MBA2517 How To Create a Million Dollar Product or Service

0:05Hey, welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host Omar Zinhome. And in today's lesson, you will learn how to create a million dollar product or service. You're in luck because I've created multiple million dollar products or services, whether it's this podcast, the$100 MBA, whether it's our webinar product that we grew for 10 years and sold to ProProfs, Webinar Ninja. So I have a lot of experience in knowing how to create a product that really sells, that really gets you the best chance of success. I've also created some dud products. Don't worry, I've had my share of failure, so I know what not to do.

0:42So I'm going to walk you through step-by-step how to create that million-dollar product or service. And I'm going to make it even easier for you if you want a clean, nice worksheet and checklist that you can work on. It's a really combo worksheet checklist over at 100mba.net slash worksheets. You can download over there. It's going to help you tremendously walk through this process. But let me dive right into getting into this concept? How do you create a product that really moves the market and gets you the customers you want? Well, it starts with a very important idea or concept or mindset that you need to really fully understand.

1:22And it starts with this. Did you know that the difference between a good idea and a million dollar product often comes down to execution? A lot of people are obsessed with their ideas. They think I got this amazing idea for my business. It's going to go crazy. It's going to be amazing. It's going to blow up. Ideas mean nothing, okay, without execution, okay? Ideas have their importance, but they don't really have legs without executing them properly, okay? A good example of this is Facebook, okay? Facebook is not the first social media. They didn't invent social media. In fact, there were two competitors before them, MySpace and Friendster, right?

1:58Those two were out there before Facebook. So why did Facebook become the giant it is today and you know, meta now. Why? Because Mark executed better than the rest. Okay. And that's why they're this huge business now. Okay. Execution matters. By the way, this applies to everything in life. Okay. Not just business. If your execution is poor, your idea really doesn't look like a good idea anymore. A good example of this is like, let's say for example, you're going on holiday and you want to go on holiday with your family and you say, Hey, let's go to Italy. right? And it sounds like a great idea.

2:32Italy is amazing. Let's go to Italy, right? But let's say you didn't execute properly and you go to Italy, right? Without any planning and you go at the worst time of the year, it's crowded, you're hot, you're sweaty, you're annoyed with everybody, right? You didn't make any reservations to restaurants. So you're going to mediocre, you know, tourist traps and you're eating like okay food in Italy. What a waste of an opportunity. You're not aware of all the scams and all the, you know, pickpocketers. So you're unprepared. so you get ripped off, right? Your execution is poor, so therefore you're like, why did we go to Italy?

3:05This is horrible, right? So you have to really think about your execution is really what makes you successful. How you execute ideas is everything. Today, we're going to explore how to turn your idea into a product that solves real problems that meets market demand with stellar execution. I'll also share insights from Michael Siebel, who was a hero of mine when I was starting Webinar Ninja because Webinar Ninja is a live video streaming platform. And Michael is one of the founders of Twitch, which is the largest streaming platform in the world. Billions of users, billions of dollars. And he's one of the partners at Y Combinator.

3:45So I learned a lot from him about creating a successful MVP, a minimal viable product. So let's break down the steps to creating a million dollar product or service. And it starts with a problem. Number one, understand your customer's problem. You need to know the problem big time and it has to be a big problem, a problem that is worth solving, okay? The bigger the problem you're solving, the easier your business will be because it's gonna be easy to sell this product. You're not gonna have to convince anybody. They're gonna be like, take my cash, right? Take my money. I need solving of this problem.

4:22Please, please help me. Okay? It's going to be super simple. This is why pharmaceutical companies make so much money is because they solve real pains, real problems that people need solutions for. Understanding your customer's problem is really important. But in this step, you need to really identify what problem are you really solving? Is it really a problem? Do they already have a solution? How are they solving it right now? And you need to make sure that it's painful enough for people to pay attention. Okay? Why? Because when you have a problem that is worth paying attention to, people perk up, people listen, people pay attention to that, right?

4:59One of the things I learned from a book called The Brain Audit by Sean D'Souza is our brains are wired to recognize problems quickly and to pay attention, to be alert, right? One of those problems in our everyday lives is not stepping in poo, right? Sometime in your life, you stepped into poo, maybe once or twice, and you're just like, you know what? I don't want to do that again. It was a painful process, right? Right. Subconsciously, your brain is wired now to look out for poo because you don't want to deal with that problem again. So what happens is you're walking down the street, you're talking to your friend, you're enjoying the weather, you're looking at the trees.

