You Don’t Need to Be a Genius! Just Do This.
Chris Koerner and guests share how to build and sell digital products fast by listening to customers and copying what works. They discuss selling an AI cooking app, flipping an app for $1,000 with a revenue share deal, and launching a rucking training product with minimal overhead.
Chapters
I literally took me two hours. I was just sitting in my backyard, like, messing around. I sold it.
What?
Yeah. Yeah. Dude, you don't have to be a genius.
No.
You just have to know where to look. I didn't like, wake up three weeks ago saying, dude, you know what would be an interesting offer? That guy just told me that that's what he wanted.
Cool.
I can do that.
You go tell any person in the world this business idea, that's stupid. No one's going to pay $200 for a PDF on how to walk around with weights. You know what? Actually, a lot of people will, and they are.
Momentum is probably the most underrated asset for entrepreneurs. If you feel chase momentum.
How has your AI cooking app been going?
Dude, dude, I sold it.
What? Yeah. What are you doing? Dude, we had to find out that you were going to get a million.
Users on day one, so. I know, I know, I know, I know. I just couldn't give it the time to really commit to it. And so there was a guy in my grow faster community link in my Twitter bio and that we were talking about this app on the call and he's. He's running a different consumer app. And I was like, look, I know how to grow this. I just like, if I'm going to go spend time on something, it's got to be something else. And because it was just sitting there for like the last three weeks, I just hadn't moved the needle on it. And so I was like, Look, I paid 1,000 bucks for it. I'll sell it to you for a thousand bucks. And I keep 20% of revenue off the top. And I'll teach you how to run the ads and scale it. Because he wants to go do it with his app. And so I was like, your ad spend, my strategy, then you can steal this exact playbook to run it for your app, which is more for. It's like day trader, journaling type Apple. And so I was like, look, this is a win, win. You deal with all of the headache of getting it live in the app Store and all of that stuff. I just want to help run the ads. And so I took a positive free roll on it. They're getting it live right now. They've been active, dude. The whole. The entire business is being coordinated and ran through the Twitter dms and it's one of my favorite things ever. It's just all like, I think we've sent one email.
It's. So it's not going to be an AI cooking app anymore.
No, it is.
He's chiz.
He's.
Okay.
No, he's going to run it exactly how. How I had it.
Okay. He's also doing the day trading.
Yeah.
Okay.
And so he was like, all right, well, I might as well just like. And that apps. He's doing it more legit because we use Flutter Flow, the no code iOS builder. He's doing a more legit one, so it's not going to be ready for two months. And so I was like, well, you might as well get reps on something here. And so I'll still have updates as. As they get it live. But I was like, dude, it's just going to sit there. Like, I literally. I have other ads to run.
Okay. That's amazing. And I'm excited to hear how it goes. I want you to tell me if you think this is a viable app idea. We've talked about variations of this, but it's evolved. A mobile app that is basically like an AI business partner.
Yep.
You upload your LinkedIn, let's say it's 10 bucks a month, your LinkedIn, and then it. It puts you through like a personality assistant. Are you an introvert, an extrovert? Do you like, do you have sales experience? You have writing experience? It figures out who you are. And then it's like, okay, here's five businesses that you should start based on everything you've told me. Choose your own adventure. You pick one. Cool. Now it becomes like an accountability partner, and it's. And a calendar. A scheduling partner that's cool. Where you wake up on day one and it's like, turn your notifications on because I'm going to tell you to get to work on day one. It's like, all right, you need to buy a URL. It needs to be three syllables or less only a dot com. Or if it's like an app, maybe it's like AI IO works. It's customized based on your idea. And then it's like, you can make it simple and make it like 10 bucks a month. Or you could make it like an accountability app where, like, you have to pay extra money if you don't do the tasks. Like, it has your card on file and there's like, you have skin in the game and it's like your zero equity, $10 a month, business partner, accountability partner, coach, therapist, everything. What do you think?
Love the theory behind it. If it's monthly, your turn is going to be insane. I think it's one of those. I've been thinking about all sorts of Businesses like these. But what I've realized is like that that sort of business is like, it's a, it's a make money online offer in a different rapper. And so what we always have to kind of acknowledge with make money online offers is that there's like only going to be a small percentage of people that are actually going to do anything.
