647: How to Start an Online Directory as a Side Hustle

0:00:04 If you’ve got weekend plans you might want to clear on because you’re going to take action
0:00:05 on this episode.
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:07 What’s up?
0:00:08 Nick Loper here.
0:00:09 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:12 It’s the business podcast you can actually apply today.
0:00:17 We’re exploring the unique side hustle of online directories, why they’re a great starter
0:00:22 online side hustle, how to come up with your first directory idea, build the thing out
0:00:23 and start making money.
0:00:26 Now, we’ve got a little bit of experience in this space, but nothing like today’s guest
0:00:31 who is a master at quickly building and marketing these little side projects, launching 30 in
0:00:38 the past year or so, monetizing a dozen of them and even selling one, which was all GPTS.co
0:00:42 for a five figure exit from johnrush.me.
0:00:43 John Rush, welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:45 Thank you for having me, Nick.
0:00:46 I’m ready to share.
0:00:47 All right.
0:00:48 I’m excited for this one.
0:00:49 Start us off with the pitch.
0:00:51 Give me the elevator pitch for why directories.
0:00:55 How come you’ve been investing so much time, effort and energy into them in the last year?
0:01:00 The most scarce resource of the future and today’s attention, and the best way to win
0:01:06 attention is to see what people search for and then have your products and services shown
0:01:08 up on the search results.
0:01:14 And then I had this idea that maybe if the search will be more and more polluted with
0:01:19 AI generated content, eventually people will want to find places to search for things where
0:01:27 they trust the curation, they trust the the author who has put the time and expertise to
0:01:29 build up this list.
0:01:35 So then I thought like the directories will really thrive in a world of infinite choice
0:01:42 where users don’t trust the former ways of searching for things such as Google and other
0:01:43 places.
0:01:49 And they will rather trust a place that focuses only on one type of item and knows everything
0:01:50 about that.
0:01:51 Okay.
0:01:55 So the idea is to become almost a mini Google in a way for a specific topic.
0:01:56 Yeah.
0:01:57 Okay.
0:01:58 All right.
0:01:59 I like that.
0:02:00 And that’s kind of the game that I’ve been trying to play in the side hustle space for
0:02:01 a long time.
0:02:04 Like, hey, you know, we’ve become the go-to resource and, you know, one of the challenges
0:02:10 has been historically relied heavily on Google for that initial traffic.
0:02:15 It’s great if people know who you are, but it’s harder to kind of get that initial traction
0:02:16 in the first place.
0:02:21 Finding success, still marketing through SEO, still finding, you know, that initial,
0:02:25 you know, no-like and trust factor through and discoverability through Google.
0:02:31 It’s getting harder and harder for SaaS projects, and it’s getting easier and easier for directories.
0:02:38 Because I see that the patron people have with the search, when they search for something
0:02:43 where there is a large number of items to choose from, their typical patron is that
0:02:45 they’re not searching for the answer.
0:02:48 They’re searching for a place where they will find the thing.
0:02:51 So they’re kind of searching for directories.
0:02:52 They don’t think about that.
0:02:58 But in reality, people search for directories for places where they can have this rich type
0:03:05 of content where every item has reviews or ratings or information around it or comments.
0:03:09 So I think that game is just getting easier and better and better.
0:03:15 I see huge growth on SEO traffic for my directories, and I have serious drop on SEO traffic
0:03:20 for SaaS projects, because SaaS projects usually drive traffic through blogs.
0:03:26 And the blog articles are not doing well now, because so many people can easily generate
0:03:32 them with AI, and some say AI blog posts are low-quality, but, you know, they do something
0:03:33 else.
0:03:35 They just take good blog posts, and they rewrite it with AI.
0:03:39 Now it’s good quality, because it’s just the same blog posts rewritten, and you cannot
0:03:42 spot those rewrites, right?
0:03:43 Unfortunately, not yet.
0:03:45 So here’s my theory.
0:03:49 I’m going to go off on a little tangent, and then we’re going to bring it back.
0:03:56 My theory and my hope is that even in an AI-driven world, there’s got to be some benefit to being
0:04:02 a primary source creator, like to scooping a story, to creating a firsthand review, even
0:04:06 if eventually that ends up getting scraped and crawled and regurgitated by a million
0:04:07 different AI tools.
0:04:08 That’s fine.
0:04:12 It’s like, you know, there’s some frustration around that, but there’s still got to be…
0:04:15 There’s got to create this stuff, right, and there’s got to be some benefit of doing that.
0:04:18 Now I want to pitch you on my idea.
0:04:22 So historically, lots of, like, listical type of posts.
0:04:26 That’s side hustle ideas of 2024 or something like that, right?
0:04:29 What I would like to build and what’s kind of been on this project radar is, like, the
0:04:35 side hustle ideas directly, like, everything we’ve ever covered, you know, in one easily
0:04:41 sortable, you know, maybe it has, like, earning power and a degree of difficulty, and so your
0:04:45 argument is, like, you know, rather than that traditional, listical, 25 best side hustles
0:04:50 of the year type of content, building out the database, like the directory of side hustle
0:04:54 ideas, like, that could be a different type of project, or that could be a new way to
0:04:56 capture SEO and visitors.
0:05:02 Yeah, historically, nearly every directory or database of items that managed to survive
0:05:09 for several years and kept improving its content has worn and driving a lot of traffic.
0:05:12 And I’ve been researching this a lot, like, I’ve been researching their traffic and the
0:05:16 growth, and it’s insane, the amount of traffic going into these directories.
0:05:21 So most people don’t even realize they actually use those directories, because at some point,
0:05:26 your director will not look like a directory, it will be like a marketplace or a place where
0:05:27 you can put items.
