How I Turned a $509 Side Hustle Into $10 Million
Two years ago, Jess Rose was offered $10 million for his blog, a project he started as a marketing vehicle for his financial planning business. In this video, he talks about how he grew the blog from his initial investment of $509 into a property worth eight figures.
Rose’s initial costs for his blog were $12 for the domain, $60 for hosting, $237 for website themes and $200 for a custom logo and header. From there, he wrote, edited and published blog posts as often as he could. His advice for growing a blog:
- Flex your BIs (bold intentions). Rose advises keeping your big goals in mind. When he started, Rose’s intention was not to simply start a blog but to create the best financial planner blog ever.
- Build something bigger than you. While Rose initially started his blog as a marketing tool, he came to understand how to use the blog to reach and impact people. A setback due to a loss of site traffic resulting from a Google algorithm update helped Rose take a step back and recommit himself to doing more to help people, which he did by starting a YouTube channel and podcast and writing for other financial sites.
- Stop asking how and why questions and start asking what and who questions. Rose explains that looking at competitors and asking questions like, “How did they do that?” or, “Why didn’t I get lucky?” are unhelpful, as you have zero control over the answers. Instead, ask questions like, “What do I need to compete?” and, “Who do I need to hire to add quality content to my blog?” the answers to which will impact your revenue.
- Change the way you think about growing your business. Rose explains “10 X Thinking,” which he learned about from a quote by Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach: “It is easier and more fun to 10 X business and life than to double it.” Rose says that if you’re trying to grow by 10 or 20 percent, any steps you implement will have small impacts. Consider growing by a factor of ten to inspire bigger moves.