Day 34: StomperNet – Figuring out my Product

November 20, 2009 · Posted in 90 Days of StomperNet

With my mind made up on coming up with a product of my own instead of selling somebody else’s product, I was able to drill down a bit further today as to what I can sell. I quickly discarded manufacturing my own product due to limited funding. So I basically had this initial list: Choosing A Product

Continuity
Micro-Continuity
Software
Services
Other Digital Products

Continuity simply means a subscrition based product. People pay you monthly for as long as they find your product useful. This is where recurring billing on your credit card usually occurs. Examples of this are:

Private clubs or forums
Add-ons to software like Firefox, Joomla, Wordpress, etc.
Services like Automatic Backups, Intelligence Gathering and Monitoring.

Micro-Continuity is almost the same as Continuity. The only difference is that there is a set deadline to the subscription. So billing is recurring only up to a certain period. The same examples apply. In addition: Support, Warranties, Trainings and Seminars can fall under this. You regularly bill people until the Training or Seminar ends.

#3, 4 and 5 are sold one-time. While there is the issue of a warranty period, the costs of warranty should already be included in the price. Examples for Software are straightforward. You simply have to go to the closest Best Buy store and look through the racks. Examples of Services not yet mentioned above can be filing of your annual tax, private investigation, transcribing seminars and interviews, doing product reviews and product launching. Examples of other digital products are E-books and Videos.

What did I choose? Well, it wasn’t as agonizing as yesterday’s choice. My goal is to have recurring income. Everything in the list above offers that chance. Some to a greater degree than most. I chose a combination. Online Intelligence Gathering is something I really enjoy doing. So I’m going with that. I’ll have a software that automates some aspect of Intelligence Gathering sold in continuity.

With this choice made and out of the way, I was able to remove a lot of clutter from my mind, desk and tack board. I immediately buckled down to work on planning and designing. I already had something in mind while doing the list above.

First, I proceeded to doing Keyword Research. Check! There is demand for this. There is competition for this. But there are keywords that are low hanging fruit.

So far so good. I’m really excited at this point and am enjoying a tiny rush of adrenaline. I proceeded to design the Intelligence Gathering skill I am planning to automate. If all goes well, I should have this up when I post Day 37 on Monday.

I also attended a couple of StomperNet Webinars. One of which deals with the many changes Google has made in the last 18 months that affect SEO. The other is about a tool that comes with StomperNet membership that semi-automates SEO called SEOQast. I’ll tell you about both tomorrow.

Cheers!

Chris