0:05:30 For example, even Craigslist is directory, right?
0:05:31 Even Airbnb is a directory, right?
0:05:37 Like, people think that AI is going to change everything, and all content game will go to
0:05:40 zero, because AI will just answer your question right away.
0:05:45 I don’t think that will be the reality, because a lot of questions have no answer, like, AI
0:05:49 will answer what’s one plus one, and you will trust it.
0:05:53 But if you ask AI, what’s the best place to go with my girlfriend, for example, like,
0:05:58 whatever answer you get from AI, you will not trust it, because it’s it’s a topic nobody
0:05:59 has the answer for.
0:06:05 And then what you actually want AI to do is to say, look, here in your town, I think this
0:06:06 is the best place.
0:06:13 And here’s the link to the to the directory of the places where I researched this.
0:06:18 And what you would probably do, you would click on that link and go and verify yourself
0:06:25 why this is a good place, and and continue your search there versus using, you know,
0:06:26 Chatterby or AI.
0:06:33 So I think from this point, directories might be the only content project that will survive,
0:06:38 because most of the other things, they can be hidden behind the AI chats and users won’t
0:06:41 really give attention where it’s coming from.
0:06:45 Like there will be maybe links and citations, but you won’t click because the answer is
0:06:46 good enough.
0:06:51 But for directory type of items, you will always wonder why and what else is there.
0:06:55 Yeah, that’s a really interesting, you know, okay, this could be a small scale weekend
0:07:00 site project, or it could be some of the biggest websites in the world, like a trip advisor,
0:07:04 you know, a directory of things to do on your vacation, places to stay.
0:07:05 Yes, exactly.
0:07:06 Yeah.
0:07:09 You know, Upwork and Fiverr, like, you know, directories of qualified freelancers.
0:07:10 Yes.
0:07:14 There’s like side hustle directory, and then there’s like, this could turn into a really
0:07:15 substantial business type of directory.
0:07:20 Now you built dozens of these things, like talk to me through the idea of generation,
0:07:24 probably like, how do you figure out what, what to build or where do you recommend people
0:07:25 start there?
0:07:26 There are two ways to account with ideas.
0:07:32 So one way is, if you’re an expert in something, and you know something really, really well,
0:07:37 I think I really believe that high quality data will win no matter what.
0:07:41 So if you know something really well, you can build directory out of that.
0:07:46 But most people don’t really have the, the super expert knowledge on the topic.
0:07:50 So then if you don’t have that, then the best way is to go and check on Google what people
0:07:51 are searching.
0:07:55 So the best way is to go to the Google itself and enter a keyword.
0:08:02 For example, you enter dogs, you say like dogs, and then you will see shelters for dogs or
0:08:05 food for dogs or trainings for dogs.
0:08:08 And now you have three director ideas, right?
0:08:14 Because probably there is no directory that has a lot of trainings for dogs and all the
0:08:18 ways you can teach all different kinds of dogs or et cetera.
0:08:20 So Google helps me a lot.
0:08:23 And then you can use other places where people search for things.
0:08:28 So you can go to Quora and see if people ask, for example, if there is one article there
0:08:33 that says, what’s the best hummer to buy, for example?
0:08:36 And then you will see a lot of answers in the comments.
0:08:41 And if all the answers are different, then it’s pretty much a directory that was just
0:08:45 created under this article, because in some cases, everybody can answer the same thing.
0:08:47 Like what’s the best payment solution?
0:08:48 People gonna say Stripe.
0:08:52 There’s no point of making directory for that because you’ll have Stripe and other items
0:08:53 nobody cares about.
0:08:59 But in this case, you have the items and you can see that people debate whether one item
0:09:00 is better than the other.
0:09:06 And I would say that such debate is just gold for making directory because A, you have the
0:09:13 idea and B, which is even more important, you understand how exactly people compare these
0:09:16 items because it’s not clear.
0:09:19 And this part is more important than most people think for a directory.
0:09:25 So you have to be really smart on what exactly you present about the item because people
0:09:27 don’t come there just to see the list.
0:09:32 People come there to see the list and also to see like every item has a lot of stuff
0:09:33 about it.
0:09:37 But what are the three most important things about this item and how do you highlight them
0:09:41 so that I don’t have to go and search and read and read and read.
0:09:46 So you have to save my time and such core article gonna help, read article gonna help
0:09:48 and social media as well.
0:09:55 How does this differ from a traditional affiliate, Amazon affiliate site where it’s like bestblenders.com
0:10:00 and it’s like bestblenders for smoothies or bestblenders for juicing.
0:10:04 And I see that kind of a listicle content with affiliate links and they’ve got their
0:10:10 own little blurb or we tested this like a wire cutter type of content.
0:10:15 What separates that type of site from a directory in your mind?
0:10:16 I think it is a directory too.
0:10:21 So I think that’s just a subset where you take a physical product or any product that’s
0:10:27 on sale and you niche it down to certain category or many categories and then you have affiliate
0:10:29 links and you make money on that.
0:10:35 But I think that space is difficult to win because you need a lot of sales to happen
0:10:37 through your website.
0:10:44 So I usually recommend people to bet on the ideas where you can find sponsors who will
0:10:50 pay you a lot for sponsoring it because it also means that the directory is valuable
0:10:57 because it’s kind of one way to test is to find sponsor who will sponsor your directory
0:10:58 before you built it.
0:10:59 And that’s possible.
0:11:04 I recommend that to some people and they did and it worked because everybody wants to
0:11:08 pay for growth and traffic and if you can bring it, people are gonna pay you.
