Ed's Garden

BU models

Jul 04, 202511 min read

BU models 2

  • Principles

    • it’s very risky to start a startup without cashflow
      • startup = selling something with uncertain success rate/market
        • mostly talking about products
        • they usually need money up-front for even just validating & using pragmatism continously (audience/traffic is essential there)
      • that’s why we go services first, time for money is skippable but you need to be sure you can persevere into making the service work. If you give up easily you’re better off building the perseverence through a job
        • the kind of perseverence that would make you continue even if you made only 1 sale in the first 3 months of the business
      • what happens if you try anyway v
    • It’s about “completing” the business, fulfilling its potential
      • If a biz has lots of potential but you won’t be motivated enough to make that potential flourish, you failed
      • find a market/biz that makes you improve the offer every day
    • People vs Technical skills
      • people skills like marketing & sales bring faster results
      • technical skills - slower but bigger & more sustainable results

  • Criterias

    • ACC vocabs which metrics actually matters
    • tables of criterias
      • iman (the only great one I found) i - vid
      • uh

Specific

  • Ladder of wealth - v w
    • Generally
      • Can skip ladders/steps, but u’ll still have to learn lessons
        • from the steps/ladders before
      • Common to use 1 ladder to fund a more advanced one
      • Moving horizontally can temporarely reduce income
        • You’ll need some time to make the new step work
        • that’s why it’s often better to continue doing X instead of quitting everything and do new step, so you still get funding
      • Every step is easier w the support of an audience
      • Main article https://nathanbarry.com/wealth-creation/
        • The Patel Motel Cartel - collectivism in practice
  • Types
    • prodcut - startup capital needs to be massive
    • service - startup capital can be 0
    • Bu2Bu - understand the business
    • Bu2Consumer - understand the consumer
    • platform based
    • product based
    • licensing based
    • service based
    • consultancy
  • Forms of value (can mix & match w)
    1. Product - single item/entity selling it for more than you spend
    2. Service - Charge a fee for the benefits rendered.
    3. Shared Resource - Charge for access for your durable asset
    4. Subscription - Benefit on an ongoing basis, charing recurringly
    5. Resale - Get from wholesaler, sell asset to a retail buyer w profit
    6. Lease - People use ur asset for X time, u get money for that time
    7. Agency - Market & sell other people offers gaining percentage
      1. collect a percentage of the transaction price as a fee.
    8. Audience Aggregation - Accept ads to your audience 2. Get the attention of a group of people with certain characteristics, then sell access in the form of advertising to another business looking to reach that audience.
    9. Loan - Lend money, but get interests at the end
    10. Option - U can do X until Y time, but you pay me to do it
    11. Insurance - get money but help if bad things happen
      1. Take on the risk of some specific bad thing happening to the policy holder in exchange for a pre-defined series of payments, then pay out claims only when the bad thing actually happens.
    12. Capital - take percentage of profit of a biz 2. Purchase an ownership stake in a business, then collect a corresponding portion of the profit as a one-time payout or ongoing dividend.
    • Bundling - grouping smaller offers to high up value & price
    • Unbundling - dividing a big offer into smaller ones
    • Middlemans
      • generally found when there are many options to choose from
      • Intermediaries -
      • disintermediation -
  • Metas - “Fast” ways to make decent money (10k-100k profit month)
    • 08/03/2025
      • Generally
        • All of this can make you from 10 to 100k a month with relatively low effort (~2y)
        • BUT they need at least 1 of…
          • compromise on what you can/should do
          • people skills
          • do boring stuff that seems meaningless at times
          • being unhetical
        • So probably not for hardcore nerds
      • Following trends & capitalizing on them
        • Crypto boom? make crypto stuff
        • This new thing is going wild? make stuff about it
        • New celebrity killing it? make stuff about it
        • AI? AI STUFF!
      • unhetical
      • Social Media - CC to sell products/services
        • Automated/AI brain-rot channels… especially for kids
      • Automating your job & not telling anyone
      • Marketing, & Sales - especially middleman stuff
        • affiliate
          • thomas gonnet becomes rich w highlevel sponsorship program v
        • closing/marketing for high-ticket clients
      • Being a middleman
        • In the gold rush the people that makes the most money are the ones selling the shovels - look AI and NVIDIA
      • arbitrage of everything
        • geographic (taxes, employees, clients)
      • Exploiting other people’s audiences
        • Painting or generally making stuff about famous people to attract their already established audiences
        • even the “trick” ludwig did w his friend
      • building in existing ecosystems
        • phone stores
        • plugins for
          • games like minecraft
          • wordpress & other builders
        • roblox
  • Fast low money
  • ways to make money - Cashflow quadrant - ESBI
  • “Hidden” steps
    • Innovation - Helon Musk style
      • creating a new market/step or generally doing something never seen. Technically you can do this in every step
    • Buy, upgrade, cooperate businesses together
      • create ecosystems, even in software
      • Selling ice-cream? give it to your restoraunt bizs
      • have houses all in 1 area? build new stuff or restructure it to augment valuation
    • Investing
    • CC

