This is the perfect example of how Category Creation works. Google “Ford.” Greatest American car manufacturer has been forced to adjust. They’re now playing in Tesla’s shadow.
2/ Digital payments: fiat, like PayPal, and crypto, bitcoin/ethereum
The whole world is moving to cashless banking/payment processing. We’re still early days considering what’s possible in this space.
3/ Independent publishing / media platforms.
Good ones are few and far between, but there is so much opportunity in this space and right now it’s bubbling over. Hard to get in these companies pre-IPO tho. Most get acquired.
I have celiac disease, and am allergic to dairy, eggs, and soy. The biggest opportunity I see in this space is companies that achieve all simultaneously (ex: gluten free but not dairy free is big issue)
5/ Software tools for small businesses. Shopify unlocked a monumental new category which is going to birth hundreds of niche categories.
These niches—from payments to fulfillment to customer service—are going to grow significantly. I’m on the lookout for those niche kings.
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When I was 26, I started my first company with one of my closest friends. 10 months later, we had a dozen full-time employees and crossed 7 figures in revenue. By 18 months, we had a team of 20 and crossed $2M. Here are the big 7 lessons I learned scaling a service company 👇
1/ The company was called Digital Press, and based on my own specialized knowledge of writing online. We grew very quickly because I'd spent years refining my own process, building credibility, mastering growth hacks, and being able to "guarantee success." This = unfair advantage
2/ The pro here was also the con. Service biz's are very hard to scale because they require specialized knowledge. Spec Knowledge can only be gained thru experience. As a result, training costs a lot, and even harder for those employees to train new employees.
10 years of writing online and 100 million views later, here are 10 big lessons I've learned about how to capture and keep people's attention in the digital world. 1/ Consistent output is the secret to every growth metric on the internet: views, comments, Likes, shares, etc.
2/ The way you “win” the game of online writing is by creating the single best possible version of whatever form of writing you’re using in your chosen category. If you cannot become the "best" in an existing category, you need to create a NEW category for yourself.
3/ Anytime you fail to deliver on your promise to a reader, you’ve lost them. The key to engagement is to constantly reinforce that every promise you make, you keep. (This means don't make BIG claims in headlines you can't/don't deliver on inside the content itself).
7 mistakes startups make with their messaging. 1/ They opt for formal language instead of informal language. Describing their product/services, they say, "We accelerate responsiveness and optimize for engagement." No one has any idea what that means. As a result, customers leave.
2/ They have no awareness of their category. The very first sentence of a company's messaging should NAME the category they're in (ex: "Mushroom Coffee" is a dif category than "Coffee" which is dif than "Premium Colombian Coffee").
3/ They aim for catchy. "We help in ways no one else will." That sentence literally means nothing. Zero. 0000. Any real estate you give to messaging that is not EDUCATING your customers on 1) your category, and 2) why it's different, is a waste of space—and will cost you $$$.
10 lessons about "going viral" I've learned writing 3,000+ articles on the internet, and 1,000+ ghostwritten articles on the internet. Thread 👇
1/ What you think people want to read is not what people will end up reading (especially in the beginning). Articles I've spent hours on ended up getting no viewership. Meanwhile, my most popular article to date (8 million views), I wrote in 20 minutes.
2/ Follow the data. 99.9% of people show up to the internet thinking they know what readers want to hear about from them. The reality? They have no idea. You need to write in order to learn. Write 10 things. Find the 1 more people read. Double-down on that topic. Repeat.
The most underdiscussed, and yet MOST IMPORTANT aspect of writing online is what CATEGORY you are writing in. Thread 👇🏼
1/ For example, most people think effective writing is about being “creative” or “punchy” or “unique.” All of these words are vague, and less effective ways of discussing the issue of CATEGORY
2/ If you write about “tech,” for example, are you in the tech OPINION category, or the tech NEWS category, or the tech HOW TO category, etc. Because each of these subcategories have their own unique rules, best practices, styles, and top writers.