0:11:14 So with this, with Blenders, there’s no way you can convince a Blender producer to sponsor
0:11:19 such a directory and with affiliate links, you can make some money, but it’s really hard
0:11:24 because you’re competing with all the listicles, like you say, you know, 15 best Blenders.
0:11:30 And in this space, I think, especially in Blenders, I think the blog articles will often win
0:11:35 against the directories because people don’t feel so serious about the thing so that they
0:11:38 go into the directory like the blog article seems lighter.
0:11:45 But if it’s a car or a tractor or something more serious, then the director will win against
0:11:46 the blog article.
0:11:47 Okay.
0:11:51 Because you have more perceived expertise in that you built the entire directory and
0:11:54 database and structure around being the expert in that thing.
0:11:55 Yeah, exactly.
0:12:00 Also you can anticipate what people want to know about the topic.
0:12:04 For example, if you’re looking for a really good microphone for a podcast, there’s really
0:12:10 high chance you’re looking for the light thing and for the camera and other things.
0:12:16 And then if you land on a directory that has it all, like it has five categories, like
0:12:24 microphones, speaker, light, camera, and you see that it’s fresh, you see that it’s done
0:12:29 by an expert, and then you click on the expert, and you see that the expert is producing really
0:12:33 good YouTube videos that you really like.
0:12:38 And you’re going to bookmark this place, and you will send it to your friends when anyone
0:12:40 else wants to do the same.
0:12:42 So I think with directories, there’s multiple plays.
0:12:46 So one play is where you just do a side project and you win some traffic, you channel the
0:12:48 traffic into your main project.
0:12:53 But the other way of building directories is to build something that it will turn into
0:12:54 full product.
0:12:58 And in this case, if you target the people who make podcasts, there are a lot of products
0:13:00 you can build on top of this directory.
0:13:06 For example, you can connect the people who sell the services on helping you to make podcasts
0:13:08 and also the guests for the podcast.
0:13:10 There are a lot of things you can sell to this crowd.
0:13:11 Sure.
0:13:17 Yeah, you could have even a directory of the best podcast editing services or something.
0:13:21 And some of these service providers may be hungry for growth, so they would turn around
0:13:22 and sponsor that.
0:13:23 Exactly.
0:13:26 Or they would pay for a featured listing or something, and that’s my directory building
0:13:31 experience is somewhat limited to this virtual assistant site that I had years ago.
0:13:35 And it was directory and review platform for outsourcing companies where to find your best
0:13:37 virtual assistant.
0:13:42 And we didn’t do this right away, but after years of kind of paying attention, well, what
0:13:43 does Yelp do?
0:13:44 What does TripAdvisor do?
0:13:45 It’s like they have the featured listing at the top.
0:13:48 It’s like, no, this is not necessarily based on any algorithms.
0:13:50 It’s based on who paid to advertise there.
0:13:54 And so that’s why we ended up selling a kind of featured listing placement to companies
0:13:56 that were looking for extra leads.
0:13:59 More than they might get organically, and that worked out really well.
0:14:04 So what I’m hearing is, start with what you know or have an interest or curiosity in.
0:14:09 Look what people are searching for using tools like Google Quora, Reddit, trying to figure
0:14:10 out, okay, what’s that?
0:14:12 Looking for a diversity in answers.
0:14:16 If there’s one consensus winner, it’s going to be really hard to build a directory around
0:14:20 that, but looking for diversity of answers and some back and forth debate, that could
0:14:21 be great.
0:14:23 And then maybe like looking for higher commitment decisions.
0:14:26 Maybe Blender’s not a great thing to build the directory around, but if I’m looking for
0:14:30 somebody to edit my podcast, potentially for years and years down the road, okay, that’s
0:14:33 a higher commitment type of decision.
0:14:37 And similar to MVP Wizards, one of yours, people who are going to build out this product
0:14:38 for me.
0:14:42 Top website builders, another one of yours where it’s like the switching costs of trying
0:14:44 to move different platforms pretty high.
0:14:48 So hopefully I get to make the right decision and guide people to the right choice for something
0:14:49 like that.
0:14:53 But John, in just a moment, including how to evaluate the competitive landscape before
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0:17:17 Now, you pay any attention to the level of existing competition here, like if I type
0:17:23 in a primary keyword and I see nothing but super, super authoritative websites and household
0:17:26 name brand type of publishers, is that a deterrent?
0:17:29 How do you figure out if there’s still room to play here?
0:17:35 Presently, in this game, really often seeing a competitor is a good sign because you know
0:17:40 that people search for it, you know that Google is actually pouring that directory app.
0:17:44 It also means that you have the chance to, because for some topics, I don’t know why,
0:17:49 but Google never brings directories app and it will always bring the blog posts there.
0:17:57 So I usually expect several directories in the first 20 pages and one thing that will
0:18:01 scare me off is seeing only directories on the first 20 pages.
0:18:05 For example, if you search for AI tools, you will see so many directories that there is
0:18:07 no room there.
0:18:12 But I would say that’s the only topic that you shouldn’t go after, like the only one
0:18:19 because everything else, if there is one winner there, there’s always room to play and I don’t
0:18:23 really look at the competition at all in a negative sense.
0:18:26 I look in a positive sense, like if there’s competition is good.
0:18:31 So it’s just the opposite of a normal business where you’re looking for less competition.
0:18:37 All right, let’s say we’ve got this idea, we want to build it out, maybe it’s the podcast
0:18:42 editors or maybe it’s the dog trainers or it’s something where I’ve got some background
0:18:48 or some level of expertise in and I want to go and build this thing.
0:18:49 What’s your first step?
