Look at product creation through a different lens

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Look at this email I received some days ago from a long-time reader (who I forgot to ask if I could name him):

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I also had this realization about games after taking your "Product Creation Made Easy" course. 

I was in a weird space and was trying to make products to help game devs. Thinking of a product to make, light research and ponder their usefulness. You know the "classic" process.

Then, after taking your course, it "clicked" in my brain that products could be ______ and that's what I should be doing. That makes a whole lot of sense because that's the essence of prototyping and getting feedback. I hadn't thought about seeing a game through that "lens" before.

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Truth be told, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there about how products should be created, positioned, and marketed.

It doesn’t help that every nutjob with access to social media thinks of himself as an expert without so much as having created a product, much less sold any. They hear advice from other people (who likely haven’t got the slightest clue themselves) only to parrot the exact advice and try to grow some authority by spreading the same misinformation.

This process repeats for dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of people.

Until they’re at a point where everyone repeating the same (untested) advice. And who then, would doubt what they’re saying? Surely everyone can’t be wrong?

Spoiler: they probably are.

If the majority is correct. Then why aren’t the majority of people successful?

Funny how that works huh?

Anyway.

That’s the reason why I only ever teach & talk about stuff I’ve personally experienced. Things I’ve been working on, for months, sometimes years, to the point where I have a backlog of trials, errors, and successes to show.

Which is also why so many people experience moments of insight or get “ah-ha!” moments when they go through my products.

It’s because I focus on the intricacies of how things work.

I show people the bigger picture. I talk about the errors in the “standard” path everyone seems to love so much and what to do instead—and everything is backed up and proven by examples or personal experience.

This email is an important product creation lesson on it’s own.

But if you’d like to learn a lot more and get a similar “click” in your brain as the reader who wrote me the above message, then check out Product Creation Made Easy and discover the true tried & tested way to ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/product


I might get cancelled for saying this, but …

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I don’t enjoy the classic James Bond movies.

You see, my family has this almost bi-weekly ritual of re-watching (or watching for the very first time in my case) all the James Bond movies from Dr. No in 1962, starring Sean Connery, all the way to Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die released in 2021.

I just now finished watching For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore.

And man.

Maybe it’s on me. But these movies just aren’t it for me. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is.

Whether it’s the slow-moving pace of the plot. The predictability of the story. The pure lunacy of how Bond never actually does much, except mindlessly walk in somewhere, gets spotted, attacked from behind, shot at, ganged up on, and eventually abducted, only to have the enemy play pranks on him instead of getting rid of him right then and there, and then magically getting out as if nothing ever happened (and this cycle repeats multiple times throughout every movie).

Now don’t get me wrong.

There’s a lot the movie does right (the box office numbers and popularity speak for themselves). But there’s so much more it does wrong—or it does for me at least.

And that’s what I’m getting at right now.

It’s ok if I don’t like the movies (at least the older ones, I do enjoy the more modern adaptations). Maybe I’m simply not the right target audience for it. It’s made for other people to enjoy who like these types of patterns, these types of plot lines, and these, almost whimsical, adventures (as the later movies got more serious and less comical).

And that’s the same for you and your business.

You don’t have to please everyone to routinely get $100+ million box office numbers (most made $500 million with less than a $50 million budget or more in today’s money).

All you have to do is to get popular in the right market, to the right people, and keep giving them what they want again and again.

And if that’s the case.

Then you might want to consider employing the wonderful art of email to keep your customers close, stay in constant connection, get to know them better than they know themselves, entertain them, and promote your new offers time and time again, with knowing for absolute certain that they’ll buy whatever you're putting out (because it’s also aiding their lives, never forget this part).

The best part?

Email Valhalla shows you exactly how to do all of the above.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/valhalla


How Dune teaches the perfect business-building formula

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I saw Dune: Part Two a few days ago in the theater.

I won’t spoil anything, so no worries

But I can tell you this: it was an amazing experience. Excellent storytelling, wonderful world building, and an incredible score that perfectly blends in with every other aspect of the world of Dune.

