Business Ideas

The Hitman’s insane and devious new plan

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It was a dark and stormy morning, and the anti-hero of our story, Bond Jebakovic, was racing his bright red, high-powered crotch rocket down a small and dingy alley of this otherwise fine Catalan town, for Poblenou is where our story takes place.

Bond turned the corner and braked to a screeching stop, almost flying over the handlebar.

Up ahead was a crowd of small and odd monsters, known as Nens, milling about on the street, bouncing into each other, bouncing off the trees, bouncing into the buildings and falling down in the road.

Fortunately, the Nen cohort hadn’t spotted Bond yet. He quietly turned his crotch rocket down an even smaller, even dingier side-alley.

Bond emerged from the other end of side-alley. His blood ran cold. Twice as many small Nens, looking at him with their small curious eyes, their little hands ready to pull him off the crotch rocket and probably tear him apart.

Bond checked his Invisible Watch. It was 8:58am. Of course! The Nen Disciplining Factory was about to begin its morning session, and that’s why the Nens were milling about and bouncing around everywhere.

There was nowhere to turn. Bond quickly fixed his hair, and gunned his bright-red crotch rocket straight into the Nen throng.

The Nens’ little hands reached out to try to grab him, but he was too fast, too agile. He weaved and zoomed through the crowd, and emerged on the other side without even his hair getting out of place.

Bond cruised safely on. A few minutes later, he was already at The Castle — a sheer cliff-like building in which he lived and worked. He raced up the winding staircase, and unlocked the heavy vault-like doors of his lair.

Bond initiated his communication terminal and uploaded the microfiche he had gone out to collect.

“Come on, come on,” he said impatiently to the terminal. He needed to see what the microfiche contained so he could alert the other operatives inside the B.E.J.A.K.O. network.

“Open the ‘Hitman’ dossier,” Bond commanded his terminal. The terminal obeyed.

“Focus on quadrant 4. Zoom in.”

The picture was still blurry.

“Enhance,” Bond commanded the terminal. The blurry picture came into focus. And suddenly, there it was.

In the lower right corner of the image, which showed the opened pages of a secret report lying on a table, Bond could finally see the new plan of his devious but brilliant Korean arch-rival, known only as The Hitman.

Bond knew that The Hitman was trying to control the world by spinning up dozens of robotic boy bands, including one of the biggest acts in the world, GTS.

The Hitman had already gained control of the minds of hundreds of millions of victims worldwide. Via catchy ear worms, he had turned them into dancing little monsters, much like the Nens that Bond had barely escaped this morning.

But The Hitman would not rest until he had achieved total world domination. He now had a new plan, as Bond could read in the zoomed-in, enhanced image on his communication terminal. The secret report read:

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GTS’s music videos, The Hitman decided, should be designed to deepen viewer immersion. “We thought, Instead of just having a plot for the music video itself, why not have some lore behind it? Wouldn’t that make it easier for fans to dive deep?”

The experiment started in 2015 with the single “U Need I.” The accompanying music video was rife with allusions to a larger narrative. The tone was sombre, and the scenes cinematic in nature, with no bright colors or elaborate choreography. Images had dark subtext: one boy reached numbly for pills behind a bathroom mirror; another stared down at his own bloodied hands.

It was the first entry in the so-called Gangnam Universe, in which alternate versions of the seven members are trapped in a cycle of tragedy, and struggle to break free.

This fantastical scenario energized a passionate subset of fans. As The Hitman had hoped, they generated countless artistic tributes and traded theories about the meaning of each installment.

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But that wasn’t all the secret report showed. Bond read on:

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A few weeks later, The Hitman said, “Music delivers a very strong experience and emotions in an instant of listening. But we want to make it so that it can be part of a much longer and more sustained type of content consumption.”

He continued, “I’ve read books about gamification and why people are addicted to games.” He was studying multiplayer online role-playing games and first-person shooters, and planned to develop games across multiple genres; some would feature alter egos of The Hitman’s artists, but others would have no connection with the idols.

This turn felt at once arbitrary and revealing: increasingly, the organization seemed to be losing interest in the musicians themselves.

===

“My God…” Bond muttered to himself. “The Hitman is insane, and even more dangerous than I could have imagined. I must stop him before he has a chance to carry out his plans. I must alert the other operatives inside the B.E.J.A.K.O. network. But how can they protect themselves against The Hitman’s devious mind-control techniques?”

Bond paced up and down his lair. Then he went to make breakfast. Then he picked up the pacing again.