0:18:52 My first step is to find the idea.
0:18:53 So you have the idea.
0:18:57 The second step is to find the domain name because that’s really important.
0:19:00 If you don’t have a good domain name, it’s really hard to win.
0:19:05 And it takes time to find a good domain name because .com is usually taken for everything
0:19:08 that’s obvious, so you have to be creative.
0:19:14 And in my case, I spent weeks and months looking for domain names, not like every day, but every
0:19:19 day I would spend a few minutes on that and eventually find something.
0:19:22 Like every single time I found something, that was really, really good.
0:19:27 So you find a good domain name and then you find a website builder to build it.
0:19:32 And I really recommend people to use No Code Builders because they have everything out
0:19:36 of the box and you’re not in the business of inventing technology here.
0:19:40 You’re in the business of data and you should focus on data, not on the technology.
0:19:42 Any specific ones that you like?
0:19:47 Yeah, I use my own Unicorn platform, which I pivoted into being a directory builder.
0:19:50 It lets you build a lot of things, but also directories.
0:19:53 So that’s Unicorn platform I use mostly.
0:19:55 But people can use any other tools.
0:19:58 I would say there is no difference between the tools.
0:20:03 So my builder is Taylor for directories, but other builders are also capable of that.
0:20:08 And if you know Webflow or if you know Vex or if you know WordPress, just go for them.
0:20:11 If you don’t know anything, I would recommend using my tool because it’s really good for
0:20:12 directories.
0:20:16 And then once you build that directory, it should take you not more than a day.
0:20:21 Because if it takes you weeks doing that, you’re just putting your focus on wrong things.
0:20:26 It’s really difficult to succeed with anything if you’re not putting your priorities straight
0:20:27 up from the start.
0:20:31 So you have to put it from the start that this is a data project.
0:20:32 This is not a technology project.
0:20:38 So you have to spend 10% of your time on technology and building the thing and 90% of the time
0:20:42 on actual data curation because that’s exactly what’s important.
0:20:50 I’ve seen directories with millions of clicks every month that look like they’re from 90s.
0:20:54 They look really bad, but they have millions of clicks.
0:20:57 The next step for you is to curate the data.
0:21:01 And that’s the most difficult step because you have to find everything in this topic
0:21:06 because usually the people who land on your directory, they know some of the names.
0:21:10 They know because otherwise they wouldn’t be searching for it.
0:21:15 Like imagine you’re looking for websites to book your holiday travel.
0:21:16 That’s a directory.
0:21:19 You open that and you don’t find Airbnb there.
0:21:24 The typical user will quit because they will think like someone who made this has no idea
0:21:26 what he’s doing.
0:21:31 So you have to make sure you have all the big players because that’s what creates trust
0:21:33 for the visitor.
0:21:37 But also you have to have the players which are not big because users came there to find
0:21:38 something they don’t know yet.
0:21:43 So the big players are there not for the clicks, but for the trust and then the rest is there
0:21:45 for the value.
0:21:51 And usually to solve that, I use scrapers or I hire someone for a week.
0:21:57 I give them the task and they just spend every day searching for the items.
0:22:02 They put them into Google Sheet and then I go through the sheet and I just visit every
0:22:08 item and I make sure it’s relevant and it’s new because also it’s not about quantity.
0:22:09 It’s about quality.
0:22:15 You should not put items from 90s like it should look fresh, it should look like it’s
0:22:19 done yesterday because one thing with the director is a lot of the websites on the Internet
0:22:22 are abandoned and you still land on them.
0:22:26 But then once you fill it hasn’t been updated for a long time, you lose interest.
0:22:29 So people have to fill like this is an active project.
0:22:33 So don’t put there some boring, ugly items.
0:22:36 Just make sure that you filter them and you put good stuff there.
0:22:37 And that’s it.
0:22:38 So that’s an interesting point.
0:22:43 It’s not necessarily about building out the yellow pages with like every single business
0:22:44 possible.
0:22:47 It’s like trying to curate the best or the most active.
0:22:48 Yeah.
0:22:49 Well, you have two options.
0:22:54 One, if you go after having everything there, if that’s your value and if your directory
0:22:59 is called all companies in the world, like that’s the name, you have to have them all.
0:23:03 And when people come in there, the first thing they’re going to do is they’re going to test
0:23:08 like people always test places and they will come and they will search for the least known
0:23:12 company in the world to see if you have that and you won’t have that problem.
0:23:15 And then they will think you’re lying and the whole trust is gone.
0:23:20 That’s why if you have that directory, you have to make sure you’re capable of creating
0:23:21 the data.
0:23:22 And it’s really hard.
0:23:25 Like you have to put insane effort to get everything.
0:23:26 Okay.
0:23:30 So instead of so instead of attempting every side hustle or all side hustles, you know,
0:23:35 maybe pivot that to best or top or something like that.
0:23:39 I would pivot that into, you know, like lazy side hustles, for example.
0:23:43 And then you only focus on things that take a little time.
0:23:44 Got it.
0:23:48 For example, like you have to niche it down somehow because if you say best, then why
0:23:49 best?
0:23:50 It’s not easy with best.
0:23:53 A lot of people use best, but I would not recommend best.
0:23:54 Okay.
0:23:58 Another couple of examples came to mind just as we were talking here, the theme forest
0:24:02 and the whole Envato suite of different marketplaces that they have, like theme forest is a marketplace
0:24:04 for different WordPress themes.
0:24:09 So I was very meta, looked for directory WordPress themes and got, you know, that was the top
0:24:13 search result, like into their directory, like, oh, here’s a bunch of WordPress themes
0:24:14 that are good for directories.
