Million Dollar Micro Business

introduction

That day I sat looking out at the blue ocean spread out before me, reflecting on my past 10 years in business and how much had changed. I was just a couple of months into a round-the-world trip with my family, and we were staying on the island of Ko Lanta in Thailand.

I was having my first proper go at this online course thing I had seen people try. With a background in franchising and a work ethic based on the creed ‘while they sleep, I work’, I didn't quite believe the hype. And yet, in business I am a curious experimenter. I want to know how things work and the levers to pull to get different results. For this new game, I was still figuring out what the levers actually were.

I had given myself 10 days to write, record and market my new eight-week online course. Of course, it was only possible because I didn't know what I didn't know. Now, having launched courses over and over again, I know the parts I was missing and how ‘amateur hour’ this first effort was.

But was it actually? In that 10 days in Thailand I had created and sold my course to 11 people. A small number? Yes. But 11 people had purchased a course for $997, or six monthly payments of $199. I knew I was offering spectacular value. I knew they would be able to take the lessons from it and earn back that money multiple times. I also knew that now I had created the course I could sell it many times over. See, putting together an online course is laborious, but once it's done it can be sold again and ...