The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast - Online Business and Niche Site Ideas for Entrepreneurs

Today, I am excited to interview Chris Ronzio of Trainual.com. Chris talks through the process of validating, launching, and scaling Trainual, a software program that helps companies build out their “business playbook” to document and organize company processes, people, onboarding, training, and operations. Chris provides a blueprint breaking down how to start a SAAS company, talking through exactly what he did to start and grow Trainual. Trainual is now a fully-developed SAAS product with over 10,000 customers, 100 employees, operating in 183 different countries, with $33 million in funding. In this episode, Chris show's us how he got there. Chris Ronzio Case Study Chris is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Chris is featured. This comes directly from the book: Take Chris Ronzio for example. Chris started a video production business in high school at fourteen years old. Over the next decade, he grew this business to three separate offices, with 300 camera operators across the country, and netted over $3 million in revenue before selling the business in 2013. This was just the start of Chris’s entrepreneurial journey. Chris took his expertise in managing a business and founded Organize Chaos, a consulting agency focused on business efficiency. Chris worked with small and mid-sized businesses, helping the leadership team scale through the process of organizing and mapping company workflows, procedures, responsibilities, and roles. In his consulting practice, Chris noticed a trend. These small businesses did not have a tool or process in place for organizing company operations, and it was hindering the company's ability to grow. So, Chris created and launched Trainual in 2015, a software program that helps companies build out their “business playbook” to document and organize company processes, people, onboarding, training, and operations. With this tool, the owner of the business can essentially hand off their “playbook” as a manual to operate the business. Chris understood the pain point and created the solution. Now, Trainual is a fully-developed SAAS product with over 10,000 customers, 100 employees, operating in 183 different countries, with $33 million in funding. This is what you can do. This is your start, your first stepping stone. You can see, Chris took one step after another. Starting back in high school with a video production business. One business stepping stone after another, learning more and more with each step until he founded Trainual. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: Use Your Job to Quit Your JobTrainual.comChrisronzio.comThe Business Playbook

Today, I am excited to interview Karthik Vijayakumar of designyourthinking.com. Karthik shows us how he used his expertise working in product marketing and product management to start his business. Karthik Vijayakumar Case Study Karthik is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Karthik is featured. This comes directly from the book: Karthik Vijayakumar spent 15 years working in product marketing and product management for some of the largest technology companies in the world. In 2016 Karthik quit his job and started publishing content at designyourthinking.com, a blog and podcast about product design where he discusses the product mindset and which led to eBooks, speaking gigs, and cooperate trainings before he branched out into teaching podcasting and copywriting. Karthik took the brain dump question “When people ask you for help at work, what do they need help with?” and turned it into his first business. He took his expertise in managing products and turned that into a business. Now he has once again taken his expertise, this time in podcasting and copywriting, and turned that into a business helping startups and small businesses fix their messaging and make more sales. Karthik used his day job and his expertise from 15 years of mastering that job and turned it into a business. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: Use Your Job to Quit Your Jobdesignyourthinking.com

Today, I am excited to interview Steven Foust of ncosupport.com and cutoffscores.com. Steven shows us how he used his past job, even though he had retired from the military over twenty years ago, and built the business that has now allowed him to leave his corporate day job and pursue entrepreneurship full-time. Steven Foust Case Study Steven is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Steven is featured. This comes directly from the book: Steven Foust owns a portfolio of businesses in the military niche, including ncosupport.com and cutoffscores.com. In just two years, he has signed up more than 100 members, generating over $5,000 a month in profit. He took his experiences from serving in the military and his knowledge of its promotion points system and shows military personnel how he was able to leverage this system to be promoted quickly and climb the ranks in the US Army. He used his past job—even though he had retired from the military over 20 years earlier—to build the business that has now allowed him to leave his corporate day job and pursue entrepreneurship full time. Steven followed the blueprint and used his job to quit his job. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: · Use Your Job to Quit Your Job (the book) · Steven’s Business: ncosupport.com. · Steven’s Business: cutoffscores.com.

