When To Start A Second Business (My Layering Rule)

A topic that I, I really want to write more about is this idea that in business, the hardest part about business is that you are holding multiple right answers in your brain at the same time. And so that means it's like, if you're— if the question is, Cole, at what point am I ready to go paid? There's actually multiple right answers. One right answer is you wait until it's very clear from engagement with content that there's demand there and then you go paid. But a different answer that is equally correct is you will never be ready and you should just turn it paid and then you should just see what happens and then you should just start iterating on it. And so it, it's not that either one of those is actually the right or wrong answer, it's that they are both correct. I think that the, the, the more helpful way of thinking about it is when you're thinking about business models and you're thinking about layering them or adding new things, you should— the, the whole heuristic is I shouldn't move on to a second until I've maximized the first. Okay, so if, if the— if your main one, the first one, is services, I wouldn't think of it like you know, when is the right time to do paid, because there are multiple right answers of when. Instead, I would think about it of at what point do you feel like your first monetization model has reached a point of maturity where you're ready to divert attention to something else, because it's going to cost you attention. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, and that weirdly might be answering my own question because, um, it's kind of strange, right? Because my concept is digital brains and you kind of walk me through the offer that could encompass that concept, but I don't have a client like that. And even though Mitch and I are gonna geek out on it in next boot camp it's a completely different offer to what I do now, which is LinkedIn ghostwriting. So arguably the switching cost of doing that offer compared to turning this newsletter paid, in my mind, is higher. So it's almost like I could just go paid first and then I guess it doesn't really matter when, right?

Yeah, no, I would go back to— were you on the PGA call this morning?

I— Yes.

So remember the thing that we stressed was the ideal for a service for a one-person business, the ideal that I come back to over and over and over again is you want 5 clients each paying you $5,000 per project or per, and ideally per month, right? So this is your ideal scenario. And that means you're making $25,000 a month. If you get here as an individual, you hit a home run. Like, that's amazing. So the way that I would make a decision like this is to go, okay, if services is where I'm starting and this is the business model of services, then I wouldn't think, when should I add in another layer until I've successfully done the first one, right? Like, imagine if Dicky and I had been like, oh, let's start PGA at the same time that we were like, let's start Ship30. Could have never done it, right? We didn't even open the door for anything else until Ship 30 was like a multi-million dollar vertical, completely on autopilot. All the systems were built, all the automations were built, like everything was done and it was just running. And so you shouldn't, you shouldn't layer in new business models until you've maximized the first one, because then, then what's happening is you're trying to build two things at once, which is different than like maintaining the first thing and building the new thing.

Okay. Well, my main services, which is LinkedIn ghostwriting, doesn't look like that for slightly different reasons. Because I really actually, you know, when you walked Rebecca through all of this, I realized that all 7 of my clients are very easy, more or less. But they're different levels of revenue, uh, which at the same time doesn't make me want to push them all the way to $5K just because they're easy. And I have all this freedom and, you know, mental headspace to even work on my newsletter, which makes me wonder, um, I guess, how do I find congruence? Because if with my newsletter paid is the right direction, um, how do I make it congruent with my LinkedIn ghostwriting then? Because Clearly I need to eventually maximize that in some shape or form because if I make it paid as a newsletter, then again, it's just a second business and I'm chasing both.

Yeah, it really, it really is as simple as you, you use your ghostwriting services as the example, right? That it really is that it's, it's every newsletter. It's like, yeah, I will give you this. And by the way, behind the paywall, I give you this. And for example, this is what I do with all of my LinkedIn ghostwriting clients.

Is it still a huge switching cost if I add a paid layer to the Substack? Just because I don't know why, but like with all the frameworks you've given us, with all the prompts and Claude going crazy right now, I just feel like I already have the free newsletter giving away Claude skills, which doesn't take me too long to create an entire email as well. Adding a paid layer doesn't sound that complicated on a weekly basis. I mean, I was thinking I'll practice the freebie one for like 3 months, have a good workflow, and I just feel like adding a paid layer is not that difficult.

Yeah, it's not. I mean, that's again, there's multiple right answers, you know, like it is not that difficult and it will cost you time. And so the only thing I'm pointing out is you can do all of this. You can. The only thing I'm pointing out is make sure that you do it consciously so that if it— if you are spending time, realize that that choice fundamentally means you're taking your first business model and maintaining it, which is fine if you're like, I'm happy where it is and I, I like my clients. It's simple. I got plenty of headspace, like Great, but that choice, the reason that I point these things out is because a lot of times people make these choices unconsciously. They just like arbitrarily start things. And you don't realize that every time you start something, you are also saying no to something else. And so that's why it comes back to like, don't open the door to the new thing unless you are okay with the fact that it's gonna cost you a bit on the thing that you're maintaining. If you're okay with that, then by all means, do it.

Gotcha. Okay. So be okay with maintenance. All right. That's a good frame.

Yeah. Like, just to be very clear about it, when we started PGA, Ship30 stopped growing. PGA grew, but Ship30 stopped growing. So that becomes the trade-off. It's like, that's why as you layer business models, there is a cost. You are paying for it somewhere. And so that's okay. Like, everything has a cost. All of business is just a trade, but you have to be okay with that cost. And instead, what people do is they don't actually build the first thing to a level of maturity. And so then when they start the next thing, the first thing actually can't be maintained. It doesn't maintain, it actually decays very quickly. And so now you've made a choice that's a net negative. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting. Writing or content writing, check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's in the description below, okay? This is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who want to monetize their skills and love for writing with ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job. It's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making. It's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people, but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting, and this free premium ghostwriting blueprint in the description below is the best place to start.