They'll get flamed out on day three.
Three. And that's why, like, you talk like it's funny because everyone talks about like these scammy courses, guys and all this stuff. And it's like before I got really into this game, I agreed. I thought they were scammy. And there definitely were some that, that do. Right? Like that's, that's real. But what I started to recognize was there's a lot of people that signed up for these courses thinking it was a magic pill. And then they actually get into it and they realize that it's harder than they thought and they don't know what's good. And all of a sudden they don't want to take their own accountability for it. So that guy that sold me that thing lied and it's like, no, like, no, he didn't. You just only got through 6% of the program. And those guys are incentivized to charge a lot of money up front because they know that. And so like, if they're going to make their money, it's making money on the people being super excited about that opportunity.
Catch them in the moment, right?
You catch them in the moment. Oh, dude. I've always wanted to run an E comm brand, right? Like, oh, I can make a bunch of money doing this. Like they're in that state, so they make the big purchase, then they get into the part that's less fun, which is the actual work. And then all of a sudden that dude lied and whatever. I feel like there's, there's that app follows a similar undertone where like, I bet you your acquisition channels would be explosive. Right? Everyone that's interested in business wants an AI powered co founder, of course, for 10 bucks a month. But like, what percentage of those people are actually going to use it to a degree where it's like valuable to them long term?
Yeah.
And then your financial mechanism is like, if it's monthly, it's like, oh, dude, this guy, this AI co founder didn't make me $1 million like on his own. Like, I had to be involved, dude. I had to do work. Like churn.
It's got to be like a lifetime purchase.
100%.
Yeah.
Which then goes into, like, the same model, like, $500 lifetime purchase. And then they get into it. The work is real. They don't want to do it. And all of a Sud app. The AI co founder is B.S. dude, that thing didn't even help me. And it's like, dude, you. You were going to be an HR rep at IBM for your whole life anyways, bro. You know, like, what are we doing?
Like, I think one important variable is the quality of the content. I've had two masterclasses. We did one for our. The Tree Biz Boot Camp, which is like $3,000. Yeah, yeah. And then one for the RV park stuff, which is like $6,000.
Yeah.
And the RV one is still a work in progress, but a minority of people ever do the thing, start the tree business or buy an RV park. Right. But zero people have asked me for a refund ever, for sure. Right. And they're thrilled. Like, amazing testimonials. No one's complained. And I've had a couple people that bought the Boot Camp, the Tree Biz Boot Camp, come by the RV one too, because they're like, oh, it's Chris's. It's going to be good. Right? So I think a lot of the scam aspects also comes into, like, you. You pay the five grand or 500, and you're like, dude, this time, this guy's a joke. This guy's a joke. And then the other half of it is like, I didn't do the thing. I have buyer's remorse. You know what I'm saying?
Similar. I did similar at different price points. When I did launch OS in, like, early 2023, had that one tweet go crazy, had 100 people buy it for 300 bucks. Three people actually, like, turned in to, like, launched a business through it. A few. A few refund requests, mostly from overseas, which is what it is. But everyone else, like, dude, this was awesome. Like, this is sweet. Like, guys that still want to get on calls and. And do all of that. And the other piece that I realized is those three people would have been successful whether or not they bought. Yeah. Launch os.
They were going to do it no matter. You caught them at the right time.
Yeah. And it's like, they were gonna do it anyways. And so I think, like, again, going back to your idea, it's like, yeah, you're just serving an interesting market because the people that are gonna do it anyways are probably already using ChatGPT in that way. It's just like, Better branded and like, made for that specific use case. And then you're gonna have a bunch of people that think that some AI co founder is the magic pill that will solve them having to do real work. And it's like, nah, sorry, dude, it's not how it goes. It's an interesting. I feel that way even, like with the community now, like with people signing up, which, like, I have only ever done it as one time offers versus recurring. And so I'm very interested to watch Churn in the community. Like, the people that. That buy in, dude, they're going to be there, they're hanging out.
Yeah.