“I got it!” Bond finally said. “I’ll give them a mind vaccine to protect them against The Hitman’s control. I can even help them apply it.”

Bond sat down at his communication terminal, and typed up a quick message. Well, not so quick, but quick enough.

In a few words, Bond alerted his fellow operatives inside his the B.E.J.A.K.O. network of the Hitman’s new plan. And he ended his message with ​this secret link​, containing instructions on how to protect themselves, and how to apply the mind vaccine, with his help.

Not the kind of testimonial I want

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Last night, I opened up my Daily Email Habit service to my entire list.

Since then, over the past 12 hours, close to two dozen new people have signed up.

Many of those people have written me to say they are excited to get started and develop their skills.

Others, who didn’t sign up for good reasons of their own, wrote to tell me how they like the concept and design of the service.

And then, I got the following “testimonial” from a reader who neither signed up for Daily Email Habit, nor had a good reason for not signing up:

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What a brilliant idea!

This is truly an extremely valuable offer for someone who has any sort of expertise and has his/her offers nailed down to get into the habit of daily writing.

Sadly, I have none of the above 2 things at the moment. Once I do find my ICP for whom I have sufficient expertise, this will be something I’ll definitely come to you for.

Thank you for launching such an amazing offer!

===

I didn’t reply to this. I had a sense there’s a game afoot here that I don’t want to play.

I tried to figure out what game that is, and what’s really going on in the message above, in between that compliment sandwich.

I had to translate it to myself to understand. For some reason, I thought of a little olive, looking out at a large tract of land and saying:

“What beautiful, fertile soil! This land would be perfect to support a whole orchard of olive trees, given that they have deep roots and broad branches. But alas, as you can see, I have neither. Just look at me! Do you see any roots or branches on me? No, there are none. It’s quite sad. Beautiful land though.”

There are lots of good reasons not to write daily emails, but lack of expertise is not one of them. You don’t write consistently because you have expertise… you have expertise because you write consistently.

That’s something that I believe on a deep level, and that’s why I put it right on the sales page for Daily Email, at the very start of the deck copy, right after “I’ll help you start a consistent daily email habit that…”

Like I said, there are lots of good reasons why you might not want to write daily emails. There are also lots of good reasons why you might.

If you decide to write daily emails, you most certainly don’t need my Daily Email Habit service to do it. But my service might help you stick with it… be more consistent… save time… or write better emails than you would otherwise. For more info on all that:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

Why I can no longer be a Flat Earther

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I was on a plane a few months ago, looking out a window facing west, at sunset, in a perfectly cloudless sky, with the Mediterranean sea below me, all the way to the horizon.

I’m telling you all these details because I believe each one was crucial to a once-in-a-lifetime scientific discovery:

I could clearly see the Mediterranean Sea below me, looking cool and darkened. But there was a line ahead, towards the west, past which the sea gradually became warm-colored and bright, being still lit up by the setting sun.

Like I said, this was once-in-a-lifetime scientific discovery for me. I believe it was the first time in my life I had convincing first-hand evidence that the Earth is in fact round.

For much of my life, I’ve had sympathy for Flat Earthers, the people who insist, today, in 2024, that the earth is or at least might be flat.

I don’t necessarily have the “water can’t cling to a spinning ball” kind of sympathy… or the “Antarctica is a giant ice wall to keep you from falling off and finding out the truth” kind of sympathy.

Rather, I have sympathy with what I feel the Flat Earth movement is really about. Because after I first heard that Flat Earthing is a thing, I asked myself, “How do I know these people are wrong? How can I be sure the Earth is round and not flat?”

I’ve been told that’s how it is…

I’ve also seen pictures, illustrations, and videos, supposedly from space…

I’ve even been given models of the solar system, and arguments about rotation and magnetic fields and gravity…

… but I had zero first-hand experience. At least until that flight across the Mediterranean a couple months ago. I now believe 100%, though I’m certainly not trying to push my strong faith on you, that the Earth is in fact not flat, but round.

And I STILL have sympathy with the Flat Earthers.

Yes, the world is immensely complex.

It’s inevitable that much of what we believe about it gets passed on to us unquestioned. We couldn’t function otherwise.

But there’s still value in proving some things to yourself, regularly.

Not everything — there’s too much of that. But some things.

It can give you confidence when you find proof for yourself, beyond the confidence of being given proof.

It can lead you to insights you might not have otherwise.

