How much money and time does it really take to create a product?

This is episode #42 of The Goodness Squad podcast. If you have been following along the podcast for all of season two, then you very likely have an idea for a product that you could sell to your customer. This is my goal. I want you to have something to sell for Black Friday, for Christmas, for New Year, this is a fantastic time to sell products because people are buying it. 

I also know that there’s one more barrier. You might be wondering, “how much time or money am I going to have to invest in order to be able to create this product? How long is it going to take me until I can start earning money?”

2 Perspectives on money and time to create a product

1. Someone who wants to save as much money as possible. They do not want to invest money in creating this digital product.
2. A person who wants to save as much time as possible. They do not want to spend a lot of time creating their product.

There are also some assumptions I’m making in both of these scenarios, just to make it easier to teach the principle I want you to understand today.

Assumption #1

I am assuming both people in both scenarios have a website already. We’re not going to be talking about the time it would take to actually get a website online.

Assumption #2

I’m going to assume that both people in both scenarios are creating a 30ish page workbook or ebook, a fairly simple product. We’re not talking a huge eCourse here. We’re not talking membership here. We’re talking one simple product that they will eventually sell for $12.

Assumption #3

I am assuming that in both of these scenarios, this person is working on that product for around 10 hours a week. 

Assumption #4

I’m also going to assume that both people have the same email list. They’re going to start with around 300 people on their list and grow at a rate of 2.5% per month.

Assumption #5

And I’m going to assume that the same percentage of people purchase their products. So every time these people launch a product, 10% of their list purchases it. And when they’re not launching, around 2% of their list will purchase their product during those months. 

Scenario 1

Mary wants to save money. She is really nervous about what if it doesn’t take off? She cannot convince her husband to let her invest any money until she can prove to him that this is a real deal and she really can make money.

Her number one goal is to create a product without spending anything. So she signs up for Canva, she just uses the free version. She also gets WooCommerce installed on her WordPress website. She does this herself because she doesn’t want to pay a developer, but WooCommerce is a free plugin that allows her to sell things on her website. She gives people a product and their money ends up in her bank account.

She figures all that out and is able to now sell products on her website. What time is Mary going to invest? Well, let’s say it’s going to take her around 40 hours to create the content for that ebook – 30 pages of written content.  Well-researched, high quality, it will take her around 40 hours total.

She also needs to design the ebook because she can’t hire a designer to create that ebook for her. So she has to now figure out how to use Canva. To teach herself she’s Googling WooCommerce and Canva, and trying to figure out exactly how to do things. It takes her about 40 hours to then design her ebook and make it look good.

In addition, all that time she spent Googling for WooCommerce, and figuring out how to accept payments on her website, took her around 40 hours. So she’s about 120 hours in or around three months, but she has not spent a penny. She’s not in any debt. She has not spent anything.

It takes her around three months to create this product, which means she is not profitable. She’s not making money until month four, she launches it to her list and she sells it for $12 and she makes around $390.

Both Mary and her husband are ecstatic. She did a good job. She created a good product. She solved a problem for people, and now it’s selling; she’s ecstatic. So she starts the process over again. And she figures out another product that she can sell. And this time it doesn’t take her three months because she doesn’t have to do quite as much research.

She doesn’t have to Google how to use WooCommerce. She doesn’t have to set that up. That’s all done. So instead of three months, it takes her two. She’s still having to do all the design herself. So it takes her a couple of months. Over the course of the next 18 months, she is able to create five products in total.

It takes her three months to create the first one and two months to create every product after that. And then she takes a month off in between to actually launch the product and have some support behind that and research the next product she wants to create. So she’s able to create five products total in 18 months.

I already mentioned that she was profitable in month four and made $390 that month. By month six, her total profit is now $550. So not $550+$390, but $550 total. Six months in she has earned $550, 12 months in, because she’s launched a couple more products, she’s now earned $3,600. Then 18 months in she has earned $10,000.

It was slow going there at first, but eventually, she has made a significant amount of money, $10,000 for her family from just five eBooks.

Scenario 2

Jane’s number one priority is to save time. She is busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. She simply does not have the time to Google and research and figure out how to use things like WooCommerce and Canva. It overwhelms her. It makes her want to hyperventilate. Her kids are constantly interrupting her and she simply does not have the time.

Her preference is to invest money. She hires a developer and she pays this developer $1,000 to install WooCommerce on her WordPress website. So he gets that all set up. She can now accept payments. But she has paid him $1,000.

She spends the same amount of time creating content that Mary spent. So Jane also spends 40 hours creating the content for her ebook, the same amount of time, but she does not have to spend any time installing WooCommerce. And she hires a designer to design her ebook for her. So that costs her $250. So she has now spent $1,250 on her business and has not made any money.

Maybe she’s in debt. Maybe she’s not, maybe she had that money in savings, whatever, but regardless she is in the red. As far as her business goes, she has spent $1,250 and made nothing. But, she didn’t have to wait three months before she could launch her product. She could launch it after month one, because it only took her 40 hours to create, because she paid somebody to do the other two months worth of work.

