- by Andy
My Infinity Project
First off, thanks to James Shramko for coining the term “Infinity Project”.
I love this name. It implies we’ll do it forever, and might have been doing it for a while already. “Side hustle” doesn’t do it justice, and isn’t a fitting description for that thing we can’t NOT do.
# HOW I GOT TO HERE
◦ Been in online forums since 2009.
◦ Was a top contributor in the IMGrind forum and given a free membership before they shut it down.
◦ Panicked and grabbed all my threads and dropped them on a blog before they were lost.
◦ Created a small paid Xenforo forum in 2013/14.
◦ Had a handful of members paying $49/mth before I shut it down – too much hand-holding and answering questions from the minority who were too lazy to Google for.
◦ Found another large Xenforo forum May-2014 and made it my home online.
◦ Dropped in all my content within a few weeks of joining.
◦ Probably had the ban hammer hovering over me, but I wasn’t there to sell anything so it never fell.
◦ Was made a moderator a year or so later, which was unexpected and humbling.
◦ To date, created 200+ threads, 5,500+ posts, and had 1,700+ PMs in that forum in under 4 years.
◦ Kept getting asked if I had a course.
◦ Kept saying “No, I serve the DFY market”.
◦ Finally succumbed when someone said it took them 18 hours to go through the 38 threads I have on my subject area. That’s too long for someone to get started.
◦ Created a Jumpstart course with one hour of videos (hosted on Thinkific).
◦ Released it into the forum early 2017 for $399 ($299 for forum insiders).
◦ 34 sales trickled in over the year – just over $10k in sales.
◦ Ran a private Facebook group to answer queries for people who took the course.
◦ Wasn’t inundated with dumb questions this time. Enjoyed the community and helping folks.
◦ Asked them what other courses and information they wanted me to produce next – they said they wanted to look over my shoulder as I did my work, and that they were interested in how to use the technical knowledge from the course to grow a business.
◦ Read “The Automatic Customer”.
◦ Rediscovered James Shramko and consumed a handful of podcasts.
◦ Joined James Shramko’s SuperFastBusiness Dec-2018.
# NEXT STEPS
◦ For the first 12 weeks of 2018 I was going to focus on serving the DFY market and push serving the DIY market till Q2.
◦ Except I’m still helping people in the private Facebook group, and via numerous PMs.
◦ An additional sale of the course confirmed I need to acknowledge my Infinity Project.
◦ My goal for January is get it setup so I can keep chipping away in the background while I focus on the DFY market.
# DONE SO FAR
◦ Created a vanilla Xenforo forum.
◦ Told people in my Facebook group that it’s there. Some moved over.
◦ Setup GetResponse and imported my list of 35 course buyers and 115 free triallers.
◦ Mailed all buyers of my course that they can have access to the forum for 2018, and then pay $299/399 per year thereafter. Told them it will likely end up at $999 per year. Two created an account on the forum.
◦ Set up a blog on a separate domain that is broader and may feed people into the forum.
◦ Started copying some of my 5,500+ posts over to the blog, and working out how to outsource this.
◦ Started answering questions in my new forum, and have teed up two member audits that I’ll video and share in the forum.
◦ Arranging a call with a member who’s made good progress. Will record it and drop it in various places.