And possibly, every so often, more often than you might think, it can help you find extra stuff, which others have swept under the rug.

Which things you choose to question is of course up to you.

But maybe stuff that’s directly connected to your work, success, or professional competence is a good place to start.

And if making sales or writing sales copy comes into what you do, then here’s a way to get first-hand experience and proof, which nobody can take away from you:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

Why I’ve been turning away doubting subscribers

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Over the past few days, I launched my Daily Email Habit service to people who raised their hand to get on the priority list. At the end of the sales page, rather than linking to an order form, I asked people to write me to say if they are in, out, or have any questions. Most people who wrote me said they are in, like these folks:

#1. “Yes, I am in!”

#2. “No questions, I’m in!”

#3. “This looks brilliant John, I’m in. Thank you for coming up with such an exciting service!”

#4. “Count me in, please! Looking forward to it…”

#5. “I am IN. Please send me the link to join.”

#6. “Wtf dude you are such a badass. Yes I’m in.”

#7. “Yes absolutely im in. This sounds like an awesome idea”

… but some people had questions. Here’s one that came up a few times:

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I took a loooong look (plus a night to sit on it), and I want to try it out.

But I’m going to be honest with you:

I’m still debating whether I need prompts like this or random insightful articles to expand my thinking.

(for example, the recent one you shared from Sean got the creative juice flowing)

This means I can’t promise I’m in for the long term yet. I understand that the concept of any subscription is to lower the entry cost in exchange for longer loyalty (like Daniel’s AiC newsletter).

So, if this “test the water mindset” bothers you, I’m okay with putting this one off for now, too.

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Each time I got this particular question, I’ve been telling people NOT to sign up. Why?

I read once of a study in which people evaluated the attractiveness of a core offer (a bunch of saucers and cups and plates) + a free bonus bundle (more saucers and cups and plates, some in good shape and others a little chipped).

The conclusion of the study was that people evaluated the core offer as more valuable if it were sold on its own, with no free bonuses (perceived value: $33)… than if it were sold with the free bonuses, some of which were good and some of which were chipped (perceived value: $23).

I’m not saying that people who are not sure if they want my Daily Email Habit are “chipped saucers.” I’ve known a few of them for a while, and I know they are good people. Plus, I appreciate their honesty in voicing their doubts.

I just mean to tell you a kind of psychology quirk. The human brain tends to evaluate sets of items by using the AVG function, rather than the SUM function.

That includes my own brain. Yes, maybe it’s not very smart. But the fact is:

1. I don’t need the money from an extra subscriber.

2. I particularly don’t need the money if that subscriber won’t be getting anything out of it. (I can’t say for sure that anybody who expresses doubts on signing up will not get value out of it, but to my mind, the odds jump up dramatically.)

3. There’s an impact on my will to work and my long-term sticktoitiveness if I feel that what I’m doing has some sort of meaning vs. if it’s meaningless.

Maybe that makes perfect sense to you.

Or maybe it makes you a little uncomfortable. After all, aren’t we in business? Isn’t the goal to make money? When and how do you decide to turn away good, hard money today because of something vague like “will to work and long-term sticktoitiveness” tomorrow?

All that, and more, is something I tried to address in my Most Valuable Postcard #1.

Most Valuable Postcard was my short-lived paid newsletter, some two years ago.

And Most Valuable Postcard #1 was about the most important and valuable topic I could find — the most important thing to focus on in your business, whether you sell products or your own services, according to the most successful direct marketers in history.

If you’d like to find out more:

https://bejakovic.com/mvp1/

Keeping my streak alive

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I’m on the couch as I write this, under a blanket, with my eyes closing and opening every few seconds. I’m more tired than I’ve been in years.

I picked up some kind of sickness yesterday. All night long, I was running a fever and generally feeling awful.

So I will keep today’s email short, but I wanted to send it out nonetheless.

For one thing, I know that at least a few people look forward to my emails, and write me in rare cases my emails don’t arrive on time.

For another, I am now selling a service called Daily Email Habit, so I figure I should practice what I preach.

Finally, I have an interesting article to share with you.

It’s by Sean D’Souza, an online marketer who’s been at it since before YouTube was created.

Sean runs his business in an unusual way. It’s just him and his wife Renuka. They purposely cap their annual income at $500k so they can take three month-long vacations each year, travel around without doing anything for their business during those vacation times, and see the world before returning to sheep-covered New Zealand where they live.

