
The Mixergy Guide to Building a Recurring Revenue Business From Scratch - peeplaja
http://hackthesystem.com/blog/the-mixergy-guide-to-building-a-recurring-revenue-business-from-scratch/
======
BryanB55
It seems a lot of these examples are from 'internet marketing businesses' or
people selling info products on "how to make money online" or "how to create
an email auto responder".

I've been following the internet marketing niche on and off for a while now so
maybe thats why I have certain alarms going off in my head when I see words
like:

"What’s your biggest fear and frustration?" - Seriously, that is taught in
every internet marketing eBook ever made.

And emails with really long pitches that try to be overly friendly and act
like we are best friends and mention things like "Tomorrow I’ll be sending you
the “Internet Business Toolkit!” and "since we’ve found each other, I’ll be
hooking you up with all sorts of cool stuff"

Maybe it works, but to me it just seems so cheesy after seeing the same email
format and same tactics from thousands of other wannabe "internet marketing
gurus".

~~~
maneesh
The trick is to not use the same tactics as wannabe "internet marketing
gurus."

You can fit the strategies that Michael is speaking of into a number of other
businesses. In fact, I'm always surprised the lack of email strategy by tech
companies.

When a user comes to your site, there are methods of introducing him to your
product that isn't a hard-sell "You need this product--sign up now." You need
to introduce them to your product before you make a sale.

So you can offer a giveaway that entices a user join a newsletter. Then you
send interesting emails---emails that a reader appreciates being sent. The
kind they actually read till the end, and think it was a good decision to
read. This builds trust.

But the next step? You introduce them your product, show them why they will
get a benefit from it, and then offer them the product---and because they
trust you, and understand where it comes from, the user will be likely to buy
it.

I'm working on something similar with RescueTime---introducing users to the
product with a more story-telling angle.

~~~
will_lam
Interesting, do you mean you're working with the RescueTime on a consulting
basis to craft their email drip strategy?

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handzhiev
I don't like this kind of posts. There isn't much wisdom inside. Instead there
is the usual kind-of inspiring talk that is not bad, but is not actionable and
doesn't contain much details.

It's not "ultimate guide" at all, it's a collection of nearly random and not
at all that insightful things that in general would work if you need to
execute them well. And the execution is what will make or break your business,
not just "knowing" the stuff.

~~~
AndrewWarner
What would make it the 'ultimate guide' for you?

I didn't know they were going to publish this, but I'm impressed that they
connected different ideas in my interviews and I'm curious about other ways to
do that.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Do you mind if I turn this around and ask you some leading questions?

Do you think that 7500 words can constitute an "Ultimate Guide" on anything,
let alone a subject as broad and deep as, "Building a Recurring Revenue
Business from Scratch"? Do the points featured in the blog post seem to flow
naturally from one to the next? If you were to ignore the title of the post
and what it claims to be about, what would you think it was about after
reading it?

Does it read like an essay, or like an outline?

What kind of recurring revenue businesses will this guide help to build?

I had started to write an objection to this post hours ago after following the
link to Maneesh's "first passive business" and doing a little more background
research. About halfway through I canceled the comment, deciding that it
probably wasn't constructive and probably wasn't worth my time (or a
reader's).

(Side note: I was going to go to mixergy.com to try to also make the argument
that the usual content from Mixergy is far better than this, but found that I
couldn't actually load the site without first signing up with an email
address. I look forward to the future messages delivered to my account,
no@piss-off.com. I also realize that my argument would have been wrong.)

If Maneesh has been building fame and fortune online by using SEO tools to
come up with subjects that $.01/word writers at
<http://thecontentauthority.com/> will blog about for him (it's "high quality"
and "not spam", of course) and then post around the web for him so that he can
make passive AdSense revenue from people directed to the ghost-written posts
by Google, well ... awesome, I guess. I honestly kind of wish I could give up
programming and do something like that; I certainly can't argue with his
quality of life or how he's chosen to spend the money he's made exploiting a
company that provides both ads and search results.

And if he's now coming up with ways to leverage his skills into enormously
popular posts like, "How I quadrupled my productivity by hiring a hiring a
woman to slap me", or, "How to learn a language in 90 days", or, "How to Earn
$12,840 from a Single Guest Post", then that's awesome too, I guess.

And if he then writes a post that compiles a bunch of tips on building a
social-media-newsletter-marketing-recurring-revenue business, then awesome,
too. But, I find myself agreeing with handzhiev's sentiment that it's vague
and incomplete and not polished, and I also find myself feeling like I should
soon expect to see a follow-up post, "How I made $32,768 by having someone
else write a guest post on my site and submit it everywhere", followed by the
even more popular, "The ultimate guide to getting rich online".

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_Side note: I was going to go to mixergy.com to try to also make the argument
that the usual content from Mixergy is far better than this, but found that I
couldn't actually load the site without first signing up with an email
address. I look forward to the future messages delivered to my account,
no@piss-off.com. I also realize that my argument would have been wrong._

Sorry, but this is really rude and immature. Andrew has put an _incredible_
amount of effort into compiling info at Mixergy.com, apparently with the goal
of _gasp_ making money. And you can get most (almost all?) of his content,
which exists nowhere else and is hugely valuable, _completely free_. All he's
asking for is a way to contact you in the future. And yes, partly to try and
convert you to a customer at some point. God forbid you should actually _pay_
for the value you're receiving, right?

Ugh. We (developers) are the worst market.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I wasn't visiting his site to benefit from his content. I am not one of his
customers, or readers, or viewers. I loaded up his site for the sole purpose
of being able to point to things on it and say, "these are great and you have
done a good job". Publicly.

Instead the site threw a barrier up in front of me and forbid me from
proceeding at all until I gave it an email address. It went a step beyond all
of the _goddamnproliferatingeverywherenow_ lightboxes that more and more sites
seem to be using lately: there was no close box, no "cancel", no "no thanks
not this time". Just, "give me your email address or go away."

The day that that particular tactic is no longer considered rude and
inconsiderate and Bad will be the day that I'll be done with the internet.

Believe me when I say that I was _way_ more polite in my comment about it than
my initial visceral response to it.

...Or am I not allowed to call him out on a bad move just because he's Andrew
Frickin' Warner and "has put an incredible amount of effort into" Mixergy?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
So it's rude and inconsiderate that he's asking for your contact info (or for
fake contact info) before he gives you all his material for free? That seems
more than fair. He doesn't owe you anything.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Would you mind pointing out what he gave me? Because I can't seem to find it.
Thanks.

I would try a less snarky way to say, "he didn't give me anything", except
that I already said that and you ignored it in your personal quest to annoy
me.