5:30Right. You're looking at the horizon and all of a sudden you're jolted into action because you're about to step into poo. You're about to step into it. But your brain somehow knows there's poo there, even though you're not even looking there on the floor and the pavement and you avoid it. Right. Our brains are hardwired to recognize problems. Right. And pay attention. So you need to understand what problem you're solving and is it painful enough for your customer to pay attention For example, when we started webinar ninja our webinar software back in 2014 We knew how painful it was to create a webinar You had all these moving parts at the time You had to create a landing page with landing page software.

6:08You had email automation with the email marketing software You had to be able to stream the video and then record the video and then download the video Then send the video to those who registered or attended, right? You need to have a chat software. You need to have statistics. There's so many things to do. People are just like, I don't know if I could do this. When we created the solution, it was so easy to sell because people were like, wow, this is great. I don't have to do any of that stuff anymore. Instead of taking two hours to set up a webinar, it takes me five minutes. There's a quote from Michael Siebel that I mentioned from Y Combinator and Twitch that I wrote down in my notebook when I learned this from him.

6:41And he said, understanding your customer's problem is the first step to building a successful MVP. If you don't know what problem you're solving, you're just building a product for the sake of it. This is important. You don't want to waste time, money, effort on building something that is not going to be a million dollar product. It's not going to be successful, right? You want to spend your time on something that's really going to make it, that's really going to help out your customers. Number two, focus on your core value proposition. Okay. You got a problem, right? Now this is basically the solution.

7:14Okay. Why should I go with your solution to this problem? Why is your solution important, right? Why is it better than other solutions or current solutions? For example, with Webinar Ninja, our core value proposition was that you're able to create a webinar in seconds. And that's literally what you could do, right? You would put the name of the webinar, you put the date and time, you would choose if it's live or recorded or whatever it might be. And you would just click create webinar and it would create everything for you from landing pages, the email sequences, to registration processes, to the replay system, to everything.

7:51Okay. And then you can go ahead and edit later on. But the point here is, is that that idea is very unique. Like what I just put in this basic information and all these pages, all these parts of the webinar are created for me. that was really unique, especially back in 2014. And again, I learned this from Michael Siebel. He said, focus on the core value proposition that you have. What is the one thing that will make your product stand out and solve the problem effectively? Okay. One of the things we realized is that it's really the time and the effort that makes people not want to create webinars, right?

8:27They know that they're successful. They know they can help their business and help them get more customers, but it was a time and the effort. If we can solve the time effort part and say, Hey, it's actually not a lot of effort. You just got to take five seconds to put this information in, hit create, it's done. And all you do is show up for your webinar. It's going to really get them, you know, paying attention. Wow. This is actually pretty cool. Next, create a simple MVP. You have a problem now, serious problem, right? That people are in pain with. You have a unique way of solving it. Okay. And now you got to put it out there in the world to see if it actually does what it's supposed to do.

9:03This is important. An MVP, minimal viable product. The point of the MVP is to see if your hypothesis, if your idea, if your hunch that you have a painful problem and your solution is a good one is actually that is actually true. Okay. And the only way to actually do that is allow the rubber to hit the road, right? You want to make sure that you actually have something to show somebody to try to do, to use. Because when you say to somebody like, Hey, I have this business idea. I have a solution to a problem. A lot of people have, you know, this is what I think. One, two, three, four, right? That is not the same as you saying, Hey, I have this thing that can solve this problem here.

9:46Try it. Tell me what you think. Trying it out is different from just giving you some sort of, you know, biased opinion, because maybe I have that problem, don't have that problem. I'm your friend, I'm your relative, whatever it is. The point here is, is that there's nothing like trying something for yourself. Most people can't visualize a product in their head. Okay. So you need to create something so that they can actually try your solution. The important thing to remember about a minimal viable product is that the goal is to test your idea is actually solving what you're intending to solve, is actually a good one.

10:21It's not to build the final product. This is important. A lot of entrepreneurs I work with, they say, I want to start a business. And when they think business, they think Walmart, they think McDonald's, they think, you know, Apple. That is version 1000, okay? Not version one. Version one starts with just saying, hey, let's see if we can solve this one problem that this one person might have, you know, hopefully there's many of them. But the point here is, is that let's see if this actually works. We're testing it out. We're testing our theory out. And that's the point of the MVP. We're getting this out as soon as possible, as fast as possible so that we don't waste any time on a bad execution to that idea with our solution.

11:00One of the ways we tested our MVP with Webinar Ninja is I created it for myself and I ran webinars with the beta version of Webinar Ninja. And then our audience said, hey, what are you using for this webinar. It looks pretty cool. And I said, it's something I would just slap together. What do you think? And they're like, Hey, can we buy it? And when you hear, can we buy it? But just by looking at it, that's a great indication. Now we took it a step further and then we said, okay, there is some interest, but I want to see if people really mean, can we buy it and actually willing to part with their dollars.