1

  1. Free Freelance to ROI agency w oversea contractor arbitrage
    • what? summary
      1. Freelance with a skill that you can translate to an offer
      2. Make systems to streamline your offer and biz
      3. “Hire” someone to work with the system you created, and take margins on his work
      4. Focus on sales and how to delegate further
      5. Develop a better offer (like ROI) and funnel
    • How?
      • Prerequisites
      • Freelance providing your service free and then monetize it
        • Your pay are reviews at the start.
          • Build authority through great work, and start asking money only after (like 3 projects).
          • continue to ask more and more until you reach problems you’ll need to solve.
        • Develop the skills to manage people
        • e.g.
          • work for people for free without permission
      • Get contractors (or hire if you really trust)
        • some oversea contractors are better and cheaper
        • train/mentor them using ur system refined w freelancing
        • find them
          • posting on paid programs (of the service you sell) private facebook groups
            • contact admin to get your post in there (it’s in their best intrests)
        • Disclouse how much money they’re not getting 4 trust
      • Find them clients through Sales & Marketing
      • Demonstrate to our clients the ROI
        • we give clients more money than the ones we are asking from them (because we really do)
        • disclouse w analytics or logical stuff
          • like why thumbnails can be high return on investment
    • why this work?
      • Clients don’t need to employee your contractors
        • no benefits, no paperwork, less responsability
      • Clients trust the agency, not the single contractor
        • An agency of contractors is more trustable than just a single contractor/freelancer
      • Clients have a clear idea on why it works
        • The offer is solid because clients know excatly how much money are they spending and gaining from you.
    • why it doesn’t?
      • Critics - vid - you need to learn what you delegate to…
      • Archived
        • old question I asked
          • I should delegate fulfillment in a web design agency, but:
            • Will sales be more difficult for one that didn’t really do fulfillment himself or know the skill? - How can I validate the skills and quality of work of the contractor? what if the contractor suddently ghost me? Context: I’m a total beginner and probably overthinker, this video explain each of my points much better
      • oversea contractors problems
        • Timezone + potential language barriers
        • clients expectations
          • may not expect subcontracting even though u are a CONTRACTOR AGENCY
          • Ethical considerations - some people think it’s exploitation
      • sources
    • Sources
  2. CC - teaching how you made/solved X
    • One-person biz model
    • In the gold rush the people that makes the most money are the ones selling the shovels - look AI and NVIDIA
  3. offer digital content/services
    • How?
      • Advice on skool
        • Focus on getting 5 people that trust you, make them try your product (even for free), gain feedback, build a better product, sell at scale
    • Examples
      • courses
      • art
      • private communities
  4. Selling shovels - optimizing popular things
    • Optimizing how…
      • people run ads (business in particular?)

2

  • affiliate marketing - marketing to sell other people stuff
    • others do fullfillme
    • fonte ali abdal
    • thomas gonnet becomes rich w highlevel sponsorship program v
  • dev-code coaching/Tutoring/Mentoring
  • Investing
  • franchising
    • buy
    • make
      • Same product & services
      • Fees & Royalties
      • training
        • Franchisees receive training and support in implementing the franchisor’s business systems, processes, and standards.
  • e-commerce - sell anything at your own discretion
    • what? - owning marketplace where u sell ur stuff and others’
    • the platform
      • start - shopify or etsy are preferred for less initial cost
      • long term - custom e-commerce for no fees and full control

Less good

  • more info

    • sorted by relevancy or how probable it’s you doing it
    • the stuff you do is after the ”-” unless it’s written “they”
    • fullfillment
      • the process by which the product is delivered to the customer without any significant delay or problems
        • inventory
        • packing and Quality Control
        • delivery to client and logistics
          • tracking and tracing
          • customer support and Refunds

  • SMMA

  • Copywriting/ghostwriting

  • Middleman based

    • remote seller/appointment setter - fonte
      • what?
        • getting employed… to try to schedule sales calls for your boss or to make them yourself and then getting a percentage (usually 4% or low in general) out of positive sales calls
      • why? a way to maybe get mentored while learning sales
    • matching employees with businesses

  • Dropshipping - buy when client ask while supplier do fullfillment

    • u tell supplier (agency that assemble ur product) to craft it the way you want & set a wholesale price
    • When customer buy u buy the product at the wholesale price but sell it with the price you decided to put let’s say on ali-express
    • shipping times depends on supplier

  • Amz FBA - amzn inventory, pack and ship your physical product

    • you send the already bought product to amazon warehouses where they store the product until it’s sold and then they deliver it
    • it’s like investing because you need to buy the product before sending it to amz

  • Amz Handmade - supporter service dedicated to “crafters”

    • gives tools to customize the product for the customer and to craft a better deal

  • Amz Multi-Channel Fulfillment MCF

    • amazon manages fullfilment from ur stores
    • if you seel from multiple platforms amazon connects to them and handles the fullfillment

  • Amz Seller-Fulfilled Prime SFP - inventory, packing & prime shipping

    • but you get your product to show on amazon and pay a fee for that
    • need to meet certain performance criteria set by Amazon

  • Amz Merchant Fulfilled Network MFN - SFP w no prime/criteria to meet

  • Self-Fulfiller - u manage all fullfillment without third parties

    • no amazon, ali express tos services to respect

less

  • Services
    • shopify - integrates well with e-commerce dropshipping based agencies

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