Like, that's awesome. But I feel like a lot of people are going to get in there and realize, dude, it's funny. It's like people on Twitter. It's like, I put a tweet out three years ago and like, two weeks ago, somebody hit me up, was like, dude, I've been working on this idea that you tweeted about three years ago. And I was like, dude, I don't even remember that tweet. Like, I. There's so much. And it's like they've been working on it for so long and it's like, oh, dang, dude. Like, we just got to move faster.
And it's not that they just found it and it's three years old. They've been working on it for three years.
Right. And it's like, that's crazy. Like, you gotta. It's the whole. It's the whole thesis for that community is like literally called Grow faster for a Reason. It's like, guys, we got like, we gotta go faster. Like, we're not gonna sit here and build a product for 12, like, 12 weeks, 12 months. It's like, no, no, get it out in 12 hours, test the market and like, let's make movement. Like, that's the most underrated. Like, momentum is probably the most underrated asset for entrepreneurs.
Yeah.
Like, if you feel it, that's like you get that dopamine. Like, you just get into the rhythm of it and it's like, dude, just chase momentum. Everyone's out here trying to run uphill. It's crazy.
People don't understand that sitting in front of Netflix is addicting and momentum is addicting. Right. So, like, pick your addiction straight up.
I just like addictions that make me money, you know?
Yes, preferably. It's funny because I spoke to a homeschool class this morning just as a favor about entrepreneurship, and they asked me, like, one of their questions was like, all right, Throw away all your advice. We just want your one main piece of advice.
Yeah.
And it was like, go get a sale. That's right.
Straight up.
Nothing else matters. Like, you can't have a business without selling a product or service. And you. You have to do that first.
For sure. Like, I tweeted a while ago, but it's like, leads are lifeblood. Like, you have all these people. It happened on one of the calls. We do daily calls. And so one of the calls came in, and this guy was trying to build some. He's also. He's an awesome guy, but he's trying to build, like, a. Like a Google Maps, like, improvement optimization agency, which you and I know well. Right. And he's like, so, what's my offer? Right? Like, should I do an hour consultation? Should I do, like, a software? Should I do whatever? And I was like, bruh, I don't know the answer. You just should get on the phone with, like, somebody that wants to, like, whatever your offer is, improve your Google Map rankings, Get on the phone with them and see what they will pay for. They'll tell you what they'll pay for. Like, you don't have to sit here and, like, be some genius. Like, I tell the story with unlimited content. Basically, all of our Facebook ads are getting people on the phone that want better results from SEO. And this guy pops on, and our normal offer is content, right? 30 articles, 30 days. But he has 3,000 blogs on his website. He doesn't need content. What he does need is backlinks. And so, like, on the fly, I was like, well, we'll do backlinks only for you. 500 bucks a month. We'll manage all of it. You set your budget. We'll do all the outreach. We'll do all this stuff. 500 bucks a month. Let's go. He goes, yeah, I'm in. And it's like, dude, I didn't, like, wake up three weeks ago saying, dude, you know what would be an interesting offer is backlinks only. No, no. That guy just told me that that's what he wanted.
Yeah.
So, like, cool. Like, I can do that. Sweet. And so it's like. And now we sell it. And it's because the market is literally asking for it. And I think, like, that's the piece people need to focus on. It's like, have more conversations with people that have problems. They'll tell you what they'll pay for.
Dude, I just had lunch with a friend who. He starts trade schools, and part of what he does is the secret sauce of recruiting people into the trade schools. Let's say you, you want to be licensed in H vac and he'll go into a trade school that's already operating and they're crushing it. And their sales calls are two to three minutes long. And they're like, here's what it costs, here's how long it lasts. Yay or nay. And he goes in there and he's, he implements his secret sauce. I'm like, well, what is that? And he's like, it's a 90 minute sales call. What's so special about it? He's like, I only ask them questions and I learn exactly what they want and exactly what they need. And then I build the pitch around everything they just told me and they're 80% more likely to buy. Another thing I like to do. If you want to know what an offer is, let's say you have a Google business profile optimization agency. Go find five to 10 people in that niche that's doing exactly what you're doing or want to be doing and charging what you want to be charging. Then you go to the web archive, type in all their URLs and see how long they've been in business. Okay. Then you want to look at how their website has iterated over the years and see what they're at today and see where they started. And really that's kind of superfluous because you just need to see where they're at today. And assuming that you see on the homepage that they're iterating, maybe they put testimonials, maybe they were, you know, a percentage of ad spend. It wouldn't be the case in this, but let's say it was, you know, a pay per click agency, whatever it is, you're going to see that they iterated their way to their final offer. And their final offer is their most optimized, most likely to close. You just copy that? That's it? Just copy it straight up?
