Hey Reader,

Today, I want to talk about how to keep your business alive.

Your first idea probably won’t work, and that doesn’t mean your business career is over.

You stay alive by trying something new, also known as a pivot.

When you pivot, you change the

• Product
• Target audience or problem
• Business Model

To some degree, your business should always be evolving. As you work, you will gain a deeper understanding of your users, product, and market. To win, you want to apply those learnings.

Here’s how I evolved over the years

• In 2021, I spent a year building a website. When I launched it, no one would use it or pay for it. I adjusted my product to a service.
• In 2023, I didn’t enjoy the problem or working with the users. I adjusted the problem and launched ScatterMind.
• Later in 2023, my users didn’t want software, but rather a coach, so I became a coaching business.
• In 2024, I was charging users a monthly subscription rather than a one-time fee. I was incentivized to keep customers around rather than helping them reach their goals. So, I adjusted my business model to a one-time fee. This ensured we didn't have competing interests.

Every single time, I feared that my business would end, but in reality, I just needed to evolve. This kept me alive.

So, stay focused on the problem you’re solving, but flexible on everything else you’re doing. Unless you’re not interested in the problem.

Otherwise,

• You’ll waste time
• Users will churn
• You’ll end up frustrated and quit

Ultimately, you will fail.

Iteration is how you stay alive

Remember, nothing works the first time around. Sometimes, things that were working will stop working.

Successful entrepreneurs didn’t just pick the best idea right off the bat. They gained momentum through rigorous experimentation.

Here are the rules that I’ve discovered through each iteration. They will save you time and money.

Pick an audience that you are passionate about helping

At one point, I was helping young professionals find new jobs. I’m very pro-entrepreneurship, so I wasn’t fulfilled with this work. If you don’t care about the problems your clients are dealing with, then you won’t stay interested.

Here’s how to prevent this:

• Ask yourself, “what audiences am I a part of?”
• Rank them based on your understanding and interest in them.
• Start with the one ranked the highest

Here’s a doc to help you get started

Build your business around a problem you have expertise in

It’s very difficult to solve users’ problems if you’ve never solved them before. You’ll go faster if you have expertise.

Here’s how to do this:

• Take the list of audiences that you generated
• Write out all the problems that these audiences experience
• Circle the problems that you’ve solved for yourself
• Pick the most interesting

Launch your product and charge for it immediately

Building a product without validation is an easy recipe for disaster. If people won’t pay for your business, then you don’t have a business. Sell your idea before building.

Here’s how to do this:

• Read the Mom Test
• Interview 20 - 50 potential users
• Use their pain points to devise a solution
• Sell to 20+ people. Use SPIN selling

I wrote about this in more detail here.

Sell the solution that users want not what you want

Don’t sell what you want to build. Sell what users want. Otherwise, they won’t buy.

Here’s how to do this:

• Get your first customers by selling results, not features - Use their verbiage
• Ask one user per day, “how can I make my product better for YOU?”
• If they churn, ask them, “What would need to change for you to continue?”
• Apply changes

Build your business model that aligns with your users wants

It’ll be easier to make money if you’re not competing with users. For example, if you sell a service like weight loss, charge a one-time fee for the result with a clear deadline. This is better than a monthly subscription. Users don’t want to pay forever unless they’re receiving continuous value.

Here’s how to do this:

• Understand what your users wants
• Build your business model that works in the same direction

Ensure the business will make you rich and free

Don’t build something impossible to scale, or if you do scale it, it won’t make you rich. All that hard work won’t pay off.

Here’s how to do this:

• Ask yourself, “How many people do I need to close per month to turn a profit?”
• Ask yourself, “Can I scale myself out of the process?”

Business is a game of survival. If you stay alive long enough, you will win!

Reply & tell me you're stuck at any of these stages! I'd love to help

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