0:24:17 Another one that came to mind would be like solar installers.
0:24:20 Like this is a higher ticket type of project.
0:24:23 Like if you want to put these panels on a roof, like who do you trust?
0:24:24 How does it work?
0:24:27 You can go and curate that type of kind of lead generator and then like, it’s built in
0:24:28 monetization.
0:24:31 Like you might have to go make some deals with these companies, but like, I imagine
0:24:36 if it’s a $25,000 install, like they’re probably willing to pay you a little bit for that
0:24:37 lead.
0:24:38 Yeah.
0:24:43 I actually think that the safest way to build directory is to go after really high tickets
0:24:47 like solar or in my case, for example, MVP wizards.
0:24:52 It was really successful having very little traffic because you’ll need a lot.
0:24:58 You can have 100 visitors a day on this directory and you can monetize that really, really well.
0:25:03 If you have a commission system where you get 20% on the money they pay to the vendors
0:25:08 and they pay like 10K, then you get, you know, 2K back and that’s a lot.
0:25:12 So one deal brings you 2K and that’s huge.
0:25:15 So I think that space is really empty.
0:25:19 Like I don’t see a lot of competition there because for some reason the directories mostly
0:25:25 target high traffic niches because I think most directories still go after affiliate
0:25:31 market looking links and channeling the traffic and very few go after high tickets and few
0:25:32 sales.
0:25:37 So I think that would be where I would go if I had nothing going on right now, I would
0:25:38 go there.
0:25:39 Okay.
0:25:40 Yeah.
0:25:42 It doesn’t need a ton of traffic volume or even a ton of search volume.
0:25:47 It’s like you can be the go-to authority in that tiny niche and all of a sudden if you’ve
0:25:51 got the attention and the leads, yeah, people will be happy to pay for that.
0:25:52 Exactly.
0:25:56 You don’t even need the items like with solar power, for example, you can say solar power
0:26:02 in Texas and then you have to just find all who can deliver it in Texas and that’s not
0:26:03 a lot.
0:26:06 You can spend one evening and find them all on the internet and then you put them there
0:26:10 and then the chance that you will score high for those who search for that is really high
0:26:14 because it’s a local search and local search is way easier to win than any other search
0:26:18 because Google really rewards those websites.
0:26:21 Scraping data sounds kind of technical.
0:26:24 Hiring a researcher sounds less technical.
0:26:30 Talk to me about this data curation process because this is the value add in a lot of
0:26:31 ways.
0:26:34 And then adding your own, I guess, insight expertise to layer on top of that.
0:26:39 But like to first collect the meat and potatoes, the listings themselves in the directory.
0:26:41 That’s kind of the hard part here.
0:26:42 Exactly.
0:26:46 You should do it yourself first so that you understand where to find them.
0:26:51 You understand how to evaluate them because if you hire somebody to do that or you scrape
0:26:56 and you still have to read through all the items and make sure that they have, like you
0:27:01 have to put some categories, tags, and you have to make sure that the description is
0:27:06 roughly the same size so that you don’t want to have one item with one sentence and the
0:27:10 other has a book in it because you want to have a similar thing there.
0:27:15 So I think you should spend a few days yourself just doing that and collect first 50 or 100
0:27:16 items yourself.
0:27:20 I always done that, but I always did that for every directory I have.
0:27:25 And once you understand it really well, just write the spec for it, like where to search,
0:27:29 what to look for, and how to describe it, et cetera.
0:27:32 And then the job is easy to outsource to people too.
0:27:38 So you would go to place like app work, for example, and you would put your entry there.
0:27:43 You would pay a few hundred dollars for that and somebody would do the job for you.
0:27:48 What kind of data points are you going to make sure to collect in that initial research
0:27:49 phase?
0:27:50 I start really small.
0:27:55 I go for title, URL, and description, and the category.
0:28:00 I even skip the logo and the images because I think it is not that important.
0:28:07 And then later, I just enrich the data I have once I see the director is working out.
0:28:12 But at the first, at the initial stage, it makes more sense to put more effort into finding
0:28:18 more items and putting some time into writing descriptions because I write them myself.
0:28:20 And that’s very interesting.
0:28:23 So if you don’t write them yourself, there’s a problem.
0:28:24 They all will look the same.
0:28:29 Like, for example, you have a microphone and they will all say, “Good microphone works
0:28:30 best for podcasts.”
0:28:35 And then you find 100 of those and they all have the same text on them and it works great
0:28:37 for podcasts and everybody loves it.
0:28:38 No value, right?
0:28:45 So your job is to simplify the suffering for the users because they have unlimited choice
0:28:47 and they want to pick one.
0:28:52 And that’s why I look at all of them and I try to come up with descriptions to actually
0:28:54 differentiate them.
0:28:59 This one is the smallest microphone or the cheapest microphone or the microphone that
0:29:03 works well when there’s noise around, etc.
0:29:08 Because some microphones have that option where you can have a cheapest, biggest, smallest,
0:29:09 etc.
0:29:10 Some don’t have that.
0:29:15 But for them, you just say something like, “It’s rather good value for money.”
0:29:20 And then for others, you say, “It’s durable, it lasts for 10 years.”
0:29:23 But if you’re not pro, maybe go for something cheaper.
0:29:29 So I’m kind of like a reviewer who reviews every item based on everything I find about
0:29:34 the item on the Internet and then I put fuel lines on every item on the directory so that
0:29:37 you don’t have to do that work I’ve done.
0:29:41 So I’m compressing my work and making it easy for you to pick the right one.
0:29:42 Okay.
0:29:47 And this is, like one of my earlier projects was a, I guess you could call it a directory
0:29:48 for footwear.