Yeah, Literally just copy and paste, dude. That's literally the whole game. Like everyone else is out here doing the market research for you. It's similar. It's similar with like the Facebook ads library. Like, you don't need to like be able to just come up with the best ad creative ever. Like, I just always go to like, oh, wait, these are our biggest competitors. What are they running? Can I just swap out what they're doing? Right. It's like you just cut your learning curve in half. You know, it's like, yeah, like you don't have to be a genius. You just have to know where to look.
Dude, speaking of the Facebook ad library. Okay, so you know what rucking is? Yeah, like just putting on heavy weights for those listening and walking around. I talked about this a week or two ago on the podcast, so I won't go too into it, but I've been rucking lately. Ruck this morning, last Saturday. I love it. It's amazing.
Big ruck guy, Big ruck guy.
And it's great because I can chill in zone two, I can burn fat, I'm building muscle and I can record shorts while I do it.
Oh yeah, because I'm not out of breath.
Right? I took 37 shorts on a two hour walk on Saturday.
Insane.
Anyway, rucking, like, I didn't know it was blowing up because I was running ultramarathons five years ago where they, they had a rucking category, but it was like so niche. It's still niche. Like I talked to three guys at church this last Sunday, my age. None of them knew what it was. So still super early. Right?
Yep.
Anyway, backing up. A couple weeks ago, you and I talked about having a digital course. Using AI to create a digital course, creating Facebook ads to launch that digital course, iterating a bunch of different offers and, and price points, yada, yada, yada. So here's a perfect example of that. I want you to go to pathfinderruck training. Com.
Pathfinder Rook training.
So when I ran my first marathon, I googled marathon training program. And there's this guy named Hal Higdon that has a bunch of marathon training programs. I found one for beginners. It was free. It was just a blog article. They didn't even need my email. And I followed that to a T and I ran my first marath. This company, they're getting tens of thousands of hits a month. And look at what they're selling. They're selling training programs and I bet you they're AI generated and they're cost 150 to $250 of like how to ruck. Like how to put on weights and walk around.
Weight and walk.
Dude, I'm over here. Like Google ruck vest on Amazon, buy it, put it on and start walking.
Like, yeah.
Like you, you go tell any person in the world this business idea, like, that's stupid. No one's gonna pay 200 for a PDF on how to walk around with weights. You know what? Actually a lot of people will. And they are, bro.
That was the feedback I got on off in the DMs after our thing, they were like, no one's gonna do that. I was like, dude, I promise you. I promise you. They are like, there was that. I forget his name, but there was a dude that did like half a million dollars in sales on a mini course on how to do a handstand.
Yeah.
And it's like, people just want their handheld to do. I did it when I was in high school.
So video is cool. But you know what's better? Long form audio via podcast and my newsletter. Tkopod.com go there to subscribe for free to my newsletter. It's one email a week, very tactical. And then go to my audio podcast. Three episodes a week. Stuff like this. You're gonna love it. All free. No sleazy sales pitch.
Tkopod.com I was playing basketball and I wanted to be able to dunk. And so I was googling how to do it. And there was a program called Dunk now. And then back then, they shipped you a poster.
Oh, wow.
That had these daily workouts. And it was like, dude, I think I spent like 150 bucks on it for a poster. But I wasn't buying the poster. I was buying dunking. Right? And it's like, yeah, that's what I want. The shortcut to that. And people always pay for that.
And you know what? I bet you that exact poster would still sell today.
