Thread by Yangyi (@Yangyixxxx)

Find your own piece of farmland Nicolas Cole built a multi-million dollar business empire through online writing, but he also found and cultivated the field of writing. He started as a World of Warcraft player, and one day in 2014, he suddenly decided to challenge himself to answer one question on Quora every day. A year later, he became the most-read author on the platform, and his articles were reprinted by Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and other publications. He then signed a contract as a columnist for *Inc.* magazine, taking on the challenge of writing one column every day. This revenue stream, based on article views, replaced his income from a full-time job. He leveraged his established writing reputation to start a ghostwriting business, writing articles for founders and CEOs. He only needed to work 4 hours a day and earned $20,000 a month through service fees. So, with this farmland, business grew and business became too much for him to handle alone, so he established a ghostwriting agency, which gradually expanded to 23 employees and $2 million in annual revenue. However, due to a lack of management experience, although there was revenue, no money was saved, and the business closed in 2021. This failure taught him about system building and team management. However, these failures did not hinder his development; instead, they became the foundation for his subsequent success. He used his previous experience to rebuild a product matrix that generated $600,000 to $700,000 per month (occasionally exceeding $1 million). Ship 30 for 30 has been relaunched: the renowned online writing course (with Dickie Bush as the principal co-founder). Continue offering ghostwriting services at Premium Ghostwriting Academy (PGA): Currently the largest ghostwriting training program on the internet. Based on these users, he built TypeShare: a writing and publishing tool. He also wrote a newsletter, "Write With AI," which is the second-ranked paid educational newsletter on Substack. Cole believes there is a fundamental difference between creators and entrepreneurs. A creator is a "full-stack self-employed individual" with a highly leveraged lifestyle business, but essentially still working for themselves. If they stop working, their income will be affected. But entrepreneurs are more focused on building teams and systems. They aim to create a business that can function without them and construct a moat: operational complexity is the barrier to entry. For example, the PGA requires sales, marketing, customer success teams, and coaches, and most people are unwilling or unable to manage this complexity, thus reducing the competition. So how can online creators build successful digital products? Many online courses are considered "exploitation" of consumers, but Cole has proposed a set of step-by-step rules for building high-value, high-trust products: Practice first, then teach. Products must be based on real, documented experience. Before launching his courses, Cole had ten years of writing experience and thousands of hours of ghostwriting experience. - Product building ladder: Do it yourself (Service): Provide the service first and get the real results. Informal teaching: Teaching a friend or colleague. One-on-one coaching: Discover where people get stuck. Group coaching (5-10 people): Test whether the framework is effective. Group-based curriculum: Expand scale, refine pace and structure. Productization: Only at the very end can it be developed into a lasting digital product or a high-priced project. - Elements of a good product: Based on experience: Publicly available past works and client case studies are the best form of marketing. Accountability: Combining community, guidance, and deadlines to ensure sustained engagement. Continuous practical experience: You need to continuously engage in real-world practice to maintain credibility and keep your materials updated. Action-oriented: Information itself is worthless (it's everywhere), its value lies in getting trainees to actually "take action". If you find that farmland, all that's left is to keep cultivating it. Even if problems arise and the harvest fails, don't be afraid. Keep cultivating, and eventually, the farmland will grow larger and larger through continuous cultivation. Once that starting point is found, a vast business empire can be gradually built.