How to Monetize Yourself Online

1% Better 3/2/23

Mar 02, 2023

The most challenging part about building a side hustle while maintaining a day job has been maintaining balance. When you are looking to build a business out of an after-work activity, it requires intense sacrifice.

After 14 months of building NFT God and 1% Better, I’ve sacrificed almost all the free time I’ve had the last year. No more nights and weekends. That time went toward building my brand, audience, and community. The biggest area I’ve screwed up? Balance. I haven’t stayed well-balanced. Especially the last few months.

Sacrificing every second of free time is mortgaging your future mental health. And trust me, that bill eventually lands in your mailbox.

Past habitual habits like 8 hours of sleep, rest, and intense physical activity all got put on hold in order to make this dream a reality. It started to take its toll on me in many ways.

The lesson is this. If you have a similar dream as mine of making your passions a career, it will require a lot of work, but don’t let that work come at the cost of your health. Always prioritize balance. Make a list of your non-negotiable habits and stick to them no matter what. Mine are: 8 hours of sleep, weight lifting at the gym, and at least an hour a night for reading and another for relaxation.

I’ll be writing way more about these topics in the future.

Anyway, onto the alpha…

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How to Monetize Yourself Online

If you’re reading this newsletter, odds are you’re looking to build a brand or business with your online presence. Whether that’s through selling a product, trading, investing or making money off content, you have an end goal with your online brand that probably has something to do with generating revenue.

Over the past 14 months of building my brand, I’ve been lucky enough to turn it into a business and start generating income. Here are all the lessons I’ve learned along the way that have been impactful for me when it comes to maximizing revenue from NFT God and 1% Better.

Think about how you want to monetize early, then reverse engineer

From day 1, I wanted to build a business around a newsletter. Morning Brew was a newsletter built by a couple of guys in college who later sold it for 75 million dollars. I knew with my life and career, a newsletter would be something I’d be able to build in my spare time and eventually monetize. With that in mind, I started my newsletter day 1 of building my brand.

The day I created NFT God (my Twitter account) is the day I started writing my newsletter. Starting my newsletter early on was instrumental in my success.

Here’s what you need to do: no matter how early you are in your journey, think about how you want to monetize. What kind of business do you want to build? Start putting the pieces into place NOW for that goal.

If you want to do consulting, start building consulting materials. If you want to build a course or write a book, start writing those courses and books now. What will happen is the moment you are ready to monetize, you’ll already be prepared to strike in a big way.

Wait way too long

First piece of advice was to start planning early. My next piece of advice is to wait way too long. I didn’t make a penny of revenue until I was about 50,000 followers and 7,000 subscribers. It took me from December to September to take in my first revenue. I wanted to give value away as long as possible before taking any value. After 10 months of giving value for free, I took my first penny of value by offering a sponsorship spot in my newsletter.

Taking money early can slow your growth, depending on your goals. I wanted to be known as the guy who relentlessly gave value away for free, and I truly believe that helped my growth tremendously. Now that I am monetizing, my goal is to be the guy that gives 100 dollars of value for every 1 dollar I take.

Wait a little too long to monetize. Be patient. It’ll be so much better for your brand, growth, and image.

Don’t damage your brand with bad deals

This one is especially difficult in the Web 3 space. There are many shady projects and companies that would be willing to pay you to do unethical things like undisclosed advertising.

There’s cash freely flowing, and it can be tempting to take some of it.

I promise you this: your brand is way more valuable than any quick payday you can take from a shady project. Don’t damage your brand by doing undisclosed advertising or associating yourself with bad companies.

Build an email list

Email is the cockroach of the internet. It’ll never go away. Build an email list early and often. It is one of the most powerful distribution channels on the entire internet.

You own the list and you always go straight to their inbox. Having an email list of your most loyal community members will make it so much easier to launch new products or start on new platforms. As I expand onto Instagram, it is way easier for me to gain a following because I can share my content on this newsletter.

Build your email list early, it’ll be the most valuable asset you have.

Build products that scale

The internet has unlocked the ability for you to create products once then sell it an infinite amount of times. If I write an ebook or create a course, I can create it once then sell it over and over again with no additional work.

As you grow, think about digital products you could build along the way that scale infinitely like ebooks and courses. Start planning them early. These are the highest-leverage products you can offer to your community.

Ideate relentlessly from day 1

Lastly, ideate relentlessly from the moment you begin. Get a note app (I use Notion), and any time an idea pops into your head, put it in the app. Whether it’s for an ebook, course, consulting session, or anything at all, be ready to ideate at a moment’s notice.

What will happen is months later, when you’re finally ready to monetize, you won’t be starting from scratch. You’ll have an entire bank of ideas ready. I started monetizing a few months ago, but I already have pages and pages of ideas for products I can now execute on. Ideate early and often.

These are the core rules and lessons I’ve learned over the last 14 months of building this brand. It doesn’t matter how large your following is; start planning for monetization NOW. It’ll make it much easier to turn your passions into a career in the future.

1% Club Update

If you’re not in the 1% Club yet, you are missing out on the biggest incubator for builders in the entire space. This week we’ve had some incredible mastermind sessions in the Discord. Here was the complete schedule of calls (most are available via recording when you join):

Every day: Pomodoro work sessions with Alexander

Tuesday: Visual Content Creation with Amir (weekly)

Tuesday: Accountability Meeting with J0nga (weekly)

Tuesday: How to Build and Grow a Newsletter (for beginners) with NFT God

Thursday: How to be Successful on YouTube Shorts / TikTok with Ray Alva

Friday: Full Club Call with NFT God

By far the best part of the club is the work sessions. All day every day there are people in the voice chat working together. It’s almost like a digital coworking space. No pressure to turn on your mic or camera, everyone just sits quietly and works. Every once in a while a conversation breaks out and ideas are exchanged. It’s an awesome experience! Plus I’m in there every single day to answer questions.

If you’re not in the Club yet, join 650 others by signing up below. I promise it’ll be an investment in yourself you won’t regret:

Replies of the Week

Thank you so much to everyone who’s replied to my tweets or emailed me this week! Look forward to hearing from more of you soon! Take care and have an excellent weekend!