Today, I am excited to interview Rose Griffin of abaspeech.org. Rose shows us how she used her expertise as a speech-language pathologist and turned it into a full-time business dedicated to helping, teaching, and training speech language pathologists. Rose Griffin Case Study Rose is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Rose is featured. This comes directly from the book: This is how Rose Griffin built her business and quit her job. Rose is a speech language pathologist and board-certified behavior analyst. She worked in a public school system for 20 years, specializing in helping autistic learners find their voice and a way to communicate with the world. Rose started the business ABA Speech, an online business dedicated to helping, teaching, and training speech language pathologists. She started by selling a physical product called Action Builder Cards, a set of 100 flashcards for autistic learners and those with language delays. The cards are used by speech language pathologists to work with learners and help students generalize their language skills. Rose worked with a designer to produce her flashcards, which she sells through Amazon and other retail distributors in her niche. These flashcards are sold directly to school districts and speech language pathologists. She has since grown the product offerings at ABA Speech to include digital products that help parents and therapists work more effectively with students with autism, along with a suite of online courses for speech language pathologists to earn continuing education credits. Rose successfully took what she had learned in her career as a speech language pathologist and turned it into a full-time business with physical and digital products teaching speech language pathologists. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: · Use Your Job to Quit Your Job (the book) · Rose’s Business: abaspeech.org.

Today, I am excited to interview Allison Strickland of ATStudybuddy.com. Allison shows us how she used her expertise working as an athletic trainer, passing the BOC Exam, to build her business ATStudyBuddy. Allison Strickland Case Study Allison is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Allison is featured. This comes directly from the book: Take Allison Strickland for example. Allison worked as an athletic trainer before switching careers to work at a company developing neurocognitive testing software. In 2020, Allison combined her years of expertise and education in athletic training, along with her knowledge of building learning management systems, and launched the business ATStudybuddy.com, a website dedicated to helping athletic training students pass the BOC Exam, the certification program for entry-level Athletic Trainers (the same one Allison had passed). Allison now sells a membership-based course with a full suite of study guides, flashcards, study games, and practice exams to help students pass the BOC exam. She licenses this product to universities and also sells directly to students. She is now branching out to develop professional-level courses, which can be used by athletic trainers for continuing education credits. You can see how Allison has successfully used her job to quit her job, taking her experience passing the BOC exam along with her experience building learning management systems, to build out her own profitable business that supports her financially as a full-time entrepreneur. This is how you can use your job to quit your job. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: Use Your Job to Quit Your JobATStudybuddy.comSheahawksolutions.com

Today, I am excited to interview Vickie Velasquez. Vickie shows us how she used the skills she learned working in project management to build a portfolio of successful businesses. Vickie Velasquez Case Study Vickie is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Vickie is featured. This comes directly from the book: Vickie Velasquez is another great example. Vickie worked for twenty years in project management as a business analyst manager. Rather than starting a business about project management, she has started a portfolio of online businesses on various topics including vegetarianzen.com, a website that shares resources for living a more compassionate plant-based lifestyle, cheerybirdvintage.com selling vintage products, and firsttofinal.com a copywriting agency. Vickie took the tangential skills she learned on the job including communicating, presenting, and most importantly her project management skills to build her successful businesses. She uses the project management skills she learned to bring a project from start to finish, asking important questions such as “why am I doing this project?” and “is this in line with my ultimate goals?” to keep herself and her business on track, to avoid wasting time. These skills were necessary for Vickie to learn, in her career, to ensure her success as an entrepreneur. Now, Vickie is taking her skills and joining forces with her wife Larissa to build out a successful copywriting practice. Larissa has a background in professional copy editing and Vickie has grown into an expert copywriter. Combining Vickie’s project management and writing skills along with Larissa’s professional copy-editing background, they started the copywriting agency at firsttofinal.com. See how you can take your tangential skills, like Vickie did in project management, and build out a successful business? This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: · Use Your Job to Quit Your Job (the book) · Vickie’s Business: cheerybirdvintage.com. · Vickie’s Business: vegetarianzen.com. · Vickie’s Business: firsttofinal.com.

