before You Build It
Once you have a potential product idea, validate it before you spend weeks building it. Validation means confirming that someone other than you thinks this is worth paying for.
Simple validation: post about the topic and see if people engage. Ask directly if someone would pay for a solution to this problem. Look for evidence that people are already spending money on related solutions. Check if there are successful products in this space already. Existing competition is validation, not a reason to avoid a market.
The strongest validation is a pre-sale. Tell people what you’re making, why it will help them, and give them the option to buy before it’s finished. If people pay for something that doesn’t exist yet, you have very strong signal that you should build it.
Format It Into a Sellable Product
Once you know what you know and who it’s for, the product format is just the delivery mechanism. A PDF if the information is best consumed as a read-through. A course if it’s best experienced as a step-by-step journey with video instruction. A template if the value is in giving someone a tool they can immediately use. A membership if the value is ongoing connection, support, and accountability.
Most creators overthink the format. Pick the one that makes the delivery most natural and the outcome most clear. Start there. You can always create a second product in a different format later.
Get It Live Faster Than You Think You Should
The real mistake is not the wrong product idea. The real mistake is taking so long to build and launch that you never find out if the idea works. A product in a market gets feedback. A product in your drafts folder gets nothing.
Stan Store is built to reduce the time between product idea and product live. You create the product, upload it to your Stan Store, set a price, and your bio link becomes a storefront. The technical barrier to getting your first product in front of real people has never been lower. The barrier is the deciding that you have something worth selling. You do.