0:29:50 It was like, “Where can you find the best price on your next pair of shoes?”
0:29:55 But in that case, it was affiliate-driven and so the retailers would happily give you
0:30:00 their product catalogs and so you could mash all of that data into one central database.
0:30:05 And then the challenge became kind of normalizing it where there wasn’t a hard SKU or product
0:30:09 ID across every different store that carried the same product.
0:30:13 And so we had to kind of develop our own type of algorithm to compare this product to this
0:30:15 product and make sure it was really the same.
0:30:18 And what kind of common words were we going to ignore and which ones were we going to
0:30:22 say like, “Okay, this is actually the same thing and this is the price.”
0:30:24 But that’s kind of the value add here.
0:30:31 I think you had a good term normalizing the data and I think most directories bring that
0:30:37 as the key value because most potential directories or the niches, they don’t have that, nobody
0:30:39 has ever done that.
0:30:41 And just doing that is huge value.
0:30:47 And if you’re looking for the idea, that’s one way to evaluate the potential, like if
0:30:53 that’s not done in the space, then it’s something you should do because if you do something that
0:30:59 doesn’t exist, like in my case, for example, with all GPTs, what happened is that it didn’t
0:31:02 exist when I created it.
0:31:06 And then you win all the traffic from Google because people search for something and there’s
0:31:08 nothing except you there.
0:31:12 And even if you’re on the page number five, people will find you because they’re looking
0:31:14 for a specific thing.
0:31:19 People always say to me like, “Probably the directory thing has too many people in it
0:31:23 and every directory that could be created has been created.”
0:31:27 Like 9% are not created yet, 99%.
0:31:31 Every day when I search for new directories, I find so many that I don’t know how I will
0:31:36 ever build them all, at least 10 per day.
0:31:40 Now I’m actually giving away these ideas because I have no time to build them all.
0:31:47 And if it already exists, find a way to differentiate it in some way, make a pivot to niche it down,
0:31:49 to serve a different market.
0:31:54 The advice that stood out several years ago on the show from Jon Lee Dumas was like, “Hey,
0:31:59 when I started Entrepreneurs on Fire, I was the best daily entrepreneur interview podcast.
0:32:04 I was the worst daily entrepreneur interview podcast because I was the only to be the
0:32:06 best worst and only.”
0:32:10 Like if you can be a market of one, if you can be the only, it can be a really powerful
0:32:11 place to play.
0:32:16 More with Jon in just a moment, including the role of AI in your directory project and
0:32:22 marketing and monetizing the thing to start making some money right after this.
0:32:27 Tell me about the role of AI in either this data curation or this.
0:32:31 I feel like there’s got to be a way to excel because I spent nine years like building out
0:32:35 this virtual assistant directory and every time like trying to come up with new, what
0:32:39 new companies launched this month and like, should they be included here and then hiring
0:32:42 somebody to go research them and interviewing the founders?
0:32:46 Like it was very tedious and time-consuming and there’s got to be a way to accelerate
0:32:47 this stuff today.
0:32:52 AI makes it way easier to run directories because AI can normalize the data, AI can
0:32:57 look at all the items and extract certain properties of those items.
0:33:02 For the business ideas directory, AI could say like, you probably should add a column
0:33:05 of difficulty, like how difficult is the idea?
0:33:12 And I always use AI for that because it’s, AI is really good at looking at the big picture,
0:33:17 looking at a lot of data and extracting certain common properties.
0:33:23 I just take the data as CSV file and I just paste it into the chapter and I ask questions
0:33:29 like what columns should I add so that people could filter on those columns and then what
0:33:38 are the categories I should use to categorize this list and sometimes I ask it to shorten
0:33:43 all descriptions, for example, because I wrote long ones and just made them all roughly the
0:33:45 same size and it helps a lot.
0:33:50 So I don’t think I would even near where I am now without AI, like there are tools that
0:33:54 help you to find the data, there are tools that help you to enrich the data like this
0:33:58 AI agents, but I wouldn’t use them if you’re building just one directory.
0:34:02 So I use them myself because I have a lot of directories and but if you’re building just
0:34:04 one directory, I would not use AI too much.
0:34:10 So I would probably stay with Chatchapati and just use it as an assistant, but still you
0:34:15 have to run the show because one problem with AI is that it makes things look average.
0:34:22 So if I use AI and you use AI, our products will look very similar, very similar.
0:34:27 And if you’re as a human, you’re below average, then AI is better than you.
0:34:31 But if you’re better than average, then you’ll look better than AI.
0:34:32 Okay.
0:34:39 So what I’m hearing is starting pretty lean and basic with as few data columns as possible
0:34:45 and then once it gets traction, then it’s adding on going back, doing the additional
0:34:49 research, adding the logos and the images and the extra columns that people might want
0:34:53 to filter on and all of that other stuff.
0:34:57 But only after, okay, I’m starting to see some interest in this, I’m starting to see
0:34:58 some initial traction.
0:35:03 Like, what are you doing outside of just relying on SEO, like, oh, build it and they’ll come,
0:35:07 anything you’re doing proactively to, you know, to breathe some life, to get some algorithms
0:35:10 churning in your favor, to get some traffic to these things?
0:35:11 Yeah.
0:35:16 You have to because Google will not respect your website if there are no backlinks.
0:35:18 It will ignore it completely.
0:35:21 So you have to find backlinks and to find backlinks, there are a few ways.
0:35:26 So the first thing you have to do is you have to go to places where people ask for this,
0:35:31 for example, the Quora article or Reddit article where people ask for those microphones,
0:35:32 for example.
