few months, we were both tired all the time, the kids were unhappy, and the
overall situation wasn’t good.”
For years, Brett had watched from the sidelines as friends and colleagues
started profitable projects and either quit their jobs or established an
additional income stream. Finally, he had an idea of his own: As a power
user of Evernote, the free note-keeping software, Brett noticed that there
was no detailed user manual for people to get the most out of the service.
§
Brett spent months carefully documenting every tip and trick he could
find about Evernote, compiling everything with detailed screenshots and
tutorials into a big PDF file. “I obsessed over this thing,” he said, “and I
wanted to make sure I got everything exactly right.” When he sent me a
draft of what would become
Evernote Essentials, I was impressed. Many e-
book writers pad their products with superfluous copy, big fonts, and wide
margins. Brett’s was the opposite: The finished product weighed in at more
than ninety pages of solid content. Nevertheless, solid content isn’t
everything; you also have to sell something that people are willing to spend
money on. Would they?
Right before the guide went on sale, Brett made a deal with Joana: If he
sold at least $10,000 worth of copies, she would quit her job waiting tables
at the restaurant and stay at home with their two kids full-time. Brett
estimated that it would take months, if not longer, to reach the $10k
goal … but just eleven days after
Evernote Essentials went on sale, the
PayPal account tipped into five figures. (Being the geek that he was, Brett
promptly took a screenshot on his iPhone and made it his wallpaper.) Less
than twenty-four hours later, Joana put in her two-week notice at the
restaurant. Aside from brief breaks when the kids were born, this would be
the first time she didn’t work in their seven years of parenthood.
Months later, sales of
Evernote Essentials continued to bring in at least
$300 a day, projecting annual revenue of more than $120,000 for something
that was essentially a side project. Interestingly, if the project had been
produced as a print book from a traditional publisher, those numbers could
be considered a failure—author royalties would have brought Brett only
around $18 a day. But since Brett was the sole owner and delivery was
digital, the $300 that arrived in his PayPal account every day was almost
entirely profit.
In an odd twist, the executives who developed Evernote got word of the
guide and sent Brett a note that they wanted to talk. Brett was worried they
were upset about him making money from their free product, but the
opposite was true: The CEO loved it and wanted to hire him. Brett left the
boring full-time job and took on a new role at Evernote, with the
understanding that he could continue to sell the guide and retain all profits
while working at home for the company. Sweet! Here’s how Brett describes
the end results:
The unreal success of this project has not only freed our family from a
decade of debt and financial instability but has also given us the
freedom to pursue the kind of life we want. Since I now work from
home and Joana is a stay-at-home mom, we spend far more time with
our kids than most people could hope for. There are times when I still
can’t believe it’s
actually happened, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Brett’s project had all the predictors of success we’ve considered thus far:
It began with something he was both passionate about and skilled in, and
then he forged his knowledge into a useful package that could be acquired
instantly by users. If you wanted to learn about Evernote but didn’t want to
spend the time surfing around, a $25 investment could solve the problem.
The choice of price was also perfect: Brett could have priced much lower,
as some digital publishers do, but he chose to take a stand and provide a
clear value proposition to his potential customers.
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