How to start a one-person business (starting with 0$)

It's a myth that you need to hire a bunch of people to make money online. Almost everyone can create a successful online business following this five-step framework. And don't worry, I'm not going to be trying to sell a course on how to make money and charge you thousands of dollars. I'm here to share what I learned from making an average of 50k per month without any traditional full-time employees.

Because I believe in rewarding efficiency and quality of work rather than the number of hours put in, when we pay people based on the hour, it doesn't motivate the other person to get it done faster and more productive. That's why I pay people on a commission basis on the profit they generate. Basically, it means that if they do a good job, there is no cap to their income.

It allows me time, location, and financial freedom, and I get to work with people I genuinely love, and there is zero workplace drama happening. And I'm also an introvert, so I have literally zero social energy for managing a 20-person team. So, if this sounds like something you would be interested in, here is the non-bullshit step-by-step framework.

If you don't want to be a guru who makes money online by telling people how to make money online, then first, you will need to identify a problem that you will solve. Because making money ethically essentially means providing value to others in some form. And if nobody finds value in your work, nobody will pay money for it, whether it's good for society or not.

You need to solve other people's problems to make money, so we need to think in problems and solve in products. Start by digging into the three core human desires where most burning problems exist, and these are health, wealth, and relationships. If you can solve big problems in one of these, you're basically set for life. That's why you should never skip answering this question: Have you solved any of your problems? Is there any area in which you can help other people?

It could be weight loss, language learning, gaining confidence, cinematography. It can be anything, basically. If you don't have any problems you've solved in your life and if you don't have anything that you can teach to people, the first step is not to build a business but to solve your own problem first.

So now, grab a pen and paper. Literally do it. Don't be lazy and start by answering these questions: What obstacles did you have to overcome in the past, maybe 5 to 10 years, to get to where you are today? Or what's an important obstacle you're facing in your life that you wish someone could solve for you?

Now, stop the video. Get your lazy ass up and write it down. For example, currently, I'm struggling with consistency a lot, therefore I will solve my own problem and then create a product around consistency so that I can help people. If I solve my own problem, then I have the credibility to talk about it, right?

The next step is going to be solving your own problem and creating a framework. If you're struggling with something, it means that other people are also struggling with it. The more urgent and the painful the problem is, it also means that most people will likely pay more to solve that issue.

Let's say if you're overweight, lose weight, and document that journey. For example, I've always been interested in health and fitness, and I wanted to make videos about it, but I was struggling to hit the gym, and I wasn't even healthy, so I didn't have the credibility to talk about it. I thought to myself if I'm struggling with this, then there are a lot of people struggling with it too.

So, two years ago, I basically decided to solve my own problem and document it, overcome it, so that I could potentially talk about it in the future and create a product around it. For the last two years, I've been hitting the gym really consistently. I got in shape, I developed healthy habits so that I can talk about it and create products and also help other people who are struggling with the same issue because now I understand them very well, and I know what to do in each step.

You might be thinking it's easier said than done. Bingo! I mean, that means it's a perfect problem to work on because if it's too easy to solve, it means nobody's suffering from it, which also means people won't pay money to solve that issue.

When I decided to, for example, launch my first digital product, I listed down the problems I was struggling with. I have ADHD and have spent my whole life battling with procrastination, stress, deadlines, and constant burnout. To solve my own problem first, I spent years reading like every productivity and time management program, watching YouTube videos, taking courses, listening to podcasts—basically, consuming everything.

After that, I applied what I learned and sort of evaluated what methods worked and what didn't. Then, I developed my framework for managing my time and life in an ADHD-friendly way and then I turned that into a product which is my notion template.

So actually, after solving your own problem, building a framework becomes easier because you know exactly what to do, how to do it, and in which order. You need to picture guiding your past self. What would you want to teach yourself before you began this journey? There are so many tips I would teach to my, you know, 15-year-old self who's trying to grow their YouTube channel because I know how to grow a YouTube channel now.

So, list as many topics as you can think of, and once you have written down everything you would teach others to guarantee the results you promise, organize these points into an outline in the order that you would teach them. If you're completely new to building your own business, creating your products, all of this can be quite extremely overwhelming and may just act to slow you down.

If you're new, I would just start with creating a minimum viable offer. Basically, it is the simplest possible product you can get out in the quickest time possible. So don't worry about creating the perfect product but just start because alongside creating it, you will continue learning and improving your product and service anyway.

As the founder of LinkedIn says, if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. So, does this mean that you should copy from others and create something similar? Absolutely not! In every business, the unique selling point (USP) is crucial because it's how you stand out from the competition and differentiate yourself.

For example, there are various notion templates out there helping you manage your tasks and be more productive. My unique selling point for my ADHD-friendly template is that it assumes that you will procrastinate because I do, and that what makes my product unique from the rest.

What does your product or service have that competitors don’t? An important reminder about the unique selling point is you should never compete on price. We aim to charge as much as possible, but to be able to charge more, you have to offer superior value because we need to link our price to our value. As my buddy Warren Buffett says, "Price is what you pay, and value is what you get."

Let's say if I charge you $10,000, but you knew you would make $1 million out of it, you would never say no, right? To do so, we need to increase the perceived value, and to do so, we need to understand the value equation really carefully.

There are four key elements to have a valuable offer perceived to be valuable. The first one is the dream outcome; second, is the likelihood of achieving the outcome; third, is the time delay; and the fourth is the effort and sacrifice to achieve the dream outcome.