So she’s able to launch after month one, but she’s not profitable in month one, or month two, or month three, or month four, or month five. It takes her six months to earn back that $1,250. So in month six, she is profitable and she makes $1,100.

If you remember Mary, in month six, made $550 profit. But by month six, Jane has made $1,100 profit. So twice the profit in six months. But she made nothing for those first five months. She was just paying back what she had spent. By month 12, Jane’s total profit is $8,200. And by month 18, Jane’s total profit is $18,000.

Remember Mary’s total profit was $10,000. The reason for this is that Jane was able to create nine products in that time and she kept building on them. So she had more launches. She had more people purchasing products simply because she had more products for them to purchase because she could make them quicker.

Investing Money vs Time

But both of these options can be overwhelming and frustrating. Right? So the question I presented at the beginning of this episode was how long is it going to take before I start earning money? Well, if you do all your own work, it’ll take you around four months if you’re creating a 30-page ebook. If you don’t do all your own work and you hire people, it will take you around six months until you start earning money.

But if you look a little further into the future, at 12 months, and you would be making $3600 versus $8,200. About $4,000 more if you pay someone to help you. And by month 18, you’re making $8,000 more, $10,000 versus $18,000. And those numbers just continue to grow as your business grows and you’re paying other people to help you.

So that’s the answer to the very basic question of how long will it take me to start earning money? Whether you decide to do it yourself or pay others, it’s going to take you approximately the same amount of time, maybe a little longer if you’re paying people. And it depends on exactly what your product is and exactly how much you’re paying people. The principle is the same, but either way, it’s a scary choice, right?

Mary, in choice number one, she chose to invest time. She’s not going to get that time back if her product flops and that’s scary, it can be discouraging and frustrating to be putting out time for four months and not making anything.

Jane, on the other hand, invested money. And she wasn’t sure she was going to make that money back. She thought, “If this doesn’t work, I’m going to have to work at Target to make my money back.” But she was able to launch her product immediately. Now she was earning money in month one, she wasn’t making profit, but at least there was this feeling of, “Oh, look, my product sold. It’s going to continue to sell and I will pay off my debt.” She had that feeling earlier than Mary did.

Both of them took a risk. And this is a scenario that so many of you face, which risk are you going to take? Are you going to spend an enormous amount of time and get frustrated trying to do it while all your kids are at home? Or are you going to spend money and have less frustration and earn money quicker, not profit, but money quicker?

Which risks do you want to take?

I fear that many entrepreneurs decide to not take either. Many of you have faced this question and you have decided not to take either risk. Or you have decided the timeline, but you don’t actually work 10 hours a week. You keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off.

For a long time, I have wanted to solve this problem for you. I don’t want you to have to choose either option. I don’t want you to have to invest $1,200. I don’t want you to have to invest four months’ worth of work, before you can start making money. And the answer to this is Tech School.

You can save money and time with Tech School

So why is Tech School the answer? Well, let’s take a look. You have access to lots of tech tutorials, all the help you need to get WooCommerce set up, to create your stuff in Canva. You have all those tutorials. You have access to me when you have questions.

You do not have to invest nearly as much time Googling and trying to figure things out in order to set up that website. So instead of it taking you three months to create your first product, it will only take you two, because once you’ve gone through the tutorials in Tech School, instead of taking 80 hours for you to figure out Canva and WooCommerce and design your actual ebook and all of that, it’s only going to take you maybe half that time, maybe 40 hours.

Yes, there’s still some learning involved. You will still need to go through Tech School, but you will be able to find the exact tutorial you need when you need it. You will be able to ask me questions and it will be a much easier, simpler process. In addition, it won’t take you two months every time to launch a second product.

Remember in Mary’s scenario, she still had to design each one of those eBooks, even though WooCommerce was set up, she still had to design every single one of her eBooks from scratch. Well, if you’re in Tech School and you get access to product templates. So you’re just creating the content, those basic 40 hours. Just like Jane was, she’s paying someone $250. You don’t have to pay someone $250 to design your ebook for you. I’ve already designed it for you. You simply drop in your content. Crazy. Right?

So if you’re in Tech School, you would be able to launch eight products. Jane launched nine, Mary launched five in tech school. You’d launch around eight, but you’re only spending $497 investment up front.

I invite you to let me solve this problem for you. I don’t want you to have to invest enormous amounts of money and time in order to create a product to sell to your people, to bless their lives, to change their lives. And to earn money, both for your family and for the causes that you believe in.

Let me help you solve this problem. Head over to TheGoodnessSquad.com/tech-school. I cannot wait to see you inside of Tech School. 

Coming Up

In the next episode, you’re going to hear from Joy of PlayWithJoy.com and learn from her what it feels like to be in the trenches. She launched her business six months ago and has made some very real progress.

I know that even though I am starting brand new with this business and I’m somewhat in the trenches with you, I’m not really there entirely. I get the tech, it doesn’t overwhelm me. It did 10 years ago. I have been where you are, but I’m not right now. I understand that.

I want you to hear from people who are. They are in the same place you are, wading through the difficulty and the tech and the frustration. Over the next few weeks, you will hear from three different women about what they are doing to move past those barriers and roadblocks in their business. I can’t wait to see you there.