My first product flopped. And it was 100% my fault.
A couple months after launching Backlinko, I got overly excited and rushed out a course.
I figured: I have an audience now, they like my stuff, time to monetize!
Unfortunately, only around 8 people bought.
Oops!
Looking back, the course itself was actually halfway decent.
But the big problem was:
I didn't know my audience yet!
I was GUESSING what my audience wanted. And I guessed wrong.
So I did something that felt a little bit crazy at the time: I put monetization on the back burner.
For almost a full YEAR, I focused 100% on building my audience.
Published the best content I could
Grew the email list
Replied to hundreds of blog comments
A funny thing happened when I actually listened to my audience for a full year: I heard the same questions over and over.
(For me it was some version of "okay, but how do I actually get links?" about once a week.)
So when I was ready to launch my next course I knew EXACTLY what to cover.
That product (SEO That Works) ended up being the mega hit that transformed my business.
(And my life tbh)
👍🏻
@BrianEDean