Is This Legit?

I believe that the best, most long term and most-likely-to-succeed business model is to create and sell your own digital product. And I believe you can do this faster than you probably think.

For inspiration and instruction, I present you with the story of my very own first product launch.

I choose my first product as an example for two reasons:

First, because at the time I was inexperienced. Anything I did for my first launch, you can do too.

Second, because it was a success, but not an unattainably huge one.

Million dollar launches and billion dollar buyouts make for good stories, but you can't expect results like that from your first attempt. My own first product brought in over $100,000, in total. Not all at once, but over time. I believe this kind of scale is achievable, if you are strategic in your approach.

But maybe even that makes you skeptical. Maybe you think you can't do this, or that I'm not telling you the whole story.

So, let's address that right away:

I've Been Cheating All Along...

I'm Shane Melaugh, a half-Irish guy from Switzerland. I've had entrepreneurial aspirations since my late teens and a few years ago, after many failed attempts, I finally managed to make this business building thing work.

But is it all just smoke and mirrors?

On the ActiveGrowth blog, I've been creating content about my online marketing experiments and business strategies for many years.

My idea has always been to simply share what I'm experiencing myself and what works for me. And I'm thinking that what works for me will probably work for you, too.

BUT...

If some of my readers are to be believed, that's just not true. See, one of the most common objections I hear goes something like this:

"I can see that this worked for you and it makes sense. But I'm not you and this would never work for me."

As supporting evidence, I might hear:

• ...because I don't have a successful blog like you.
• ...because I don't have the connections I need, in the industry.
• ...because you're extra specially talented and I'm not.
  

I think skepticism is healthy, but not when it's used to make excuses.

Listen, hard as it is to believe, I didn't get some magical entrepreneurial talent from a unicorn-riding Leprechaun. I'm not the chosen one. In fact, if you would have met a younger version of me, you would have rated my chances of success as very poor.

The "From Scratch" Part

This entire case study is about the very first product launch I ever did. I've chosen to write about this instead of my more recent businesses, to make it relateable and relevant to you, if you're just starting out.

Of course I've got many advantages and a lot of experience now, but when I launched my first product, I didn't.

I didn't have a large audience for my blog. I didn't have a huge mailing list. I didn't have any connections to anyone in my industry. I didn't have a team of designers, developers and assistants to help me out. And I didn't have a large budget, either.

My first product launch serves as a good example of what you can do, starting from scratch.

This product was called Backlink Battleplan. It was an online course that taught a specific method of building links for SEO purposes. At the time, I was heavily involved in SEO and niche site marketing, so I made a product teaching what I knew.

However, the details of the product's content don't matter. What follows applies to any kind of product you can create and sell online.

With that said, let's get into the nuts and bolts of how I created and launched this product.