A professional goal of mine is to learn and teach people who have no more than a high school education, how to build automated systems that can generate income and once established, can continue to generate income without interaction from the owner for at least two weeks. In short, I’m conducting experiments and building the guide I wish I had when I got started as an entrepreneur.

Here is what I’ve learned so far. Please feel free to contribute your suggestions in the comment section.

PROCESS:
1. Go to where people are.

TIP: Start where you are. Begin with asking questions like:
What groups of people do you have access to?
What experience do you have in common with others?
Whose language do you speak?

2. Listen for:

A. A Problem,
B. Observe a Proclivity or
C. Find Something To Perfect that people would pay for.

3. Identify a challenge you can address for a specific group of people that you can afford to test with little investment.

4. Develop a Minimum Viable Offer*.

5. Make the smallest investment possible to put it in front of a specific group of people and see if they will pay enough for you to make a profit. If not, go back to step 1. If so, go on to the next step.

6. Invest more into advertising the minimum viable offer.

7. Set aside a percentage of profits to implement improvements learned from customer feedback.

8. Repeat steps 4-7 until improvements are no longer profitable or the product is mature. (At this point, consider possibly spinning suggestions into a new product.)

* A Minimum Viable Offer is an offer that provides the smallest number of benefits necessary to make a sale. In other words, it’s a Prototype that people are willing to purchase. Source: THE PERSONAL MBA, Josh Kaufman