Long-time readers know about my love for everything Hans Zimmer so I won’t go into yet another deep dive of the score.

Instead, I want to talk about world building.

More precisely, how everything just fits together—including the shots, the filming style, the dialogue, the music, the VFX, the sound design, and everything else that has to be taken care of when adapting a book into a movie.

Now don’t get me wrong.

Frank Herbert put a lot of time and effort into creating a huge, complex, vibrant and interesting world. But adaptation is a whole different beast of its own (case in point, the many, many previous Dune adaptations that all failed miserably).

But no.

Everything just felt right this time around. As if this could have perfectly well been a new and original work.

There’s enough detail into every scene to make the world feel alive and real.

The exposition is done in a natural way, which does not overwhelm the viewer while perfectly bringing everyone up to pace to understand just enough to follow the story, yet leaving out a lot of information to make the viewer wonder about what’s actually going on behind the scenes.

Who’s who? What do some of these things mean? Even though you don’t understand everything and everyone (unless you’ve read the books), you can still feel when something’s off, when people have ulterior motives, when there’s more going on behind the scenes (which there always is).

It’s the combination of just enough explanation combined with a giant, complex, and living world that creates the feeling of curiosity and intrigue.

And that formula of creating the curiosity to learn more, to stick around, to want to find out what’s happing, and to become obsessed with the world you’re getting sucked into, well, that formula isn’t restricted to film or story alone.

You can apply that same formula to your business and create a world of your own.

A world that captures people’s attention, brings them in with just the right amount of exposition, and keeps them there by leveraging the power of your well-blended collection of characters (offers), worlds (media), music (personality), and entertaining teachings (storytelling).

(Read that paragraph over and over until it sinks in)

And while it’s not something you’ll create overnight. You can start building your world today.

How?

By learning how to write emails and creating the perfect environment to introduce everyone to your world—all the while building your email empire.

Check out Email Valhalla today if you’d like to learn how.

Here’s the link: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/valhalla


Why I’m not active on LinkedIn anymore

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If you follow me on LinkedIn, you might have noticed that I haven’t been posting that often anymore.

In fact, I haven’t posted anything at all this week.

And no, I’m not quitting. There’s nothing going on. I’m not going through some stuff that forced me to stop posting.

And no, I didn’t get banned again (imagine).

Simply said.

I realized that I don’t actually enjoy the whole social media content creator thing as much anymore. A lot of stuff I read feels (and often is) fake.

It’s all the same dumbed-down information (if it isn’t outright BS advice that’s actively hurting every single person who’s reading it). Which can be good for some, but that’s not what I want to focus on right now.

Don’t get me wrong.

Social media can be a good thing. It’s a tool like any other, after all.

It’s probably one of the best practice fields for newcomers.

But it shouldn’t be the only thing people depend on. In fact, you shouldn’t depend on it at all.

I’ve seen so many people who fall into the social media echo chamber, only to never get out again. They skip and forget to learn so many business fundamentals necessary for their entrepreneurial career. Most of them aren’t getting any real results either.

That’s the biggest danger.

It feels like you’re doing stuff and achieving something, while in reality, you probably aren’t.

Likes are nice yes, one-off clients here and there are nice as well.

But recurring revenue, something most social media content creators don’t have, is a whole lot more nicer.

So I’m exploring different avenues.

Most notably, paid ads to drive traffic to my website, writing articles, working on SEO, getting referrals, and so on.

The key here is, however, to make your email list the center of everything—which is another thing on social media many people forget.

As the saying goes, “All roads lead to email”.

That’s where the money’s at after all.

And if you want to learn how to effectively build and monetize that email list, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/valhalla


Music composition, game design, and business

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For the past few days, I’ve been busy learning game development (again) and creating music to go alongside it.

It’s been incredibly fun, exciting, and especially rewarding.

