Idea to Profit in 7 days - how I created a new business from nothing but an idea in one week.

Here’s the crazy 7 days that lead up to the launch of my most recent startup (if you can call it that?) NomadFly.Me

Let’s start at the beginning, actually. Because you really need to know how things have been going for me up until the point I thought of the idea.

I’m a CLASSIC starter-non-finisher. I’m an ideas person. I will think of ideas at 3am and write them in my phone. Sometimes I can’t sleep all night because of this “great” idea I’ve had.

Usually this progresses to the domain name stage, where I’ve thought of a catchy name for my idea and it’s only $6.88 for the .me domain. My server is a graveyard for domain names, I’m terrified when I have to log in and set up a new email address, and all the abandoned email addresses stare back at me.

Sometimes, that leads to the setting up of a website, for which I use Divi (I am a terrible website maker. I hate details) and spend around 6 hours setting up, making a logo (Keynote screenshots 99% of the time) and integrating with email (normally Mailchimp until I found Active Campaign.)

At this point I’ll usually do some research on the idea and come up with a barrage of reasons why it won’t work. I might tell a couple of people about it, and if they don’t yell “SIGN ME UP” immediately, I’m convinced no one wants it and it will never work and it’s not “the right idea.”

Bullshit!

But every now and again, if I’m feeling particularly confident, I’ll launch something. What does that mean? I’ll send a tweet about it.

Yeah, that’s right. I might even @ someone.

And if said someone doesn’t respond with “HELL YEAH, SIGN MY AUDIENCE UP” I’m like nope, not the right idea.

Because the right idea should just work, right? I should hit publish and traffic will start flowing, people will (figuratively) knock my door down to get what I’m selling…right?

To be honest, I never really thought about the actual process. All I thought was, “WHY DOES NOTHING I DO EVER WORK?”

Haha. How young and how naive cough last week cough

Which brings me to the point. Technically I’d had this idea before, but had talked myself out of it for various reasons “it’s not for me” “I don’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life” “what if someone doesn’t like it?” “what if I get bad reviews?” blah blah.
WHAT I DID

Here’s what I did that fateful day. I watched a couple of motivating videos in a couple of Facebook groups, I looked at my list of bills. I’ve been freelancing for awhile, but for someone with THIS MANY IDEAS that’s not a long term plan.

I’d read 7 Day Startup by Dan Norris a few months back and I decided to try my luck at the UNTHINKABLE (for me…) actually asking potential customers if they thought the product would be a good idea.

So, fast forward to 4 weeks ago (from today.) I posted in the Digital Nomads around the World FB group, which I’ve been a member of for awhile but haven’t said much.

I just wrote, hey I keep finding really cheap flights, what should I do with them? Do you guys want some cheap flights between nomad destinations?

I got 111 likes and 63 “yes please!” comments. Now, I know these numbers aren’t that amazing, but for me, who has had probably 12 failed “business ideas” and was starting to seriously doubt if I’m cut out for this, (after sending 1 tweet lol) I was stoked. I was a girl on a mission.
THE MVP

I built a Wordpress site on Divi in the next 24 hours (and then I had to remake it, but that is a long story.) The site (it’s been updated a bit now) is

www.nomadfly.me

I added a payment button (this took me like 4 days because for some reason I was super indecisive and woocommerce freaks me out. There’s just so much going on in there.

I ended up going with Snappycheckout.com which is just so easy. The only thing with it is I can’t do Paypal recurring payments for some reason.

Then I set up Active Campaign. I need to say here that Active Campaign is REALLY AWESOME and there’s nothing they did wrong, it was all me. I had NO idea how to use it and suddenly people were signing up to an email course I hadn’t yet built! I had some tagging issues which consumed the first 48 hours. That’s all I will say about that.

I started out charging $9 a year. Simply to see if people would actually put their money where their mouth was — and to my surprise PEOPLE ACTUALLY STARTED PAYING. I made more than $50 in the first couple of hours. This freaked me out a bit since I hadn’t yet learned to use the aforementioned email provider. Before you judge me, I did have some things on my side.
What did I have going for me when I launched?

Well firstly I wrote my ebook like 3 years ago. Well maybe less. But awhile back. Anyways it was somewhere on Amazon and I hadn’t thought about it. So I decided that since no one could see how valuable it was on Amazon (I had 5 5* reviews before I forgot about it) I would have it as a value add for the course. GREAT DECISION!

I had all my experience as a travel agent, and even in the last few years no one has addressed flight hacking like I have. I thought, FUCK IT. My knowledge is doing nothing in my head. It works just as well today as it did then, if not better.

I have spent the last few years freelancing on random stuff to pay the bills, Wordpress sites, memberships, I’ve joined every newsletter known to man (except the ActiveCampaign one, evidently) and I know a little about a lot of things. That really helped me to set up my MVP.

Also I’m friendly, and I try really hard. I think that helped when I stuffed up people’s email autoresponder sequences, haha.
SUCCESSES AND FAILURES?

So, I failed in a lot of things, I wasn’t ready for people to actually sign up, I made an ugly site without enough social proof, etc. One guy said the site was really ugly haha. BUT.

I have been working every day on making it better, finishing the email series, and most of all connecting with other people. I was lucky to get asked to be on a podcast by one of the first people who signed up, and that gave me some clout.

I’m glad I started with such a low price and I’ve since raised it. But to know that people would trust me with their cash without knowing me from a bar of soap is pretty awesome. It’s definitely a confidence boost that people trust me to deliver on some value for them, and I think I have already — and I will more as time goes on.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

I feel like the last month has been a whirlwind of personal development and ups and downs. I made around $500 my first month, which shows me this is a thing people really want. And I’m going to make it much better.

I also really connected with a lot of people in the niche and it stopped me from my block I think I had, that I don’t fit in or that I’m not one of the cool kids. I guess that’s just an old belief I’ve held from school. I really learned a lot about myself and how I can be focused and disciplined and really carry something through.

Also all the people I’ve met have been absolutely brilliant, kind wonderful people. I don’t know what I was so scared of :) And I’m kind of bummed I waited so long to get started with this!
WHERE TO FROM HERE?

After I complete the online course component (I still have a few videos) I’ll move to phase 2, which is to make the first nomad-centric flight search engine. I have a list of things I want it to do and I’m bloody excited about it. I honestly think if I can pull it off, it could change the way people book tickets and disrupt the airline industry. I also want to partner with some airlines and make dedicated nomad routes that we get cheaper deals on.

The sky’s the limit!!! I hope you got something from this post, if you did it would be awesome if you left a comment or tweeted me a virtual high five.

Right now it’s $49 lifetime membership to join NomadFly, and I have more cool stuff in the works so the price will go up again at some point. GET IN NOW :) And let me know if you have any questions, I’m @ninjapreneur on Twitter.