11:31So we pre-sold webinar Ninja on a sales page. We actually sold the product before we even had it ready. And that's kind of how we got our initial funding, right? We first sold 150 spots, sold out. Then we sold another 100 spots, got 250 spots. And that kind of fueled our first run or first, I would say 18 months of running the business and creating a product that actually is ready for market. Now, in that experience, what it did, it allowed us to create an MVP very quickly and put it out there for people to try after they bought it four months ago or five months ago when we pre-sold it. And it allowed us to see if our product is actually doing what it's supposed to do.

12:13It allowed us to test our assumptions and learn from our users based on what they're actually doing and not what they're saying. You want to see how they're using the product. You want to find out the results they're getting. They might use the product in a way that surprises you and makes you feel like, oh, maybe I should go this direction. Another good example of this is Instagram. Instagram's unique value actually was the filters, right? They realized, oh, people actually, when they post on Instagram, they use these filters and they love these filters and they're willing to post their photos because they look better than they actually are with the filters on.

12:48And this allowed Instagram to be viral. People were like, okay, I'm going to post more and more photos because now my photos look good. And they realize, okay, this feature right here that the customers are using can really turn our business around. Let's focus on that. Let's focus on the photo aspect of Instagram. And then Instagram just became about photos and now videos and more than that. Number four, release early, release often. Whatever your product or services, software, a course, coaching, even physical goods, you want to make sure that you release a product as quickly as possible to get feedback from customers and learn and iterate so that your next version of that product is even better as fast as possible.

13:32Okay. One of the things that we did at Webinar Ninja is that we continuously improved our product based on feedback. We were deploying new versions of Webinar Ninja every two or three days. A few fixes here, a few improvements there, change the UI. That button is not clear. Let's change the language here. We're constantly, constantly iterating. In those early days, it's really important for you to just really start putting things out there. And don't worry about being perfect right now. Right now, you're just trying to get better little by little every day. The faster you get your product in front of your real users, the quicker you can gather value of feedback, the faster you can implement that feedback, the faster your product will get better, the faster your product will grow, the faster you're going to make money, the faster you're going to get to a million dollars.

14:16That's how it works. Number five, be open to pivoting. Okay. Don't fall in love with your original idea. Remember your goal in this whole business thing is to be a successful entrepreneur. You want to be successful as an independent creator, as an independent sovereign earner. Okay. So understand that if your initial idea is not actually manifesting the way you have it in your brain, the vision in your brain, it's manifesting in a different way. It's okay. it's okay because you can't be your only customer okay you can't buy your product and be like okay i'm successful no you need many people hopefully millions of people to really really enjoy your product so it's really about them and not you and your idea so be willing to pivot and change your idea change your implementation change your vision based on what you hear from your customers the feedback that you get.

15:11We made a lot of pivots to Opener Ninja. Our roadmap constantly changed based on user feedback and also the market changes. What is needed today is probably not going to be the same tomorrow, next year, the year after. So be aware of this and be willing to change whatever your business is looking like, whatever your product is looking like for the sake of success. Okay. So you're past the MVP phase. You're making money. Let's say making$100 ,000,$200 ,000 a year with your product. Now you have to understand that you need to still iterate and improve continuously, which is step six, but you need to improve your product based on real feedback.

15:51Okay. What I mean by feedback, feedback comes in different ways. Feedback can be your customers getting on a phone call with you and saying, I want XYZ. Feedback can also be what they actually do. So you're tracking inside your website. Say, Even if you have an e-commerce site, even if you have a coaching business, even have a course business, whatever it is, you're tracking how people behave and you want to figure out, are they actually saying and doing the same things, right? Because the actions really matter. And this is really important to know how to really implement a solution that works because the job of the customer is not to solve the problem, right?

16:30The job of the customer is not to come up with the solution. That's your job. But your job is to listen to them, listen to what they do, see what's happening, put it all together and come up with a good solution for them. Kind of like a parent would help out a child, right? They know what's best and you should know what's best for your customer because you understand the problem, understand them very well, and you kind of understand what they mean when they say something. A good example of this is with our courses at$100 MBA. We revamped our courses because many of our customers were saying one thing, but then when we look at the data, we realize, oh, they actually mean this.