I don’t know exactly what it is, but every type of creative work is always extremely rewarding, no matter how slow your progress might be. Going from a few consecutive notes that sound nice to a well-crafted chorus with multiple instruments or going from a pixel on your screen to a moving character (both of which are only small parts of the final deliverable) gives you so much motivation to keep going.

It’s one of those few types of work where progress can actually be seen (and felt) no matter how insignificant it may seem.

Part of why I’m doing this is because I just genuinely enjoy doing so.

Another part is to develop the skills to build out my own universe of the novel I’m writing, bit by bit, in different media, and creating the entire feel of it myself, from the storyline to the character art, to the music, video game adaptations, cinematics, and much, much more.

All of which will boost my email game (and business) as well.

But this whole process reminded me of something important.

The more progress you see yourself making in the early stages, the faster (and better) your results will be. Now this might just be anecdotal proof for me. But I’ve never seen this not to be the case for me, or anyone else for that matter.

Working on something for months on end, without seeing any actual progress to be proud of is demoralizing for everyone and almost never helps to make a well-put-together final deliverable.

Which brings me to Product Creation Made Easy.

In it I teach my simple PCME framework that shows you how to create a product from start to finish, with a big emphasis on getting actual results early on, so you can see (and feel) the progress you’re making—helping you deliver a better end results and keeping you motivated throughout the whole process.

Check it out here to learn more about it: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme


The story of my first product launch

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Back in May last year, I “launched” my first paid product.

I say “launch” because it wasn’t as much of a launch as it was me saying “Hey guys, come and give me your money for this thing now”.

Seriously.

I’d been having a lot of success at the time with my Content Creator’s Toolkit, as I called it. Which was a free Notion product I made where I gathered up all the books, courses, articles, threads, tools, and other resources I used to educate myself on a wide array of topics over the past few months.

All topics relating to building my own creator business of course.

I did the occasional giveaway with the product and it would get a crazy amount of responses time and time again.

It got to a point where so many people were telling me how this toolkit should have been a paid resource, some of whom even donated me $20 to show their support.

After a while some friends of mine convinced me to actually turn it into a paid product.

But it didn’t feel right to suddenly slap a price on it.

So I reworked it, updated it, and tried to make it as good as possible—adding even more stuff, refining the look and feel of it, and generally building something I was proud of at the time.

I also whipped up a quick and dirty sales page to make it even more enticing.

All seemed good so far.

But that’s where I messed up.

I simply slapped a price on it ($22) and told people “hey btw, this thing is now available for purchase. It’s new and exciting, check it out”…which I told them once.

Just once.

The result?

Zero sales.

None. Nada. Not even a banana’s worth.

I didn’t promote it. I didn’t validate it. I wasn’t even that excited about it anymore just a few days later.

Even more.

I completely stopped paying attention to it and it got maybe 1 sale since then because of someone who bought all of my stuff after having gotten a single product he liked so much.

Needless to say.

My first “launch” didn’t go well.

Luckily I didn’t stop there. I kept trying out new methods and new strategies to create better products, faster, and actually getting paid—even as fast as just under 14 days.

Don’t give up just because things don’t start out as well as you hoped.

It’ll get better.

Trust me.

WIth that said. If you want to speed up your progress and discover how to actually ideate, create, and launch a profitable digital product (all in 21 days or less) then check out Product Creation Made Easy.

Click the link here to learn more: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme

I’m entering my first bouldering competition tomorrow

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It’s become a core hobby of mine last year.

Bouldering is fun, exciting, and sometimes scary, but above all else, it pushes you outside your comfort zone.

As with any sport or skill, you start with the basics. You take a few simple routes to get the gist of it. Understand how things work and build up the confidence to try trickier routes.

And it’s with those trickier routes where you sometimes have to take a leap of faith, quite literally.

Some routes have been designed with jumps in mind, where you have to leave to the safety of your footing behind and launch onto the next part of the course, believing in your ability to catch it and continue climbing.

