🆓 The $0 Startup

The rules of what it costs to start an online business have changed.

In 2012, Chris Guillebeau published a book called “The $100 Startup” to emphasize this point, but that’s already out of date.

With today’s available tools, it is completely possible to launch an online business without paying a dime—until your professional platform is already paying you.

Here’s how to start making money for free:

Step 1: Create a Free ConvertKit Account

ConvertKit is an email marketing software with flexible forms and landing pages for building your email list, along with communication tools to email your list whenever you want.

Building an engaged email list is foundational to your success online.

Up until recently, this would have cost money, but ConvertKit has agreed to let us offer a 100% free ConvertKit account that you can use for up to 100 subscribers. That’s all you need to get started!

Create Free ConvertKit Account

Step 3: Create a Free Teachable Account

Teachable is a course creation platform designed to make it simple to offer beautiful products in the form of online videos, audio recordings, or downloadable PDFs (all in an on-demand course).

Create courses to solve problems, and your audience will say “thank you!” with credit card in hand.

Create Free Teachable Account

What Happened to Step 2?

You might notice that you now have steps 1 and 3, but not 2 (or 4). That’s because the tools that you need to launch products aren’t enough to make an online income.

You need people.

You don’t need a lot of people to start making income online, but you do need an audience of people who care—not just about you, but about themselves (and how you can genuinely help them).

Step 2 is to build that initial audience. Step 4 is to offer that audience an initial product that solves a specific problem, in exchange for a fee. What are you waiting for?