a single source, nothing corroborates it

Let a page and one post choose the topic

Rather than committing to a subject and then hunting for readers, publish a page plus a single piece on the theme and let the reaction decide what you actually build. The strongest signal is a question your audience already asks you unprompted, and a first post that outperforms the plan is worth more than the plan.

The method

1. 01

   To test an information product, pick the topic, build a landing page for it, and publish a post on that topic before writing anything else.

2. 02

   Put up a landing page and start publishing before the product is decided, then let the response pick the topic for you.

3. 03

   Choose the product topic your audience is already asking you about in public, then validate by putting up a bare landing page and tweeting the pitch before writing the thing.

4. 04

   Validate the topic before writing it, with a single blog post on the idea or an opt-in form to see who raises a hand

What it returned

• Those three steps were Zue's entire January plan for evaluating the info product option.

• Samuel Hulick's first onboarding teardown, posted to drive traffic to an email capture page, went so well he did another and discovered onboarding was the real pain point: replacing his original abstract book idea

• Adam had been publicly sharing functional-programming refactors in PHP and getting unsolicited how-would-you-do-this questions; he announced the book on Twitter off a simple landing page.

Sources

• Adam Wathan's $100k product launchJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Why did you choose "refactoring to collections" as your topic? · undated
• $39k in eBook Sales Part 2: Design, Testimonials, and TrafficNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · On Writing · 2012-10-08
• How Samuel Hulick made over $37,000 with his self-published bookNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Esoteric to practical: coming up with the idea for The Elements of User Onboarding · 2014-06-09
• My Plans and Goals for 2018Cory Zue · coryzue.com · My January goals · 2018-01-02