Today, I am excited to interview Kevin Namaky of gurulocity.com. Kevin shows us how he used his expertise in brand management to create a business selling trainings and workshops. Kevin Namaky Case Study Kevin is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Kevin is featured. This comes directly from the book: This is what Kevin Namaky does. This is how he used his job to quit his job. Kevin worked for twenty years in marketing and brand management before starting his business at gurulocity.com. Kevin now works full-time hosting training workshops for corporate clients where he teaches brand management. In these trainings, Kevin and his team focus on one particular subject or skill related to brand management, depending on the needs of the client, such as “how to write a great creative brief”. In his live training, he works directly with the client’s creative team to provide constructive feedback on the company’s marketing and branding campaigns. Kevin simply took his job, and his expertise from twenty years in brand management, and turned it into a training workshop that he sells B2B. This can be your business model. You can use your job and the skills you learn on the job to create a business selling trainings and workshops. The best part is, your professional network is your client list. Like Kevin, you can reach out to your connections on LinkedIn, tell them about your career change (not selling or being pushy) and let the clients and referrals flow in. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: · Use Your Job to Quit Your Job (the book) · Kevin’s Business: gurulocity.com

Today, I am excited to interview David Shriner-Cahn of smashingtheplateau.com. David shows us how he used his expertise working as a finance executive in the non-profit sector to start his consulting business. David now teaches consultants how to create their own businesses in his membership community at Smashing The Plateau. David Shriner-Cahn Case Study David is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where David is featured. This comes directly from the book: This is what David Shriner-Cahn did. David worked as an executive in the non-profit sector for over twenty years. When he was laid off from his job, he decided it was time to pursue his dream of entrepreneurship. Naturally, having enjoyed working in the nonprofit space in his previous career, he chose to start his business as a consultant in nonprofit management. Using his expertise, having managed nonprofits for over 20 years, and leveraging his connections, David was able to quickly book his first consulting clients. All he had to do was tell his connections that he started a consulting practice, this led to referrals, which immediately led to clients. Soon after, David used his expertise in business management and expanded into consulting private for-profit businesses. Years later, after building a profitable consulting practice that supported David’s life as a full-time entrepreneur, he started a new business at smashingtheplateau.com where he helps consultants, coaches, and professional service business owners learn how to be more successful entrepreneurs. You can see how David used his expertise in nonprofit management to start his consulting practice, which led to an expanded consulting practice, which then led to his business teaching consultants at Smashing the Plateau. Consulting is a viable and easy option for your first business. Take what you know, from your experience working in the industry and sell it. Start with consulting, use it as a stepping stone into entrepreneurship, then build your next business just like David did. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: · Use Your Job to Quit Your Job (the book) · David’s Business: smashingtheplateau.com

Today, I am excited to interview Chris Nelson of bondinvestmentmentor.com Chris shows us how he used his expertise working as a Chief Investment Officer in the banking industry to start his online business where he now offers coaching, advising, and courses to banking executives. Chris Nelson Case Study Chris is featured in my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Below is the case study from the book where Chris is featured. This comes directly from the book: Take Chris Nelson for example. Chris was working as a Chief Investment Officer in the banking industry. He had worked in this position for over twenty years. In his time working as an executive in banking, Chris was contacted by someone in the industry and asked to present at a school providing executive training for bankers. His employer allowed it, at the time, and it probably looked good for the employer to have a representative of the bank networking and teaching other bankers. This presentation sparked Chris’s entrepreneurial spirit. He fell in love with speaking, presenting, and teaching. He started teaching at this school a few times per year. Years later, Chris leveraged this connection to build his business. Chris perfected his presentations and teachings, and partnered with this school to turn his presentation into an online course. Chris now offers coaching, advising, and courses to banking executives at bondinvestmentmentor.com. Chris quit his job in 2020. He successfully used his job, and his relationship with the banking school, to quit his job. This Interview This interview is part of a series of case studies that I will be publishing to The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast over the coming weeks as I interview successful entrepreneurs in the online business space. These interviews and case studies will be featured in my newest book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job. Resources Mentioned Resources mentioned in this podcast episode: Use Your Job to Quit Your Jobbondinvestmentmentor.com