None of the routes are extremely high, but it’s a scary feeling, nonetheless.

One of the biggest mindset shifts I had to make early on was to believe I could actually complete these routes.

I remember in the early days I wouldn’t even try to climb some routes. It seemed like I hadn’t the slightest chance of pulling those off.

But I had to convince myself to get out there and attempt them anyway if I hoped to improve. Now, I didn’t immediately succeed in everything I attempted, but once in a while, I could get one—raising my confidence and allowing the next run to be even smoother.

What does this have to do with business?

Dan Kennedy said it doesn’t make sense to promise people amazing results if they feel they won’t be able to achieve those results. Or in other words. How likely does the prospect feel they’ll be able to achieve the result you promise them with your product/service?

This is an objection you have to overcome.

Tell them how easy it can be. Show them proof of other people in similar situations who achieved the results they desire. Nobody will buy your product or service if they don’t believe themselves capable of using it successfully.

And if you want to learn more about creating products people will buy.

Then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/product


On the argument of pyramid schemes

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Stubborn people love to mention the whole “coaches coaching coaches on how to coach coaches” thing all the time.

Most of them also like to use the argument of “the fat personal trainer”.

But when you think about it, those two arguments mostly contradict one another.

See, the first is used to make fun of everyone and everything being a pyramid scheme. “Oh you teach other people how to do X so they can do X and teach other people how to do X as well? That’s a scam,” they say.

It’s a convincing argument if you’re only using 2 brain cells.

Not to mention the fact that this implies that every single teacher, university professor, coach, consultant, and even your local kindergarten teacher is running a pyramid scheme (yes, people teaching in kindergarten once used to be in kindergarten themselves).

On the other hand.

Those same people will use the argument that “nobody buys from a fat personal trainer” (which is true) but then again, implies that every person teaching you how to coach (can be replaced with anything) has to be a coach (again, replace with anything) themselves.

So clearly they can’t make up their minds.

Which is great, because that leaves the playing field open for the big guys and gals like us to profit from.

But why am I talking about this?

You see, if you’re anything like me, you might have wondered whether what these short-sighted and stubborn trolls are saying might actually have some truth to it.

I have actually worried about “doing the right thing” in the past myself.

And here’s the thing.

This is how the world works. This is how information and education gets passed on from generation to generation.

You learn something from someone who has a lot of experience in said thing. And then you can do that same thing yourself. But with the added bonus of being able to choose how you apply it.

Let’s say I want to learn how to play the guitar.

I might want to go to a master at playing the guitar and ask me to teach him. This guy in question could be a true master at playing the blues. And he’ll distill his wisdom of playing the blues onto me.

During the process, I’ll learn how to play the blues really well, as well as get an almost complete overview of how to play the guitar in general.

Now, I can choose to specialize in blues as well (maybe even teach it myself if I wanted to), or I can venture forth and experiment with other styles.

In my case, I’ll probably dabble more into classical guitar or flamenco.

I’ll learn the basics, and then, if I’m really passionate about it, I might even add to the body of knowledge of flamenco guitar by adding slight flavors, textures, and improvements to it that I picked up from having a teacher who played the blues.

Thus creating and adding value to society and the world.

Then the next generation comes around and will build upon my contributions.

This is how knowledge is passed on. This is what people mean when they say “standing on the shoulders of giants”.

Sometimes it’s a few people who made a lot of contributions.

Most of the time it’s many thousands of people who each made small contributions generation after generation.

Speaking of contributions.

I didn’t invent the entire market of creating and selling digital products. But I learned what I could from people who came before me, from all types of different fields, and then went into the industry myself, added my own flavors from experiences I’d gained in different fields, and added to the body of knowledge by creating (and sharing) my own unique frameworks.

More specifically, a framework that’ll help you ideate, create, and launch profitable digital products in 21 days or less.

Which you can check out here if you’d like to earn more: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme

A hidden secret to make your customers do the stuff you want

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I’m a big movie guy.

