Info businesses are going through a rough patch right now. People like Iman Ghadzhi and Andrew Tate still have an audience, but we don’t see a lot of new, young people entering the space. The internet feels weirdly devoid of blogs, at least in the anglosphere. Social media has also made things weird. It’s easier than ever to get banned, and harder than ever to get a following. Only those who are consistent and have been around for a while are experiencing success. To make matters worse, search engines have compressed the bottom 90% of websites into a single low-earning group. If you’re online in the 2020s, it can seem as though the info business is dead. But it isn’t. Info content is still one of the best ways to make money online, it’s just dramatically overlooked and misunderstood. Here’s what’s happening and how you can win.
The Info Business Has Become Globalized
This began to happen during COVID, and now the transition is complete. A lot of content creators are going broke because they live in countries where content creation is not valuable enough to make the cost of living affordable. Only the big guys at the top remain. This is good news for people living around the world. Globally, there is a massive info power vacuum. People who pounce have the opportunity to get rich.
The 1% Will Pay for Quality Info
1% of 9 billion people is 90 million people. We know there are at least 8 billion people on this planet. There are a lot of extremely wealthy people out there who are willing to pay a lot of money for fantastic information. The beauty of the modern internet age is that if you can provide results over an extended period of time, you can write your ticket. Sure, AI might steal some of your market share. But information that remains behind a paywall or part of niche community is likely to always have value. Remember, someone has to feed data to the AI. I see AI precipitating the “death” of Western content creators. But I don’t see people in poor countries suffering as a result of the power vacuum that’s being left behind. This means that while courses might not be worth $1,000 anymore…they might be worth a cool $200-300. This is a lot of money if you’re living in Latin America or South East Asia and working on your phone.
Affiliate Marketing Works in All Income Brackets
Everyone buys stuff online. Everyone likes using coupons to get discounts. If you can gain an audience, you can promote stuff to them. It’s up to you whether you want to go broad and low-ticket, or niche down for more high-ticket offers. Me personally, I like niches that I can understand easily. Self-improvement, luxury fashion, etc. But affiliate marketing works on everyone. It’s just about attaching links to content. How much money you make is all down to statistics. The better you are at getting traffic and selling things, the more money you make.
Search Is Less Reliable Due To Increased Competition
You’re not only competing with more writers than ever, but you’re also competing with AI tools. Search is no longer a super reliable way to get traffic if you’re a new writer. You need to be on social media, and you need to be conscious of the fact that writing too much is a fast way to end up going nowhere. You need to create a steady flow of traffic to your content, not just put articles out there. But you can still beat them with elbow grease and discipline.
Most people aren’t willing to write 100s of articles
And this is where you can snag a competitive advantage for yourself. If you’re willing to sit down and write about 500 articles, you can be rich, by global standards. It doesn’t matter if AI has made it easier to write. Promoting your blog is a full-time job in and of itself. If you don’t do it right, you’ll flounder. Most people don’t have the discipline to prompt 500 articles, let alone write them. So if you can write 500 articles, you’re living in a dream world. If you take the time to actually self-promote, you’re highly likely to get amazing results. But you have to be in the top 1% nowadays.
There’s a New Sucker Born Every Day
It’s honestly quite true that the vast majority of people are going to be easier to scam than to sell to. This is because as I stated, most people are unwilling to work hard. Hard work and proper planning are pretty much the only ways to solve your problems. But the masses don’t want to hear that. They want to hear about a nonexistent magic pill. This is why I decided to build my website for winners. But not all of us can target winners. When targeting the masses, remember that there’s a new sucker born every single day.
You Only Need Your Phone, and Maybe a Whiteboard for an Info Business
You can make short videos on your phone. You can write WordPress posts on your phone. You can post to social media on your phone. You might need an internet cafe to set up certain aspects of your online business, but if times get hard, you can always run an info business with your phone only.
You Can Dropship Your Own Product
Unless you’re super rich, I wouldn’t get too involved in producing my own product. But drop shipping is a form of affiliate marketing. If you can bring traffic to one place, you can bring it to the next. This means that drop shipping will work if you are able to garner a large enough audience. Just make sure to sell stuff that’s actually in demand.
Short Video Converts Well
The problem with short video is that on its own, its low-value. But if you combine short video with other forms of content creation, you can build a trusted brand or personality. I personally think content creators, contrary to popular advice, should stick to blogging and short-form video. Why? Because these content formats are the most flexible. Long-form content is currently dominated by YouTube. If you lose your channel, your whole business is screwed. You can put short video on multiple billion+ user platforms.
The bulk of the money is in increasing your RPM
The difference in earnings caused by increasing RPM from $200 to $400 per thousand views is greater than going from 20,000 views to 30,000 views. There’s a lot more money in increasing the value of your traffic than in having a lot of traffic. Keep this in mind as you build your online business. This is also why having your own website is the best thing.
But you still need traffic
If your traffic goes down to 0, it doesn’t matter what your RPM (revenue per mille) is. You need traffic, and you need your traffic to be immense and stable. The best way to do this is to have a lot of content and be visible across multiple social media platforms for years. This is what gives you a fighting chance in search. You’ll also have a brand name. After a while, you should be getting direct visitors to your blog.
You need to aim for the top 1%
We live in really volatile world. Customers also don’t give a rat’s ass about you. If you want to build an online business that survives, you need to aim to be in the top 1%, bare minimum. Anything else is honestly nonfunctional and unsafe. Ideally, you should have about $1.5M to your name by your 30s if you’re someone who’s truly skilled. Meaning you need to be wealthier than 99.9% of people to consider yourself established online. Don’t worry, I’m not sure I’m “truly skilled. That being said, you should at least aim to be in the top 1% of wealthy people in your country by 30 if you’re making your money online. That’s pretty much the bare minimum if you put in the time and effort.
The competition from rich countries won’t come back
This is the good news. People from rich countries probably won’t come back to content creation for a while. If they do, they’re going to go big. This is because one of the primary drivers for building wealth is gaining status. If you build a blog or livestreaming empire that gets you to the top 1% of asset holders (around $1.2M by 40), in the USA, you’re going to find that you’re simply an above-average earner. But $1.2M is nothing to scoff at. It still takes work. My prediction is that people from wealthy countries will focus on ecommerce, local businesses, and private equity.
Info businesses aren’t dead. But you need to be prepared to work your butt off if you want to own one. It doesn’t fly to simply be an “ok” businessperson anymore. You need to do what it takes to get to the top. It sounds depressing but think about it rationally. Your competition is made up of the wealthiest people on planet Earth. They have people working for them. What can you hope to achieve in the globalized battlefield of the internet if you aren’t aiming to be in the top 1% of asset holders? Unfortunately, this is a do-or-die kind of thing. The good news is that if you do it, you’ll be living a life beyond your wildest dreams. Being wealthy and time-rich is nothing to scoff at. Very few, if any, people will get to experience that in their lifetimes.
Thanks for paying attention.