~~~
SyneRyder
Mixergy gives away hundreds of interviews for free via their podcast feed (I
subscribed via iTunes and my iPhone podcatcher, search for Mixergy), and
transcripts of the interviews are still available via Google search. I'm not a
fan of the pushy email signup, but there's ways around it to get to the free
content.

And there's definitely some great interviews on Mixergy. The most recent one I
listened to was with the female CEO of a hardware company that builds spectral
analysis devices for the oil & gas industry and US Defence Department. That's
worlds away from the online eBook info-product market.

------
breckenedge
OK side note: Anyone else use Adblock to remove that ugly fixed #getSocial div
with the Twitter, Facebook, etc buttons? I do this all of the time to
websites, wonder if others do too.

~~~
vitalique
You are not alone. I adblock, stylish and tampermonkey the hell out of the
great deal of websites I frequent.

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maneesh
Maybe the most powerful post I've ever read on recurring revenue businesses
--- This post is a guest post on my site, and I took extensive notes for
myself! Learned an amazing amount---nice!

~~~
vitalique
maneesh, thank you and especially Michael for a post that has solid content
but jumps right into the instapaper since reading it at your website is
unreasonably hard. social sharing buttons _really_ get in the way.

~~~
maneesh
why are the social buttons getting in your way? I don't see any problem with a
full size Chrome browser on a mac---are you on mobile or something?

~~~
ssharp
The margin between the the social buttons and the text is too narrow. You can
still read the content but it's distracting.

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zupreme
I wish there was a "Sticky" function on HN. Every SaaS startup founder needs
to read this.

Seriously. Bookmark it. Instapaper it. Evernote clip it. However you save it,
save it and read it.

~~~
knes
Please give more information on why we would need to bookmark it and co. After
a first skim, it looks like the normal e-marketing garbage ebook of people
explaining what works for them in their specific niche 3 years ago...

------
josscrowcroft
Wow. Amazing!

Would love to see a section about what to do with your time once your business
is covering all your expenses ("filling the void" type stuff)

~~~
charleshaanel
It's easy. Here's what I did (after 20 months off)

1\. Visited Russian owned Wineries in Mexican wine country (yep they have them
- they are amazing) 2\. Learned how to Horseback ride 3\. Volunteered at an
orphanage in Latin America (changed my view on business for ever) 4\. Moved to
Budapest for a while (amazing opera, kick ass clubs, amazing white wine, great
caviar) 5\. Went clubbing in Stockholm (Midsommar ftw) 6\. Went clubbing in
Marbella, visited amazing parts of Southern spain, loved it so much settled
there (check out a kick ass co-working spot here: <http://www.nidomalaga.com>)
7\. Went clubbing in London - was supposed to go to falconry school but
blacked out - LOL just kidding.... noticed a trend here?

Read a gazillion books, caught up on TV, started writing a book, etc. Actually
now I'm back on my 3rd start up 'cause I want to get into movie production -
self financed. It costs at least $50 million to produce a good movie and
another $50 million to market it so I need a to get to work ;)

I thought about posting some screenshots but meh, too much work.

People discounting the whole 4HWW lifestyle - it's real. But who has time to
convince other people of something you know to be true...

~~~
wj
As someone with a movie production site I'm curious about your movie
production start up. I find a lot of parallels between start ups and
production companies.

------
nachteilig
The creating fame section of this was pretty interesting, although it still
seems easier written than done