Sean can do this because he has an understanding of the fundamentals of persuasion and online business, on a deeper level than most other people I know of. The article I’m about to share with you is proof of that.

If you’re interested to find out why negotiation regularly fails in the real world, in spite of “negative striplines” and “yes ladders” and BATNAS, you might find this interesting:

https://www.psychotactics.com/why-negotiation-fails/

What’s happening in my business: CENSORED

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Today I had planned to write an email about changes I’m making to this little online info publishing business, and my plans for the coming months and next year.

But then I stopped and censored myself.

There was a quote echoing in my head. It said:

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One of the greatest clues I ever had was working at Mercedes-Benz. My most successful clients — STFU. They were, “Lid on it, black box.”

So many times, they would buy a very nice car — I’m talking an SL 65 — but they wouldn’t drive it to their workplace. They would just keep it for their other place, down by the beach house, hinterland property, like it wasn’t part of their public thing.

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That quote came from business coach and Internet marketer James Schramko. James has been in the industry for a few decades, and has coached big-name, multimillionaire marketers like Ryan Levesque (ASK Method), Patt Flynn (Smart Passive Income), and Kevin Rogers (Copy Chief).

James says it took discipline, but in time he’s learned to keep a “cone of silence” around what he and his clients are doing and planning. He says not sharing his best ideas is what makes him valuable to his clients, and it’s also intensely valuable to him.

Is what James is saying true? Is it right?

I don’t know. Maybe it is. I can imagine the opposite also, that giving away your best ideas is the smart way to go, because ideas are ultimately cheap, while things like relationships and reputation are really where value lies.

But the concept behind this newsletter has always been to share ideas that are first of all interesting and second possibly useful. “True” or “right” is not something I obsess over. I like to try things out and see how they fit. And so — my plans are CENSORED, at least in this email.

The past few days, as I roll out my Daily Email Habit service in private, I’ve been sharing links to content that is “not predictable” for a newsletter like mine.

The link I’m about to share is quite predictable, because it’s James Schramko’s podcast. It’s predictable both because James is part of direct response world, so it’s normal I would link to him, and because his podcast episodes cover (seemingly) standard industry topics.

But maybe something more is going on?

I don’t listen to podcasts by business gurus and I had no intent on listening to James’s podcast either.

And yet, each of James’s past 5 podcast episodes, ever since I got on his email list, got me sucked in, and ultimately gave me interesting and possibly useful ideas I didn’t have before.

Maybe it can do the same for you? If you’d like to try it out:

https://www.jamesschramko.com/list-all

An old Soviet joke from a modern Russian prison

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Here’s a Soviet joke for you:

A shy, unathletic, bookish boy is walking across a snow-covered courtyard in Moscow, past a group of kids who are playing football.

The ball rolls to the boy’s feet. He decides against habit to join in the game. He kicks the ball awkwardly, and it veers off and crashes through the window of the janitor’s apartment on the ground floor.

The janitor emerges. He’s a huge, bearded man, who has clearly been drinking. He roars and starts to chase the boy.

The boy runs for his life, thinking to himself, “Why do I need football in the cold and the snow? I should be at home, safe and comfortable, reading a book, conversing with my favorite author Ernest Hemingway.”

Meanwhile, Ernest Hemingway is in a Havana bar, drinking rum, with a salsa band playing next to him. It’s hot. Hemingway thinks to himself, “God I’m sick of this heat and rum and salsa. I should be in Paris, the center of the world, drinking Cavalos with my great friend Jean-Paul Sartre, and discussing philosophy.”

Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Sartre is in a Paris cafe, in a cloud of cigarette smoke. He’s taking part in an abstract but heated discussion that means nothing to him. “God how I’m sick of all these cigarettes and cafes and empty discussions,” thinks Sartre. I should be in Moscow, talking to my friend, the great novelist Platonov, about things that are real and mean something.

Meanwhile, back in Moscow, Platonov is running across a snow-covered courtyard. And he growls through his gritted teeth, “God I swear if I ever catch him, I’ll kill the little bastard.”

That’s from the memoirs written by Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. Navalny wrote down the Soviet joke above — “my all-time favorite joke” — while in prison in the Pokrov correctional colony.

You might know Navalny’s story. Back in 2020, he was poisoned by the Russian secret service with a nerve toxin, almost died, but somehow made it to Germany to get medical treatment.

He recovered over the course of months. During this time, he cold-called Russian secret service agents and tricked them into revealing how they had poisoned him (I wrote about the crazy story ​back in December 2020​).