Like a physical poster, a thousand percent for 150 bucks. Because people aren't buying the paper. They're buying the result. And it's like, you just have to find. I have a dude. I have a long Twitter thread on it. But like, like, people are in point A to. It's point A to point B. People always want to buy the shortcut. Forever and always, like, will never change. I also will buy the shortcut on a bunch of things. And so it's like, you just have to figure out a big enough market of point A to point B, right? And so, like, rucking is a good one. It's starting to pick up people that want to do handstands we talked about on the last one. But, like, cookbooks are like, literally exactly that. Like, point A to point B. You want to be a better chef. Sick. You don't have to go try to make paella 18 times to, like, perfect the recipe. Just follow this instructions that has now expanded to, like, every single product category on the Internet. And AI makes it take two minutes to create something valuable. May the best marketer win.
I'm still waiting for an AI generated influencer to sell An Apple or a cookbook. Did you see that Netflix documentary about that? That health influencer on Instagram that was scammed everyone? I don't know.
I don't think so.
She was out of Australia. She. Her whole claim to fame was she used whole foods to naturally cure her cancer. And she looked incredibly healthy. She had like brain cancer then, she had spleen cancer then. And she was just putting this all out there. And like, oh, Lauren said something about this. Yeah. And like 99.9% of people believed her. And like actual doctors were like, it doesn't. You should be bald right now. Like, what? Huh? You just had chemo. Huh? And like. But it sold so well. She launched an app, one of the first like health apps in the App Store. Cause this is like early 2010s. Apple promoted it because it did so well. Tens of millions of dollars from an app. And then she released a physical cookbook that like, you couldn't find in stores. It was always sold out. And then it came out that it was all a scam. She was lying about everything.
That's insane.
Do you think that these AI generated influencers are gonna like, keep proliferating or do you think that meta's gonna put the ax on it?
Dude, that's an interesting.
I can't decide. I can't. I go back and forth.
Yeah, it's tough. I think they'll draw the line at like impersonation. Right? Like. And I think it's a hard line to define, that's for sure. Yeah. What is too far? And then are their systems going to be sophisticated enough to even keep up, is the secondary question. Right. Say they want to do something about it. Are they even technically capable of making a meaningful stop to that? Yeah, it's interesting as it gets more and more indistinguishable from real. Because right now you can tell. Yeah, we did. I showed you a bunch of those hey Gen videos and it's like you can get pretty close to it, but like, you can still tell. The odds are that they'll try to stop it if they think that it's doing negative impact to the platform. But they're incentivized to just keep users on platform. And so if AI generated content has the most stickiness and the best results, like, ah, did you see my tweet this morning? My thread?
No, bro.
You should keep that real quick. So I, as you know, and as you can identify with at times, struggle with prioritization and task management across all of the different things that we do. I'VE tried every single task management project management tool under the sun, and I hate them all. None of them do exactly what I want them to do. They get close, right? Like, I love a Kanban board. I love a due date. Right? Like all of that, that stuff. But none of them are, like, custom built for me the way that I want it. I decided I was just going to build my own custom task management software using Lovable.
Clearly.
And I literally just ran in two hours. Built out, like, actually a perfect task management system for myself. I've been using it all day and it's a one.
Let's do a little visual for the YouTubers. I gotta see this before you show me. I'm just gonna show you where I'm at. I can't do it. I can't do any of the tasks. I can't do Asana Trello pipedrive.
I feel you.
Google Docs, Google Sheets, Apple Notes, Apple Reminders app, and my unread emails and opened Chrome tabs. That's my task management system.
That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Your ADHD loves you for that.
Dude, I'm 38 years old. I can't sw. I'm a boomer in the Internet. I can't switch at this point.
No, I'm with it. Mine was really easy when it was just one thing. Like when it was like, primarily just quicker. It was easy because. And that's like, you get the team involved and like, everyone's on there. I wanted one that was just my own. There's no any of that. It's literally just like, here's my running list. Let me show you this. John. Dude, I give the full. The full, like, walkthrough of it on Twitter of, like, some of the screenshots of, like, how I actually prompted this thing. Okay. But it's super simple, dude. And so I can't believe this is possible, dude. So crazy. Actually insane. And so there's nuance. Like, it follows a very similar Kanban board model. Right? Like, everyone's seen, like, explain to all.
The idiots out there, because I know what Kanban is. I mean, obviously, but other people don't. So tell them.
Right? Duh.
Yeah.
Basically it's like the ability to move into, like, the columns of, like, progress. Right? And so like the cube, like.
