this one idea will 10x your revenue...

the general consensus is that building a business means picking a format (course, software, service) and building that one thing...

while it can be, that's not how you build leverage.

your solution is the core transformation you deliver. your products are just different mechanisms to deliver that transformation to different people at different friction points.

in this article i'll cover why you should stop building standalone products & start building ecosystems.

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the traditional approach is that you pick a format first. for example, "i'll make a course."

then you build that course & market it. if you get sales, maybe you add coaching/mentorship or templates as upsells.

this is linear - you have one product, with one revenue stream & one type of customer.

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instead you should identify the core transformation you deliver. then you find all the friction points around that transformation, before, during, and after.

then you figure out how to solve each friction point. each solution becomes a product - each product strengthening the others.

in other words, you're not just building a product, you're building an entire ecosystem.

the question shouldn't be "what product should i make?" the question should be "how do i deliver this solution to as many people as possible, at every point where they need it?"

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example: sales training

let me show you the difference with a real example.

the linear approach:

you create a sales training course for $997. it teaches people how to close deals. if it sells well, you upsell them to coaching for $5k. maybe you throw in some email templates. this way you have one core product, w/ one type of customer & just one point of leverage.

the solution approach:

start with the core problem - offer owners need sales teams, but onboarding is hard. good sales training exists, but people quit anyway, not because the training is bad, but because they can't find jobs to apply the training to. no clear path from "learned sales" to "getting hired" will always= high dropout rates.

now map the adjacent problems:

• sales people need verification (proof they're actually good)
• offer owners need vetted sales talent & not just randos claiming they can sell
• there's no central place where trained sellers and offer owners meet

the platform solution:

build a sales training app where people learn and find jobs in the same place. real-time data on new contract listings. apply to jobs directly in the app. track your training progress and results. offer owners come to the platform to hire verified sellers. sellers get verification they can use across the industry.

this way you're not just selling training. you're controlling the entire value chain - training, job placement, verification, and hiring infrastructure. each part makes the others more valuable. more trained sellers attract more offer owners. more offer owners attract more sellers, thus creating a compounding ecosystem.

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finding your leverage points

your job is to find every friction point around your core solution and figure out how to solve it.

ask these questions:

• what happens before they need your solution?
• what are they doing that's not working?
• what infrastructure is missing?
• what education gap exists?
• what happens after they use it?
• where do they get stuck implementing?
• what adjacent problem does your solution create?
• what do they need next?
• who else is involved in the process?
• is there another party (employer, vendor, customer) who also has friction
• can you solve their problem too and create a two-sided market?
• what infrastructure doesn't exist yet?
• what platform, marketplace, or system would make your solution 10x more effective if it existed?

every answer is a potential product.

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this short article should ideally change how you think about building.

you're not building standalone products. you're building leverage mechanisms. you're not asking "what should i make?" you should be asking "where are all the friction points in this transformation, and how do i solve each one?"

when you think in terms of ecosystems instead of products, you see opportunities everywhere - one product idea will turn into an ecosystem of 10 offers.