Here's how they all fit together: Being bigger dream outcome means more potential value; a low likelihood of achieving an outcome means lower potential value. If there is a very short time to achieve that dream outcome, that's more potential value. If you need to do a lot of sacrifices to achieve that dream outcome, it means lower potential value.

So, when building an offer, you need to remember each of these four elements. If you want to learn more, I would highly recommend reading "100 million offers" by Alex Hormozi. While understanding how to build value is crucial, knowing how to sell your product effectively is equally important.

For those overwhelmed by the business world, platforms like Shopify can easily process and help you start and grow your own online business. Figuring out where to start and what to do next can be a bit scary, but what if I told you there's a platform that can make it easier for you to start and grow your own online business?

That's where Shopify comes in. Shopify is an all-in-one commerce platform that allows anyone, regardless of their technical ability, to build and manage their own business. Let's say you're planning to sell physical stuff, or digital downloads, or maybe services—Shopify has got you covered!

It lets you create a professional storefront, take payments from customers all around the world, and even sell across social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. And for those of you who are just starting out, Shopify has cool tools like their business name generator and Shopify Academy to help you get your store up and running. Plus, they've got budget-friendly plans that offer everything you need to get going.

But that's not all! Shopify also has great marketing tools to help you reach out and connect with your customers. So, if you're itching to jump into the online business world, I totally recommend giving Shopify a go. They are offering a free trial so you can try out all their features and see just how easy it is to get started. Click the link in my description to give it a try. Big thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this video, and don't forget to check out my link: shopify.com/OHama.

So now at this point, you should be able to identify who your target customer is, what kind of transformation you provide, and what makes you unique. So write this down on top of your notion page or whatever app you use so that you won't get distracted.

"I help [Niche] get results through [your product/service] without the inconvenience that the other competitors have." After we identify what kind of problems we solve, how we solve it, and who we solve it for, the next step is getting attention. But not just any attention! Don't focus on going viral.

Our goal is to create content that connects us with our dream customer. Start by sharing valuable content. This could be tweets, reels, YouTube videos, shorts, LinkedIn posts—anything that provides value and is relevant to your target audience. Because the goal here is to establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

When people see that you know what you're talking about, they will be more likely to trust you and eventually buy from you. You will need to keep doing this for a long time, right? Because like, you can't just post one video or blog and expect the world to notice.

We need to keep sharing valuable and useful information, improve it with each upload, and over time, you will see your audience grow. One of the important lessons I've learned is we should never think, "How can I make the most amount of money?" but "How can I help as many people as I can and transform their lives?"

On social media, our goal is to build a community of like-minded individuals who are working to achieve the same goal. It's not like getting attention from random people all around the world. While paid ads can be effective, there's something that is incredibly rewarding about building an organic following, in my opinion.

Maybe I'm just biased since I'm a YouTuber, but you know, you can also try paid ads, but I don't know much about that, so I'm not going to talk about it. Getting people's emails might be the most important step in building an online business because emails are the only platform we can own our audience on.

On social media, the algorithm won't show all of your videos to all of your audience members. Who knows what will happen to social media platforms? Right? Like if you wake up one day and your account is hacked, or they change some sort of policy, or they ban you from social media, then your whole audience is gone.

So we need to own our audience to protect our revenue. But we can't ask people for their email without providing value first. So we need to start by creating an incentive product. This should be something free that you can give to your followers in exchange for their email.

Whatever it is, we need to make it really, really valuable and easy to use. This can be a free Notion template, eBook, or maybe a mini-course, or maybe in your email newsletters you go more in-depth about the topics that you talked about in your videos. After people have enjoyed the value you offer through your free product, the next step is to offer them a low-priced product, under $50.

This could be a detailed guide, small online course, or maybe a community membership, or maybe a more advanced notion template. It should be something that someone can buy as soon as they discover the work you do. So, small enough amount of value and valuable enough product that they can buy on the spot without thinking too much about it.

Once they've experienced the value of your low-priced product, you can introduce them to your core product. This is usually a more expensive item that offers a lot more value, like a comprehensive online course, or maybe a live coaching program, or maybe a mastermind group, or maybe more exclusive membership clubs.

Before building your first incentive product and low-ticket product, don't worry much about your core product because first, we need to make sure that these two are so good that people will come back and want more. I know so many creators, including myself, making multiple six figures with this framework even before the core product.

So don't focus on selling, but focus on giving tons of value first and build a community where people can learn, connect, and grow together. Because by doing so, people will only buy from you if they find value from your content, and you won't be scamming people online.

Building a one-person business is great because you gain a lot of control over your life, but it can also feel lonely sometimes. You know you're doing everything on your own, and sometimes you might miss having people around you to share the journey with. I don't know, I'm an introvert. I want to be alone, but at the same time, I want to be surrounded by people without them annoying me, and that's something I realized currently.

That's why I'm also working on building a community. My goal is to create a space that brings people together so no one has to go at it alone. Whether you're trying to get in shape, grow your business, or just find a better balance in life, I want to create a space where we will do it together.

It's not just about helping you reach your goals, but making the whole experience more fun and less of a solar grind, sort of like turning it into a game. I'm kind of working on it right now, creating a project—maybe brainstorming around the challenges, etc., etc. I want to make sure that it's the most valuable thing that you can get.

Don't worry, I'm not going to try to like charge you hundreds of dollars or something. It's going to be quite affordable because I want to make it fun and enjoyable that everyone can join. It's almost done, and if you want to get notified when I drop it, fill out the form in the description so that I can reach out to you. So don't worry, it's going to be quite affordable so that everyone can join in the community, and we can do something together that’s fun.

Remember, if you ever feel stuck or need some inspiration, I'm just a video away, and see you soon!