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The Alpha 2.0 Business Model that I’ve been teaching since 2014 involves a process where, before you even decide what to sell, you find a narrow niche (a type of company or individual), find out what their big problem is, and THEN determine what to sell them based on that data, irrelevant of what you want to do.

In my books and blogs, I’ve talked a lot about why doing this ensures the odds of you making money very quickly in a new business go way up.

But today I’m going to come at this the other way.

Why NOT just start a business like everyone else does?

Why not just come up with a cool idea you like and try to sell it?

Wouldn’t that be easier?

I mean, Elon Musk and Bill Gates didn’t find a niche or do any niche research, and they did okay. Right?

Here’s how the vast majority of people start a business. Moreover, this is how Societal Programming trains you to start a business (which, as usual with Societal Programming, is wrong).

The first thing you do is that you listen to all of this SP bullshit about following your passion.

Follow your passion, follow your passion, blah blah blah. Everyone has screamed that at you since you were about six years old.

So as an adult, you have this wired into your head.

So when designing a new business, the first thing you do is that you ignore the entire world and the marketplace and instead look at yourself.

“I should follow my passion,” you say, “So what do I like?”

“Well, I like computers and websites. Maybe I should make websites!”

“What am I good at? What is my experience?”

“Well, I’ve been a paralegal for six years. Ah! I could do legal stuff for my business!”

“And I’m pretty good at spreadsheets. I could do financial stuff for my business too!”

“AI is cool. I heard AI is the future! I should do something in AI!”

While doing all of this inward navel-gazing analysis that the marketplace doesn’t give a shit about, you finally pull an idea from your passions, skills, and experience.

So let’s say you decide to build websites for lawyers as your new business. Or something. It doesn’t really matter, this is one of a million different examples of non-Alpha 2.0 businesses people start every day that fail.

Now you go around looking at different technical tools you can use to build your websites for your clients, which is fun for you.

That’s all you do in terms of research. You don’t actually ask any attorneys what their needs are in terms of websites. That wouldn’t be fun, because you’re an introvert. So instead you spend hours and hours on website development tools, which you enjoy.

Eventually, you set up your own website (which is fun for you because websites are your passion), maybe set up an LLC or something, and set up some basic social media stuff talking about your mad website skillz.

Then you just sort of sit around. You don’t know how to market your services because you’ve spent all of your time on the tech side, because that’s fun for you and marketing isn’t.

Eventually, you know you have to do SOMETHING. So you grudgingly reach out to some attorney friends you know and/or maybe a few random lawyers on LinkedIn or Facebook or something.

The first one you talk to is a crusty 70-year-old lawyer who’s been at it for years. You tell him you’ll make a website for him and he grunts, “Website? I don’t need a fuckin’ website.”

Next, you talk to a hotshot 35-year-old lawyer at a fancy law firm downtown. He says the firm already has a kickass website. And he doesn’t need an extra website because “the firm handles all of that.”

You talk to a few more people and get similar answers. None of them need a website because they either don’t want one or already have one they’re happy with.

You start to say things like, “WTF? Why don’t these people need websites? I could make SUCH a BETTER website than what they have! If they just gave me a chance, they’d be shocked at how awesome MY website would be!”

Again, it’s all about you. Not the clients. Not the marketplace. Not there realties of the website sector. Just you.

You start getting discouraged when finally, you talk to a three-woman-attorney firm about redoing their website, and they seem interested! Holy shit!

You get super excited and give them a fancy proposal you spent four hours on that is about 15 pages long, full of fancy graphics and charts and graphs and shit.

You check your email every 10 minutes for the next several days, eagerly waiting for a response.

A few days later they send you an email saying that you’re charging way too much for a website and Susan (one of the attorneys) is just going to have her son do it, who knows a guy in India who can do it for one-sixth the price.

Wow. Now you’re pissed.

“India? Really? They suck! My websites are WAY better than what some guy in India can do!”

“You know what? Fuck this.”

Then you stop doing your business and angrily redirect your energies back to your stupid 9-5 job that you hate in your collapsing Western country that gets worse every year.

That, in a nutshell, is where over 85% of new businesses end up. Sometimes in a few weeks, sometimes in a few years, but they all get there.

When you start a business, like the vast majority of new business owners do, focusing on yourself, your passions, your interests, and your experience, you make a huge amount of incorrect assumptions:

• How do you know the marketplace you’ve chosen actually wants what you’re selling? Just because you think it’s cool doesn’t mean they will.
• Why are you trying to sell to such a huge and broad market? (And remember, “lawyers” is not a niche! That’s a massive) It’s much harder to make money that way. And if you point at people like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, ask yourself, are YOU Steve Jobs or Elon Musk? (Probably not.)
• How do you know the price point at which you’re selling your idea is competitive based on all other options available to business owners today? Like AI that can do it for free (or close to it) or someone in Bangladesh who can do it for one-fifth the price?
• How are you going to market this idea in any systematic way? Seriously, how are you going to do it? Selling some idea you came up with to a broad market? Good luck with that.

When you focus on yourself for your business idea, all of these things become huge barriers to your success.

But if you instead forget about yourself (at least temporarily) and identify a tiny, super-duper narrow niche of companies (better) or individuals (not as good but can work), then ask them what their problem is, then sell them something that fixes or alleviates that problem, using your skills/talents/interests in fixing that problem (or hiring someone to do it for you on Upwork.com after the client pays you) then suddenly all of these barriers vanish.

Suddenly clients are happy to buy what you’re selling and you don’t even have to try very hard to market.

Suddenly you’ve got several clients paying thousands of dollars.

Yes, it’s harder at the beginning. Finding a niche, finding out what their problem is, that stuff is a little difficult and isn’t very exciting as compared to coming up with your personal passion project.

But the difference is once you get over that hump, you’ll start making real money and soon you can quit your bullshit 9-5 job and get location-independent, while Mr. FollowYourPassion will still be spinning his wheels and getting frustrated that no one wants to buy his stuff.

(And by the way, you can still start your “passion” business, just do that as your second or third business once you’re free from your job and location-independent.)

 

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