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This is what I call meta advice. He makes most of the money now from persuading others starting a passive income side gig, for which he coincidentally has a st
by lngr 2y ago
This is what I call meta advice.
He makes most of the money now from persuading others starting a passive income side gig, for which he coincidentally has a starter pack to sale. While this might be a reliable income, it is in no means a template for other people to start a successful passive income business with a working business idea.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoIt's been repeatedly shown that the best alternative source of income is selling to people looking for alternative sources of income.
- avgDev 2y agoWhen there is a gold rush sell shovels.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoThe modern version of that is GPUs.
- scarface_74 2y agoOr consulting…
- aatd86 2y agoOne extra level of indirection always solves everything.
- el_memorioso 2y agoExcept for too many levels of indirection.
- ipython 2y agoBusiness idea: I can sell you a list of people who you can then pay to tell you how to make money on the internet!
- madcaptenor 2y agoIt worked for Levi Strauss.
- Ekaros 2y agoIf I cared I would probably start selling material on how to sell material on alternative income... I think that would still be mostly reasonable point of meta. Good thing for world is that I do not care enough.
- ge96 2y agosell the shovel
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- factorialboy 2y agoWell, I agree and disagree with this comment. For a minority % for whom Django is the tech-choice, there indeed is a product being offered. But for them, and the majority who might not choose Django, there is enough general-purpose advise in this essay. Everything is meta. Even a shower, a clean shave, and a well-tailored outfit can be classified as marketing / lead-gen / sales. As can brushing your teeth :)
- stronglikedan 2y ago> it is in no means a template for other people to start a successful passive income business with a working business idea. it is when the working idea is to sell a template for other people to start a successful passive income business
- latexr 2y ago> This is what I call meta advice. That’s what I call a grift. Your description reminded me of Dan Olson’s fantastic video on that type of strategy—where you make money by selling the idea that anyone can make passive income by doing something the seller doesn’t themselves do (anymore)—using the Mikkelsen Twins as the example. In Dan’s words (emphasis mine), the Mikkelsen Twins aren’t special, grifters like them are a dime a dozen. He chose them as the example “because they are of a type. They are a representative sample of a category of grift. And also because they’re kind of incompetent and that makes them entertaining”. He’s not wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
- amelius 2y agoSounds like the main ingredient of a Ponzi scheme to me.
- TheCapeGreek 2y agoCory built and grew SaaSPegasus to success long before the starter kit trend among indie hackers of the last year.
- scarface_74 2y agoEven that is selling a platform to other people trying to start a business that probably won’t be successful
- jamiedumont 2y agoHate to break it to you but this trend of selling people a system to make money where the seller is actually enacting the system they’re selling is older than the internet. I can recall online versions in 2012 - that I’m ashamed to say took me for some money - were not just in existence but popular and fashionable the way indie hackers is now. Nothing new.
- latexr 2y agoIt’s not too dissimilar from MLMs, and those are older than the oldest living human, dating at least to the early twentieth century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing
- kristianp 2y agoRich Dad Poor Dad was published in 1997. I think it fits into the category.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoThe Dave Del Dotto system! Late 80s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Del_Dotto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Del_Dotto
- TheCapeGreek 2y agoI'm not talking about selling shovels in general. I'm talking about the specific SaaS starter kit trend of recent and that Cory's work predates it - specifically because of snark like yours, which has seen an uptick because of the recent trend.
- bloomingkales 2y agohttps://youtu.be/Cv1RJTHf5fk https://youtu.be/Cv1RJTHf5fk The immortal grifter Tai Lopez lives on. I’m a lot more proud of bookshelf you see.
- sky2224 2y agoI can't believe that video is almost 10 years old now, wow.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoDo you have more evidence of this? I'm genuinely curious. I read the whole post, and perhaps I missed it but I didn't see a breakdown of his income streams. I say this because, at first blush, I was glad that a bunch of the products he listed that he built seemed generally like real products that I could imagine people finding useful. I say this because it feels like, in contrast, so often in these solopreneur posts they're selling some kind of scammy SEO or ad-spam tool. So yeah, I'd be bummed if this guy turned out to be the tech equivalent of "Buy my real estate investing course!", and just curious if that's really what this is. Edit: Nevermind, I saw https://www.coryzue.com/open/ https://www.coryzue.com/open/.
- czue 2y agoThis is a fair general critique of a category of advice that I try hard not to fall into. It is true that I make a fair share of my income from a starter kit, but I tried quite hard to generalize my advice and only mentioned it in passing once or twice (and the only slide that really pushed it, I acknowledged it was a shameless plug). If you read my writing[1], it will be clear that I've been documenting my journey in a probably-too-transparent way long before I had a product that benefited from getting exposure to other developers. This talk is mostly just a distillation of that knowledge, because I have graduated from "idiot figuring it out" to "experienced person who may be able to say something useful for beginners". Also, for the record, I hate that starter kits became one of the trendy (and sleazy) products in this space, exactly because it generates reactions like this. I wrote about this last month[2], saying "They make the whole industry look bad, and make me feel like a grifter selling Pegasus, even though I have worked my ass off on it for 5+ years and think it’s great. Maybe a corollary to this point is that I kind of don’t like marketing in my industry anymore?" Again, I think it's a fair general critique and a correct reaction to this type of advice, and also I hope that I didn't really do what you said if you read or watch the contents of the talk. 1. https://www.coryzue.com/writing/ https://www.coryzue.com/writing/ 2. https://www.coryzue.com/writing/dec-2024/ https://www.coryzue.com/writing/dec-2024/
- daliusd 2y agoI liked what you have shared. I am in similar position and tried to do the same as you but without success. So it is interesting to check what I can improve.
- Always42 2y agoOnce I realized this article was marketing I left.
- thrw009 2y agoThis! I immediately thought about Robert Kiyosaki, author of 'rich dad poor dad' I was eagerly reading as student. I later came to realize Robert converted to making money by selling his story and advice (and 'rat race' game :] which I also purchased! )
- whattheheckheck 2y agoAnd the book, Expert Secrets