Want to start an online business but don't know where to start? Want to build and scale a business that will help you achieve your dream of financial freedom and live the entrepreneurial lifestyle full time? Use your 9-5 day job to build your online business and become financially free so that you can live the entrepreneurial lifestyle full time. It's time to use your job to quit your job. That's what today's episode is all about. Take the expertise accumulated over years of working 40 hours per week. Take that expertise and turn it into a business that generates recurring revenue for you for the rest of your life. (just like I did). I'm going to show you how in today's episode of The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast. The Day Job Niche The day job is one of my absolute favorite places to find business ideas. You are an expert at whatever you do in your day job. You are literally a professional; you are paid to do what you do every day, forty hours a week, fifty-two weeks a year. That is the definition of expertise. You spend over 2,000 hours per year focused on one particular task in one specific industry. You have an immense amount of knowledge on this subject, knowledge that other people will pay to access. If you look, you will find a topic you have mastered in your day job that you can turn into your first business. I don’t care whether you are a barista at Starbucks, the retail manager of a Dicks sporting goods, a financial analyst at KPMG, an attorney for Samsung, or the CEO of Google. That job, where you spend over 40 hours per week, every single week is a breeding ground for business ideas. If you want to start a side gig or build a business to support yourself financially so you can live life as you please (and not work), look to that monstrous time suck where you spend 40 hours per week. Use it to lose it. Use your job to build a business so you can quit your job and reap the financial rewards. So why should your day job be your first business? Well, there are three simple reasons. I'm going to show you why I love the day job niche, and show you how to utilize this niche to start your first online business, in today's episode of The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast. Get The Book Join the pre-sale team today, be part of the first group to read my newest book and learn how to use your 9-5 job to create and scale an online business. Pick up your copy of my new book Use Your Job to Quit Your Job today! Links mentioned: https://theentrepreneurridealong.com/jobhttps://theentrepreneurridealong.com/membership/https://steponebook.com/https://theentrepreneurridealong.com/day-job-niche/

2021 was my best year yet, with total revenue of $167,051 for the year. In this episode, I am providing a breakdown of my blog income report. This is a breakdown of the revenue, expenses, and profit from my niche websites. I will give you some insight behind the scenes into what I am doing with each of my niche websites, detailing what happened during the last year, and how I plan to continue scaling. This income report is for the year 2021, my year-end 2021 income report. For a full list of my income reports, see my blog income reports archived here: https://theentrepreneurridealong.com/incomereports And if this sparks some ideas for you, or encourages you to go out and start an online business for yourself, I encourage you to start today. If you just need some ideas, go ahead and download my five website ideas (the businesses I would start if I had more time): https://theentrepreneurridealong.com/nichedownload/ Enjoy!

In this episode of The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast, we learn how to start writing a sales page from scratch, without using any templates. This is the exact technique used by the world’s greatest copywriters. In today’s episode, we are joined by Karthik Vijayakumar of designyourthinking.com. Karthik is a professional copywriter and solopreneur. Karthik has mastered the art of writing sales copy and creating a sales page from scratch. Today, he teaches us how to get started with five simple steps. Karthik is a master at sales page creation. He is the copywriter that designed and wrote the copy for my sales page. I’m excited to bring you this conversation with Karthik so you can improve your conversion and begin selling your products and services! Be sure to download Karthik’s checklist bundle that he put together special for listeners of The Entrepreneur Ride Along podcast at: designyourthinking.com/jake From this podcast: Karthik’s special download (checklist) for this episodeDesign Your ThinkingLaunch Plan PodcastThe Entrepreneur Ride Along Membership

I just sold one of my websites for $95,000. Today, I will tell you all about how to sell a website, how I flipped my website for $95,000, and I will give you a review of Empire Flippers (the broker I used to sell my business). The business is the "Pomsky Owners Association". A business I started in 2017 as a website to practice my SEO. The website has grown substantially over the past few years, averaging over $2,000 in monthly profit. Through Empire Flippers, I was able to get a 55x multiple of monthly earnings, which put the valuation of my business just under $95,000. I learned a lot along the way selling this business. I first started the process of selling this business on April 27th 2021. I didn't officially list the website for sale until July 6th 2021. I didn't sell the business until August 14th 2021, and I didn't get paid for the sale until December 28th 2021. It's a LONG process, and I messed up quite a bit along the way (which slowed up the process). I talk all about that in today's episode including what to expect when selling your business, the expenses you can expect for broker fees and taxes, and all the behind the scenes in flipping a website. In today's episode I'm going breakdown why I sold my business, share the lessons I learned, and show you how to sell a website on Empire Flippers using my business as a case study. Download the "how to sell a website" step-by-step case study (coming soon) Resources Mentioned: "How to sell a website" step-by-step case study (coming soon)Entrepreneur Ride Along Intro About Pomsky Owners Association (Podcast)Empire FlippersFlippaMotion InvestStep One BookAsk Pat 2.0 Feature

