✈️ Five Ways to Monetize Your Audience

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How to Profit as a Content Creator with Joe Casabona of How I Built It

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Each week, I reflect on lessons learned growing my Personal Holding Company — the good, the ugly, and everything in-between in raw, unfiltered, free-form writing.

How I Decide on What Business to Launch

Back in 2015, I launched my first business Urban EDC, an e-commerce shop selling everyday carry gear with $0.

I validated my idea by buying items from Amazon then reselling them at no profit.

Now, it’s doing more than $3 million in sales a year.

Everybody asks me, “How did you decide on selling everyday carry gear?”

Good question.

Today, I’ll dig into my own decision making process on how I launch my companies.

Let’s dig in…

Micro vs. Macro Forces

To tackle this question, I’ll break this down into two primary forces:

• Micro

• Macro

Micro: Personal Compass

I like to think of Micro Forces as your Personal Compass. This is where you’ll go deep within yourself to find what you want to pursue.

The Micro Force is all about your:

• Skills

• Interests

You might be asking… “What about the offer?”

We’ll get there soon, don’t worry.

Forget the offer, products, or services for now.

Your goal is to ask the right questions to figure out what community you want to serve.

For now, grab your credit card statement and analyze what you spend money on outside of utilities, groceries, and everyday necessities.

Do you see a pattern?

Chances are, what you buy is a great indicator of what you may be interested in pursuing.

Now, the other commodity that we all have is time.

Audit your time. How are you spending your precious, free time?

Again, we’re looking for clues to determine what makes you excited, what gets you going, and what business you can launch.

Do you see a pattern?

Note these down.

I did this for myself and realized, a) I was spending too much money on EDC gear, and b) I was spending too much time deep in the EDC forums.

I found my community.

Macro: Market Trends

Now, when you have your list of hobbies, interests, and passions, we’ll layer it on top at a macroeconomic level.

What do I mean by this?

Now’s the time to craft your offer, product, or service.

How will you convert your hobbies into a real business?

The best method is to look at market trends.

For me, e-commerce was just starting to move away from Amazon FBA and into brand-led shops using Shopify.

I decided to be an early adopter, skip the Amazon FBA route, and build Urban EDC from scratch using no-code tool Shopify, which was just starting to gain traction.

In other words, I picked everyday carry as my “niche” and identified owned e-commerce as the next big wave.

So, I jumped on it.

Spotting macro trends is not as easy and it’s a bit of an art rather than a science.

You need to be plugged into the scene to identify what’s about to take off.

The longer you’re in the game, the easier it is to identify these opportunities.

Hope you enjoyed this.

Thanks for reading!

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