For me, it was Blinkist. Twice.
In January 2015, my roommate sent me a StackSocial deal for an app I’d never heard before. He said they summarize books so you can digest the key points in 15–20 minutes. I signed up and could use the app for 90 days for free.
I read one summary of a book almost every day for the next 90 days.
By the time the 3 months were up I was a changed person. I had started investing, become way more productive and was building a solid morning routine.
Naturally, I didn’t want it to end. Pricing is usually $50 or $80 per year, depending on which subscription you get, but I had found out that each account came with a referral link: For every 1 person you refer that signs up for the usual, 3-day free trial, you get 7 days of extra free use.
At the time I was coaching dozens of people through coach.me, and new people kept signing up. So whenever I recommended a book to someone or people said they wished they could read more in less time, I told them about Blinkist.
Soon, I had racked up another 170+ free days of usage. At first, I thought that was the end of it. I’d keep referring and reading and thus, improving my life. But then…
…in September 2015, several things came together:
- I started losing traction. I read summaries every day, but didn’t use the input well. Unless I implemented what I learned right away, I wasn’t using it.
- I felt bad for using the app so long without paying, even though I’d earned the free days fair and square.
- I found out Blinkist also had a paid affiliate program, where you’d be paid a certain one-time commission, based on what membership the people you refer sign up for (with a free trial giving you $0.50).
As I was racking my brain on how to resolve this, I put up a banner on my blog to see if people would be interested in the app.
In spite of it just referring directly to the site without further explanation from my side, several people signed up for the free trial in the first week. By December, I had made around $300 in commissions and around then, the solution hit me.
“What if I write down what I learn from these summaries, every single day, and publish it online?”
That was the thought out of which Four Minute Books was born. Sometimes, you need to ramp up your commitment to something to get to the next level, and with this…
- I finally had a reason to get up at 5 AM every day.
- I would learn something from a different book on a daily basis.
- Other people could benefit from what I learn.
- I would write every day.
- If I was any good, I could even make money by doing it.
…but I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. – George S. Patton
So instead of waiting for 2016 to roll around, I started on December 17th, 2015. I set up the site, woke up early and wrote a short, 3-lesson review of what I learned from each summary.
On January 11th, I officially announced the launch of Four Minute Books. The first few months were incredibly hard. I’m not gonna lie.
- In March, I got really sick and couldn’t get up at 5 AM any more. I lost all the buffer I had built up and had to build it again, writing up to 3 posts a day (each of which took ~2 hrs).
- In April, all of Reddit told me I sucked and my idea was worthless.
- In May, I was super overwhelmed with work and stopped writing on my blog to figure out what I would focus on.
It wasn’t until 6 months in that SEO slowly started to take over.
But I kept at it. And kept at it. Learning was fun. Reading was fun. I loved writing. I would’ve done it for free. In fact, for most of the time, I did.
Long story short: I made it. At the end of the year, I had over 365 posts on the site…
…over 100,000 visitors…
…and over $10,000 in revenue.
The first kind of change was predictable. It’s the kind of change you’d expect from disciplined use of the app. And it was great.
But the second kind of change, the kind that wasn’t predictable, is what really feels life-changing.
You never know which app, software, book, person, or event will trigger it. So when your gut feeling tells you…
“I should get this. It might make my life better.”
…then please: Listen to that gut feeling.