Book marketing is new to me. I'm learning a lot! In today's episode, I share what's working, and what's not, when marketing my book Step One. Step One: The Surprisingly Simple Process To Research, Validate, And Choose The Perfect Online Business launched in September of 2021. The launch went great, I sold over 120 copies in the first month and hit #1 in the new release category for eCommerce. But things have slowed down since. Sales are still coming in, but it is a lot slower without the buzz of the launch. Today, I talk through what I am doing to keep the sales rolling in now that the launch period is over. You can checkout Step One here: //steponebook.com/

Update time! If you listened to Episode 29 of The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast, you heard all about my business AssociatePI and the struggles it has faced this year. I am turning this business around in 2022. In today's episode I talk all about my plan, my strategies, and thoughts going into the next year to scale this business back to an $8,000 - $10,000 per month online business. You can checkout the updates I made to my sales page below, in the quick vide recorded showing the before and after results.

For the first time EVER, I ran a Black Friday promotion on my insurance education business. From Friday through Monday, just four days, I sold over 25 online courses and generated OVER $6,000 in revenue. The promotion took me less than one hour to put together. Which means I made $6,000 in revenue from one hour of work. It was an eye opening experience for me. Now, I will be taking advantage of Black Friday every year going forward! In today's episode, I'm going to breakdown exactly what I did to run a successful Black Friday promotion. I will take you behind the scenes to talk through my thought process, and breakdown the strategies I used to utilize email marketing to drive $6,000 in revenue in four days. For reference, this is my sales page for my business AssociatePI where I ran this 40% off Black Friday Promotion. This is the cadence of emails I sent for my Black Friday Promotion: And that's it! Just eight emails, that took me no longer than one hour to schedule in ConvertKit, sold 25+ courses and generated over $6,000 in revenue.

$18,547 is a lot of money. No one can argue that. That is how much money I paid in legal fees to dispute a cease and desist against my business AssociatePI, my business selling online courses in the insurance industry. It was, by far, the biggest mistake of my entrepreneurial career. This is a follow up episode to Episode 32 of The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast, where we talked about how to protect your online business from legal claims. Today, I tell you the story behind my $18,547 mistake. How one stupid mistake, stemming from my lack of knowledge and understanding of trademarked terms, cost me $18,547 in legal fees and nearly forced me shut down my business.

In this episode, I have a conversation with Wesley Henderson. Wesley is the founder of Draftedlegal.com, and an attorney of Henderson & Henderson Attorneys at Law, a law firm he founded with his brother . Wesley is an attorney and entrepreneur. In today's episode, Wesley talks us through a few simple steps that we can take to legally protect our businesses. These are simple steps that you can take today to protect yourself, and your business, so you can avoid costly lawsuits (and $20,000 in legal fees like me...). Take this episode seriously. The legal world is not as scary as it seems. Wesley makes it easy for us in today's episode, and gives us three simple task that you can complete this week, for less than $300, to protect our businesses from the bulk of legal issues. Resources mentioned in this episode: Draftedlegal.comWesley's steps to get startedhhlawsc.com

In this episode, I have a conversation with Steven, the host of The Adventures in Online Business Podcast. We talk all about my entrepreneurial journey, discussing what I have learned over nearly a decade of starting and scaling online businesses. We talk about my book, Step One, and how I learned the methodology taught in the book from my real experience trying to grow my own online businesses. In this episode, I give a sneak peak of what's inside the book, including three of my personal case studies that are used as examples in Step One. You can checkout Step One the book at: Steponebook.com You can see the original recording of this episode here on The Adventures in Online Business Podcast with Steven Foust and Michael Tanner.

In this episode, I break down my book launch process and describe how to launch a non-fiction book. This is the exact process I used to get 120+ sales and 25 five-star reviews in one month. This is the exact process I used for my book Step One. Step One launched on September 1st 2021. Within the first month (launch month) Step One accomplished the following: In today's episode, I'm going to show you exactly how I did this. I will give you step-by-step instructions to build a launch team and teach you exactly how to launch a non-fiction book. By the end of this episode, you will know exactly what to do to successfully launch your book. You can checkout Step One the book at: //steponebook.com/