0:35:37 And then you go there and you say, hey, I build a directory for the microphones, just
0:35:38 check it out.
0:35:44 And the interesting thing is that the directory is the only type of business that you can
0:35:50 just plug your URLs into replies and nobody getting hate for that.
0:35:51 Because it is a value add.
0:35:52 Somebody did all this work for me.
0:35:53 Yeah.
0:35:54 Like, really?
0:35:55 Because it’s free.
0:35:56 Yeah.
0:35:57 Because it’s a free product, right?
0:35:59 Because there is no paywall there.
0:36:03 And I’ve never had even once the case where people said, like, why are you bringing the
0:36:04 URL here?
0:36:05 Yeah.
0:36:08 Because on Reddit, it’s really hard to put URLs, but this one is fine.
0:36:13 So you go to Reddit, you go to Quora, you go to social media, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
0:36:19 you find hundreds of places where people talk about that and then you place your URL there,
0:36:20 but you don’t spam it.
0:36:22 You just try to answer the questions.
0:36:28 For example, the tweet says, what’s the best microphone for podcasts?
0:36:34 And then you say, hey, I have directory with all the microphones, and I think these three
0:36:36 are good based on, like, whatever.
0:36:42 So you do a little work for them in the text so that it doesn’t look like automated reply.
0:36:47 And then you say, but you can go and look for yourself on my directory if you want to
0:36:48 learn more about it.
0:36:52 And it works really well because you gave a little bit of value and some just use that
0:36:55 and then others will click and learn more.
0:37:00 And that part is probably the most important part of the directory because you get backlinks
0:37:03 from those replies.
0:37:08 It’s not like reply giving you a backlink for Google, it’s just when you reply, somebody
0:37:15 sees your link and then there’s a high chance that people will link to your URL from their
0:37:17 blog article or from somewhere else.
0:37:20 That’s your hope being present in the social media discussions.
0:37:21 Got it.
0:37:22 Got it.
0:37:23 So it’s user generated content.
0:37:28 It’s probably going to be a no follow link, but by virtue of being visible on these, especially
0:37:32 Reddit and Quora too, but like all these sites that already have a bunch of search traffic
0:37:36 that if people are looking for this thing, you have expanded your surface area of opportunity
0:37:40 of luck where other people can find it and get traffic both from the thing directly and
0:37:45 from other people now linking to you in editorial content with hopefully a do follow link.
0:37:46 Yeah, exactly.
0:37:48 So that’s the thing about directories.
0:37:52 Directories are by design made in a way to be shared by others.
0:37:57 So you have to do very little for others to share your directory, very little.
0:38:01 Like with SaaS, it’s difficult because every SaaS, it has payroll and it has a million
0:38:07 competitors, but with directories, it’s usually not the case and people both share and link
0:38:11 to it a lot, but you have to show it to the world.
0:38:15 So you show it through replies on social media and Reddit.
0:38:18 And then if you have good directory, the rest happens.
0:38:23 If nothing happens, then you know why, because directories are not good enough.
0:38:25 And often that’s the case.
0:38:30 Like if you build your first directory, I have this directory guide community where
0:38:32 I guide people on building directories.
0:38:36 And it’s really interesting to watch how people build and how they approach it.
0:38:42 And most people put such a little time, it almost feels like in school when you want
0:38:48 to pass with a little effort possible and get that whatever grade you get and go to
0:38:49 next year.
0:38:53 So I think a lot of people have that kind of mentality to business too, but with directories,
0:38:58 you have to be really putting your heart into it because people can feel that it’s really
0:39:05 easy to judge directory and understand whether somebody put time into it or not.
0:39:10 Because if you are a user of the directory, you understand what you’re searching for.
0:39:13 You understand what you need, you understand the space slightly.
0:39:14 So it’s really easy to judge.
0:39:18 That’s why there’s no chance you can make bad directory and it will score.
0:39:23 But at the same time, also there’s a small chance to make a good directory that nobody
0:39:25 going to link to or share.
0:39:28 So it’s really fair space.
0:39:31 I’ve got dozens of ideas of like, oh shoot, we can build this.
0:39:32 You can build it.
0:39:34 Like, and to me, that’s the mark of a good episode.
0:39:36 So I’m sorry to pause the detail.
0:39:37 It’s like, I’ve taken notes.
0:39:38 I’ve got it like.
0:39:39 That’s good.
0:39:42 It’s really cool to just kind of spark this and kind of broaden the definition of what
0:39:44 it could be.
0:39:47 And there’s limitless, niche is limitless potential here.
0:39:49 I think it’s really, really cool the stuff you can do.
0:39:54 So going back to the marketing stuff, it was this first wave of backlinks and mentioned
0:39:58 was from this user generated content answering people’s questions.
0:40:02 What happens and hopefully getting some positive word of mouth from that.
0:40:03 Anything else?
0:40:04 What happens next?
0:40:08 There are very few things you have to do is rather you have to repeat the same thing.
0:40:11 So you have to repeat the work on data every day.
0:40:14 And that that’s the thing like a lot of people asking what’s the next often.
0:40:20 And I say like, do the same thing again, better data, more data, improve the data at the data,
0:40:25 find more content on the internet where people talk about it, plug it in because internet
0:40:26 is not static.
0:40:27 It’s dynamic.
0:40:33 And every day there is new stuff there and also create your own content to like, you have
0:40:37 a lot of items and there are a million ways of creating articles out of it.
0:40:42 For example, best microphones for that and like you can make all those listicles that
0:40:44 others do as well.
0:40:48 And since you have the data, you can use the data to like, for example, if you have data
0:40:53 on clicks or something like that, you can have an article saying that the most popular
0:40:57 microphones this month on my directory.