Well, I’m a big a lot of stuff guy. But for the sake of today’s email, it’s movies.

(Stick with me for a moment, it’ll all make sense in a second why I’m talking about movies)

One of my (and almost everyone else’s) favorite movie franchises is Pirates of the Caribbean. There’s a lot of good (and bad) to be said about it. Many of which has already been said by other people I won’t bother you with today.

But I want to talk about something else.

Something not many people often talk about.

And that’s the quotability of the dialogue.

See, we all know famous lines of movies that get quoted a lot. Think of lines such as “I am your father”, “I’ll be back”, or You shall not pass”.

All great lines and great scenes.

But Pirates has it’s own unique trick to create this quotable dialogue.

You might remember quotes such as “Why is the rum gone?”, “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow”, and many more.

And there’s a huge difference here.

While some scenes were definitely great, most of them weren’t. They’re just average scenes with average dialogue.

So why are they so quotable?

Because the characters themselves often quote others or repeat their own dialogue. And they use the same lines in multiple settings, under multiple different conditions, often with different outcomes and with different emotions to them.

Simply said.

Pirates uses a lot of repetition to make you remember certain lines of dialogue, almost making a game out of it.

This makes the dialogue immediately quotable because, well, the movie shows you how quotable it is.

So getting back to what this has to do with you.

If you want people to pick up a certain habit, if you want them to do something, if you want them to remember something, then show them how to do it, when/where they can do it, and most importantly, repeat yourself often.

I dive deeper into this topic in Product Creation Made Easy where I show you how you can create your products in such a way that ensures people will take action and actually do the stuff you tell them to do, remember the stuff you teach them, and even repeat what you said to others—at which point they’re basically doing your marketing for you.

If you want to learn more about that, then check out Product Creation Made Easy here: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme

Why I don’t care about numbers, data, or statistics

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I know many a entrepreneur who live and die by their numbers.

Every offer they make, every email they write, every decision they make is all backed up by market research, customer surveys, focus groups, testing groups, and everything else you can think of.

And I’m not saying it doesn’t work.

It does. In fact, it might even be the best thing to do. It might even be the most profitable (especially in the short run).

But it’s not how I roll.

For one thing, you become a slave of the market, always chasing where the demand goes—always testing, always iterating, always dependent on the whims of your customers.

You’re essentially choosing to be the one who chases instead of the one who is being chased.

You’ll never truly lead your market (which is a whole discussion on its own).

But more.

You’ll never truly have the freedom to do exactly what you want, when you want, and for how long you want it.

You don’t build a business that survives—even thrives—for years, decades, even generations, by being the one who chases.

Still more.

I doubt anyone who does business this way can ever feel truly fulfilled—which is one of the main reasons I don’t do data.

Everything I do, everything I create, everything I sell is stuff I think is cool (and helps my customers, important not to overlook this part). It’s stuff I’d do regardless of whether I get paid for it or not (the only difference is that I can do a lot more of it when I do get paid).

So here’s something important for you to consider.

If you’re a data person. And you’d like to optimize everything you do for maximum profitability. And you’re prone to chasing whatever the market wants (i.e., you saw AI is “the next new thing” and jumped on the bandwagon, until the hype dies down and you’ll jump to something like VR when it’s “the next new thing”).

Then it’s probably not doing you any good to listen to anything I have to say. Let alone try to implement what I do for your own.

Our businesses (and business philosophies) function differently.

Which isn’t a bad thing. But it’s something to consider.

That said.

If you do share the same philosophy to business. If you aim to build something that’s truly yours, to do the leading instead of the chasing, to think long-term, to stick to whatever you think is cool regardless of what others say.

Then you should check out Product Creation Made Easy.

It’s my entire product creation framework where I show you how to create products you think are cool and stuff you want to create—while still making sure it’s something people would want—all the way from ideation to having a profitable launch and beyond (i.e., to keep getting sales months and even years after the initial launch).

Here’s the link for more information: https://alexvandromme.com/pcme