17:06Okay. So we had videos that would go for about 15, 30 minutes, even some videos that are 40 minutes, right? And the customers would say, I like these long form, but I can't watch it in one sitting. I can actually watch 15 to 20 minutes at one point. I remember this feedback and I was like, okay, great. We'll just bring it down to 15, 20 minutes. But then I went into the data and I looked at the data of the video plays and I realized that people would watch on average, at least five minutes of video. So I thought, oh, if we get closer to five minutes, we'll have a hundred percent completion on all the videos.

17:41And then they can go into the next video and do another five minutes, another famous made that change, not based on what they said, but what they do. And it made a huge difference in completion. Now I'm fully aware that this videos more than five minutes. But this is kind of a one-off video. It's not part of a larger course that have lessons stacked upon each other that require them to go to the next video, the next video, the next video, because essentially they're watching more than one video at a time. So iterating on the feedback that you get and the feedback that you learn from their actions, super important.

18:11Number seven, learn from real world examples. Study successful MVPs. I shared with you a whole bunch of them, like Webinar Ninja, right? Like Instagram, like Facebook. I highly recommend you go and you Google, what did Airbnb's first website look like? There's a site called the Wayback Machine where you can go back and look at websites. It's like a snapshot of websites since the beginning of the internet. And you'll be surprised. Airbnb, when it first launched its MVP, and it was way past its MVP, actually, there was no way to actually pay for the accommodation, right? There was no way to actually transact.

18:52What happened was the transaction happened in person. You would pay the homeowner or the apartment owner or the person that's renting out the place in person when you would see them, okay? So you don't need all of the solution at the beginning. But the main problem that Airbnb was solving is finding accommodation that's not a hotel, that's a resident in major cities. And they, they're able to do that, allow the customer to see that and allow the actual person that's renting the place out to easily advertise that they have a room or they have a place that you can stay in. So that was a real problem that they were solving.

19:29They solved that problem. And then they solved all the other problems for their business, like how to transact and, uh, you know, Google maps and all that kind of stuff later. Now, before I tie this lesson up in a bow and recap and make sure that you know what to do. Next, I'm going to give you a quote from Michael Siebel. He says, real world examples show that many successful products start with a simple MVP, learn from their journeys, and understand that simplicity and focus are critical. So let's recap. Again, you can grab the worksheet to this lesson over at 100mba.net slash worksheet. Number one, identify the problem.

20:05Number two, define your core value proposition. Number three, build a simple, minimal, viable product, MVP. Number four, launch, gather feedback. Number five, iterate and improve. Okay, quickly iterate, improve in that first six months, year, even two years. Don't be afraid to pivot and learn from real world examples. A million dollar product or service is a journey that starts small, starts with understanding a customer's pain points and building a simple MVP to test your assumptions, to make sure that you're on the right track before you start going down a journey that is going to give you a lot of problems and pain and anguish.

20:48Okay. Trust me. I've had businesses that I invested years and lots of money that really tanked that didn't work because I didn't do this. I didn't really focus on really making sure that I'm actually solving a real problem. By the way, this is not sitting and planning and researching on the internet your idea. No, this is having a problem that you're solving, solving the problem with an execution that you believe is a good one, and then putting out an MVP as soon as possible. By the way, if you want to know a timeline, you want to do this in weeks, right? Within weeks, within a few weeks, you want to be able to put out an MVP and see if this is something that people really want.

21:30Why? Because if it's not something they want, you can iterate, you can change, you can rethink it, you can go out and put another MVP the next week and the week after until you nail it. And then you can then build upon that MVP. Make sure you measure twice, cut once. Thanks for tuning into the$100 MBA show. I hope you found this episode valuable and are ready to create a million dollar product or service. If you enjoyed this lesson and you want more of them, we have 2 ,500 business lessons in our archives on our podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, and any podcast player.

22:05And of course, you could subscribe to our YouTube channel, where now we're publishing three days a week, three lessons every single week. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. When I started any of my businesses and started any of my MVPs, it's really intimidating. It's a little bit scary because you don't have anything yet. You're not earning any money. You don't have any customers. You don't have any interests. So what you need to remember is that this is just the beginning. This is temporary This is how it is right now You will know when you have a successful business because you will have people knocking down your door To buy this product and that's the kind of product you want to have that's the kind of problem you want to solve Your life is going to get so much easier because you really hit it on the nail Remember, you don't have to solve everything about this problem when you get started you want to solve the main pain point that really gets people's attention and gets them to give it a try and give you their money.

23:02All right. Super simple, but at the same time, so hard because a lot of us, we want to do everything at once. We want to have all these features and want to do everything. It's got to be perfect. No, not in the beginning. In the beginning, we're going to keep it simple. We're going to stay focused, make sure that we're solving the right problem with the right people. And once we have that, then little by little, we can make it perfect the way we want it. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.