In spite of the assassination attempt, Navalny decided based on his principles to return to Russia.

He was promptly arrested as soon as he landed at the Moscow airport. He was then charged with embezzlement, fraud, and extremism, and was tossed in jail.

That was back in 2022.

Navalny never made it out of jail. He died earlier this year, on February 16, at age 47, under mysterious circumstances in the “Polar Wolf” prison, which sits in Western Siberia above the polar circle. “All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out but did not yield positive results,” the prison statement read.

I’m telling you this because somehow, during all this, Navalny remained cheerful and optimistic, in spite of the fact he was in prison in Siberia, in spite of the fact he had a 19-year sentence, in spite of the fact he knew he was really in for life, one way or another.

All that’s to say, if you think that whatever you’re writing about is too serious for joking, that your audience cannot and will not stand lightheartedness, that certain topics are sacred, well, it might be worth reading some of Alexei Navalny’s posts from prison. They are fascinating, inspiring, and well-written. Plus they might give you a change of mind on some things.

In case you’re curious:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/alexei-navalny-patriot-memoir

A recipe for a newsletter that “VERY successful people would pay a lot of money for”

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A few days ago, I wrote an email floating the idea of a paid newsletter of business practices from other industries. Basically, giving subscribers Jay Abraham’s “industry cross-pollination” idea on a silver platter.

I said in that email I will most probably never end up creating such a newsletter. To which I got a message from marketer Frederik Beyer, who wrote:

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Industry cross pollination sounds like something VERY successful people would pay a lot of money for.

Those people don’t have time to sift through articles and such, but they DO have the assets/resources to leverage any cross-pollinating ideas you could come up with.

Are you SURE you don’t want to read whatever suits your fancy and get paid to come up with ideas for wealthy people with networks who can help you leverage your skills even MORE?

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Never say never. I certainly have no plans to do this now.

But a newsletter like this is something I’d like to see and even be happy to pay for, if it gave me new ideas for what I myself can do.

So let me give you the recipe for creating such a newsletter, in the hope that you will create it, that it will be great, ad that I can subscribe:

1. Google [“industry news” + insider].

2. Sign up to all the “[Industry] Insider” newsletters that pop up. There are dozens of them (Manufactured Housing Insider, Linux Insider, Gambling Insider, Fashion Insider).

3. Read or get AI to summarize the business practices standard in different industries, as reported by these newsletters you’ve just signed up for.

4. Pick one business practice from some industry X; expand it with a few examples and a bit of detail/context.

5. Explain how this industry practice from industry X could be relevant to a different end industry Y, the one made up of your subscribers. For personal interest, I would hope this industry Y would be “online information businesses” or something similar. But you can pick whatever end industry you want, and in fact, I imagine you can create a whole bunch of these newsletters for a whole bunch of end industries Y, Y’, Y”…

6. (Optional: pick a few other industry business practices from other industries, along with links to relevant articles online to find out more.)

7. Format all your findings as a weekly or monthly newsletter with a paid subscription. Depending on the end industry you pick, I imagine you can charge a few dozen dollars to a few hundred dollars per subscriber per month.

I had this idea yesterday because I actually subscribe to a couple such “Industry Insider” newsletters. I realized it’s a newsletter format that repeats across industries, and that gives you all the raw materials for the kind of “Industry Outsider” newsletter I was thinking of.

And if you’d like to see the best, most interesting such insider newsletter I personally subscribe to… and find out the high-tech stuff happening in the fitness and wellness industry… and maybe get inspired to create your own publishing empire helping wealthy people with networks:

https://insider.fitt.co/

How to prepare for a future in which people can’t think

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I was talking to a friend today. She has a kid who is 11. The kid has to go through a rigorous set of state-sanctioned exams that will determine his future education, career progression, and I suppose retirement community.

“It’s crazy!” my friend said. “Who even knows what will happen in the future?”

I have no kids and am generally clueless about what’s going on in the world. “Huh? Future? What are you talking about?”

“AI!” she said. “What will kids have to learn? How will that even look?”

I read an article by Paul Graham a couple weeks ago. I’ve written about Graham before in these emails. In a nutshell:

Graham is a kind of modern-day renaissance man — a painter, computer programmer, businessman, and investor. This last one is what he’s best known for.

Graham cofounded Y Combinator, the early-stage investing firm behind companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Twitch, Instacart, Reddit. Thanks to his stake in these companies, Graham is worth north of $2.5 billion.

