Thread by @fortelabs

1) The best way to become an entrepreneur is to start as a solopreneur. You can test the waters, learn quickly, and start a following without the risks of a staff or investors

2) The best way to become a solopreneur is to start creating content. Costs are low, you can pivot quickly, and it’s largely passive income so you can fund follow-up efforts

3) The best way to start creating content is to curate content. You can develop your taste, leverage the audiences of others, and find out the gaps in existing products

4) The best way to start curating content is to learn the best, most proven methods already in existence, and repackage or teach them in new ways. Be sure to respect copyrights and to give credit, but this allows you to benefit from their learning and scale

5) The best way to learn the best methods is through immersion. Your biggest resource when you’re just starting is time, which is the scarcest resource for your potential customers. Immerse yourself deeply and go from beginner to intermediate in a short sprint

6) Once you reach intermediate level, create content that shows others how to do the same, faster and while avoiding pitfalls or mistakes that you made. Provide them a shortcut to the outcome you’ve achieved

7) Eventually, package up all of that into a stand-alone downloadable form that ppl can purchase and that won’t change too quickly (ebook, online course, PDFs, video recordings, etc)

8) Then talk to whatever audience you’ve built and ask them what they want next. Rinse and repeat. Each new product becomes a source of ongoing revenue, and you carry the audience into the next thing. Look out for random opportunities like speaking, training, and consulting gigs

9) Following this path took me from design thinking > GTD > habit formation > knowledge mgmt > project mgmt > work sprints so far. I never could have planned or imagined this progression, but in retrospect it makes sense

10) The faster and more unpredictably the world changes, the more ppl look to curators, guides, gurus, experts who have done it before, and recently. There has never been a better time to develop and sell ideas/methods online

11) You only need a niche of a few thousand among billions to make a great living. Start today by curating what you’re already reading/watching/learning anyway, and share or teach it to anyone who will listen. You’ll be amazed at how much it helps them

12) And my absolute best, foundational tip: create a newsletter list using @tinyletter, put the signup link in all your bios, and anytime someone thanks you or expresses appreciation, ask them if you can add them to your email list (and then do it, manually)

13) You’ll have 50-100 subscribers before you know it. Anytime you do or learn something interesting, send it out to them. You can keep in touch with 100x as many ppl this way, and the best opportunities will come from 2nd or 3rd degree connections you wouldn’t otherwise maintain

14) I’m beginning to understand my method in buildingasecondbrain.com as the basic engine for this cycle of capture > curate > organize > share > recycle. Taking notes is the very first step