Market Research

Fail fast, fail often

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You may (or may not) know that I’ve been working on competing (as far as there is any real competition lol) in new niches; more specifically hobby niches.

Doing so requires research—lots of research. Especially when it’s a niche I know almost nothing about—as is mostly the case for me.

So for the past few days I’ve been doing nothing but scrolling through tons of Reddit posts, reading hundreds of YouTube comments under dozens of videos, checking out every single course available about the subject on sites such as Domestika, Udemy, SkillShare, Coursera, going through the entire Facebook ad library trying to find every single ad ever written in the niches, and writing down every single detail I come across that might potentially be useful to me in one way or another.

Needless to say, I’ve spent quite a while researching (far too many) topics.

Is all of this research necessary?

Well, it might surprise you, but actually, no.

See, while doing some research is vital—you simply can’t expect to enter a market you know nothing about just like that and watch the money come flooding in. But you don’t have to do nearly as much market research as I’ve done over the past few days.

So why did I do all of this research?

Simply said, I was indecisive and afraid to fail. It was mental procrastination, to say the least.

In reality, it’s often better to do “just enough” research (or create a product that’s “good enough” in that case) and go with it. See what happens. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, now you can analyze the situation and figure out what went wrong. This allows you to move forward faster, rather than slower as some people might think, by learning from your mistakes and building your experience.

One of the best things you can do in business (and probably in life as well, although I’m probably not qualified to talk about that, yet) is to “fail fast”—as long as you analyze your mistakes, pick up the pieces, get back up, and try again almost immediately.

Anyway.

Another way to approach market research, which I also employed at the very beginning, is to use your email list, either to simply ask the questions you have to your list or by making offers, testing out new ideas, and seeing how people react.

To do that, it helps to write highly entertaining emails people love to open and read day after day.

Luckily, that’s something I can help you with.

Check out Email Valhalla here to learn more about just that: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/


Belgium’s new national chess champion

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I’ve been playing chess more seriously for the past few years.

More specifically, two years ago I joined the (then brand-new) chess club within my university. This undoubtedly skyrocketed not only my skill in chess but also my appreciation for the game and the whole chess community—even though the average chess player is 61 years old, there are still a lot of young and enthusiastic chess players eager to socialize with others in their early 20s.

Anyway.

During this time I’ve had the opportunity to meet and befriend many exceptionally talented people. One of the people I met through this chess club (and later on became extremely close friends with) became the National Champion of Belgium earlier this year.

This is an incredible achievement on its own and I’m extremely proud of him.

But it doesn’t stop there—especially not with me.

Oh no, this is also an incredible opportunity for him (and for me as well). See I happen to enjoy marketing, advertising, and the creating & selling of (digital) courses—as you should probably know by now if you’ve been reading my emails for at least a week.

If you’re an attentive reader you might’ve already guessed where this is going, but in case you haven’t yet. There’s an incredible (and lucrative) opportunity to use his newfound status to launch and sell a new chess course with him as the leading personality behind it.

Even more.

I just had a look at Meta’s ad library today and it turns out there’s only ONE (1!) chess-related ad currently running on all of Facebook, Instagram, and wherever Meta ads are shown. And it’s an ad for in-person private lessons aimed at children.

More than enough reasons to conclude there’s a huge untapped market waiting for someone to do something with it.

The funny thing here is that there’s nothing new about the game of chess—quite the contrary, in fact.

And yet a quick search shows me just how easily it could be to enter this market and build ourselves a nice little business (which I’m no doubt underhyping).

But what does this have to do with you, you might ask?

Well, this just goes to show you how easy it is to take things for granted and dismiss any potential opportunities that might be staring you right in the face at all times. I know people who only recently got into the market of selling guitar courses and are now making a killing with it (a guitar ain’t nothing new either).

So make sure to keep your eyes open, don’t dismiss opportunities just because you don’t think there’s anything worthwhile.

Make sure to do a tiny bit of research and who knows, you might find yourself a new lucrative business idea.

And while we’re on the topic of lucrative business ideas, have you tried building a list and writing it daily emails that get sales and keep your readers reading day after day?

If not, be sure to check out Email Valhalla today. Click here for more info: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/


This 5-star testimonial inspired a rant about product creation

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Once upon a time, I received the following email from a long-time reader who got his hands on my Product Creation Made Easy framework (and who prefers not to share his full name):

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I have a couple more items to go but just wanted to let you know that I've had a number of 'a-ha!' moments.

Favorites include: Prevalidation and minimal viable product and ideation.

Another thing that I personally appreciate is that it's not spread out in 50 modules. This hits the important things and gets me started – great for busy folks like me.

So far – easy 5 star product.

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I’m partly sharing this to boost my ego and tell you about my confirmed 5-star-worthy product and how it helps people create profitable digital products in 21 days or less from start to finish—that is, from ideation, all the way to launch and beyond.

But that’s not all.

More importantly, I’m sharing this to show the importance of knowing who your customers are. In my case, that’s, more often than not, busy folk working a job, taking care of their kids or other family members, while using almost all of their remaining hours to work on their creative passions and build something that’s uniquely theirs.

More.

Whether you’re writing a book, recording an album, working on a video game, running a fitness business, tending to your garden, improving your cake-baking skills, or getting your digital marketing agency up and running (all of which are real examples of people I spoke with on my list)… When creating a product, any type of product, a written digital course, a mentorship program, poetry, a card game, or a limited-time small-scale rollercoaster experience in your backyard, when creating such a product, all the principles are—and will always remain—the same.

Now, some guru’s or experts you follow might not like to say or hear this.

But that’s only so they can feed (and sell) you the same crap over and over again by disguising it as somehow “being different” or “only working in this market”.

Which is nothing more than a pile of crap.

Everything inside Product Creation Made Easy is as evergreen as it gets. It’s always been useful, it will always remain useful, and it’s as applicable in your market as it is in the next guy’s.

The only downside?

There’s no hand-holding or spoon-feeding.

I give you the tools, the reasoning, the examples, and the know-how to create your next (or even your first) profitable digital product in 21 days or less. But I can’t create it for you. That’s something you’ll have to do yourself.

It’s as they say, you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Anyway.

Here’s the water, go and drink some: https://alexvandromme.com/product