Along with his many other activities, Graham also writes interesting online essays. He wrote a new one a few weeks ago.

In the future, predicts Graham, not many people will be able to write because AI has made it unnecessary.

Is that bad? In Graham’s words:

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Yes, it’s bad. The reason is something I mentioned earlier: writing is thinking. In fact there’s a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can’t make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:

“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”

So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. I know which half I want to be in, and I bet you do too.

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Is Graham right about writing?

I don’t know. I have heard said that 2,500 years ago, smart people were making the same argument AGAINST writing, saying that it weakens critical thought and makes the mind flabby.

I can only report my personal results, today, in 2024.

Writing, at least in my case, causes me to think more and make distinctions I wouldn’t make otherwise. Plus, I even find it kind of enjoyable. And there’s no doubt that thanks to writing, I’ve achieved a level of influence I could never have achieved otherwise.

I am telling you this because I’m finally ready — with two days’ delay — to start rolling out my new Daily Email Habit service.

A key idea behind Daily Email Habit is that there’s value in writing.

And so this service is designed to help you start and stick with the habit of writing a daily email. A big part of how it does this is by giving you a new constraint each day, and narrowing the scope of what to write about.

At the same time, Daily Email Habit is designed NOT to narrow the scope so much that you end up filling out a template. There’s value in writing, and it’s something you cannot get by outsourcing your daily email to a template — or to AI.

I will start rolling out Daily Email Habit tomorrow.

If you’ve already written me to express interest in this new service, there’s nothing more you need to do.

But if you haven’t written me yet, and Daily Email Habit sounds like it might be useful to you, then write me and tell me what you like about this service. I will then add you to the priority list, so have a chance to try out Daily Email Habit sooner rather than later.

The first online course to sell for $1M?

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Will an online course ever sell for $1M a pop?

Probably not, but who knows. Maybe it will be yours. Consider the following:

In 2007, rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz made a prediction in the New York Times that a rare, signed copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, known as the Kaeser edition, would become the first 20th-century book to sell for $1M.

“I can’t remember now,” said Horowitz later, “but, knowing myself, I imagine I would have used the statement as a come-hither.”

And that’s what it turned out to be.

Soon after, Horowitz got a call from a collector who proposed paying $1M for the Kaeser. Horowitz then called Ron Delsener, the then-owner of the book, who had paid $460,500 for it a few years earlier.

“It took Ron about 10 seconds to say yes,” Horowitz recalled. Horowitz’s commission for making that come-hiter statement about the first $1M book, for making the call to the then-owner, and for waiting 10 seconds to hear yes, was $100,000.

I was amazed to read an article about Horowitz, the top-of-the-top among rare-book dealers. I found so much in common between the rare-book dealer’s world and the course creator world.

Sure, course buyers won’t pay $1M for a course (yet), and most people buy courses for reasons other than collecting.

But consider the following change in the rare-book industry, brought on by the Internet, as described in the article:

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The Internet made scarcity scarce: everyone could see that there were a gazillion copies of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica for sale online, and their price plunged. To sell, a book now had to be the best copy, the cheapest copy, or the only copy.

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Swap out “copy” for “course,”” and “the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica” for, say, “How to write emails,” and maybe you can see a valuable lesson in the above. Again from the article:

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Such books required dealers to know more and to be more imaginative: they had to articulate what made a particular provenance or inscription so valuable. Christian Jonkers [a rare book dealer] said, “Our job as booksellers is to justify the difference between the price we bought it at and the price we’re selling it at by providing a narrative about why you should buy it.”

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Marketing guru Jay Abraham, who claims he has helped his clients create an extra 8 billion dollars in value, has this idea of industry cross-pollination. Says Jay, valuable practices that are as common as gravel in one industry can be imported profitably into your own industry, where they appear to be magic, or gold.

I would never have thought to go searching for business ideas in the rare-book dealer’s world. but the article I read is full of ’em, down to Glenn Horowitz’s downfall, near-bankruptcy and possible jail time, for engaging in a common though legal-gray-area business practice.

I have pages of notes from this article. I even got the idea to create a kind of paid newsletter where I would profile interesting people from other industries, in a kind of done-for-you cross-pollination report.

That’s almost certainly never going to happen. But if you sell courses or information more broadly… and if you’re looking for profitable ideas that nobody else in the course creator industry is using… then the following article is worth a read:

https://bejakovic.com/rare-book-dealer