0:41:01 And nobody knows your directory, but people will think you have a cool directory because
0:41:07 there’s an article that uses your director as, you know, when, when you say Craig list,
0:41:08 it’s a brand.
0:41:12 And if you use your director and name the same way, it will be like a brand too.
0:41:15 And it’s not a brand at the start, but if you behave like a brand and you create articles,
0:41:16 it’ll work.
0:41:21 And then you also find all the articles on the internet that talk about this and you contact
0:41:26 the, the author and you tell them that you have this directory and if they want to link
0:41:27 to it.
0:41:32 And often they will say yes, because it will improve their article by linking to your directory,
0:41:34 they will improve it and they will do it.
0:41:39 So basically you have to hunt for more backlinks because SEO game is your game and SEO has two
0:41:40 factors.
0:41:41 One is backlinks.
0:41:42 The other is the content.
0:41:46 That’s why improve the content every day and make the articles.
0:41:49 And then the other thing you can do, you can create little tools.
0:41:54 For example, if it’s a microphone, you can have a little tool that tests the microphone
0:41:57 if it’s working or not, or so something like that.
0:42:01 And it’s easy to make those tools because you can either pay somebody a few hundred
0:42:05 bucks for that, or you can just use AI generators and create a tool.
0:42:11 So and those tools are pretty cool because if your directory is having items, blog articles,
0:42:18 and also the little tools about the same space, then when the visitor comes in, they have this
0:42:23 feeling that you put effort, you’re an expert, you know what you’re talking about and you’re
0:42:26 serious because most directors are not like that.
0:42:31 And also there’s really high chance to be linked to, like you take this link and you
0:42:36 go to all articles talking about microphones and you say, look, I also have a link to test
0:42:38 and you can link people to this.
0:42:40 So that’s kind of the boring part of the job.
0:42:42 So you have to just do this little things every day.
0:42:47 And do you have an example of a tool that worked for you on one of yours?
0:42:48 Yeah.
0:42:52 For example, I built this tool to test a website for Brooklyn links.
0:42:55 I built it with AI in like half an hour.
0:43:01 So you put URL there and it tells you if there are any Brooklyn links on this URL, it just
0:43:02 looks at the whole page.
0:43:08 So that one, and a lot of small tools like that where where mostly you enter something,
0:43:11 you click something and then something else happens, right?
0:43:17 It can be a calculator, it can be a generator, and et cetera.
0:43:22 And now it’s the best, like now it takes less time to create the tool than write an article
0:43:27 because all this AI generators for code, they will work really well.
0:43:30 You don’t have to be a coder for using them.
0:43:31 Fascinating.
0:43:35 On the monetization side, we talked a little bit about sponsored listings or even like,
0:43:37 you know, the title sponsor of the entire directory.
0:43:42 We’ve talked about kind of a lead generation model, especially for high ticket services
0:43:46 where, you know, if it’s, you know, a multi-thousand dollar solar install or something, yeah, we’ll
0:43:51 pay you for that lead to strike up those partnerships, we talked kind of on the affiliate side, more
0:43:55 traditional product affiliate marketing, you know, best blenders, best podcast mics, type
0:43:56 of stuff.
0:43:59 Anything else that we should know about on the monetization side?
0:44:02 Once this thing is built, once it’s got some traffic interaction.
0:44:03 Yeah.
0:44:05 So there are two ways of monetizing.
0:44:08 So one is by using technology and one is by using sales.
0:44:13 So by using sales, you can just sell the ads, you can sell the data.
0:44:15 So one, you can sell the ads to anyone.
0:44:19 It doesn’t have to be somebody who owns these items.
0:44:21 It can be anyone who’s interested in the audience.
0:44:27 Like if it’s microphones, you can sell ads for those who sell with light, right, because
0:44:29 it’s the same audience.
0:44:31 And I usually do that really very often.
0:44:35 And then the other way is to, is to have paid listings.
0:44:41 So you don’t let anyone list anything on the directory and you charge them something for
0:44:42 listing.
0:44:46 It works really well if your directory is large and you expect a lot of people listing
0:44:48 things there, like yellow pages.
0:44:54 And then you have these freemium directories where you show something and then you hide
0:44:55 something else.
0:44:58 So it can’t be anything, it’s kind of a gamification.
0:45:01 So you either show all the items and you hide the rest.
0:45:04 You show 100 and then you hide the 500.
0:45:06 Or you have categories.
0:45:11 For example, you have, if it’s cars, like the cars that are cheaper than 30K, you can
0:45:12 view them.
0:45:14 And if it’s more expensive, you have to pay.
0:45:18 No, I forget the name of the company, but it was like industry research reports with
0:45:23 a show you like a little bit of the data, but then some of it is grayed out and you
0:45:25 got to pay them the 29.95.
0:45:26 That’s the step it is.
0:45:27 Yeah.
0:45:28 Maybe it was that way.
0:45:29 Yeah.
0:45:31 Whereas, you know, if you want the full report, you can, you can pay us for it.
0:45:32 Yeah.
0:45:33 They do really well with that.
0:45:38 Like I pay them and I can imagine how much money they make because they charge a lot.
0:45:44 So you have to gamify so that people get some value out of your directory for free.
0:45:50 And maybe even the first time they come, they are satisfied, but then they come their third
0:45:53 or fifth time and then they will pay to see more.
0:45:57 It can be either items or it can be the metadata of the item.
0:46:01 For example, you see all the items, but you don’t see reviews or you don’t see the contact
0:46:02 information.
0:46:05 In some cases, the contact information can be hidden.
0:46:09 So that’s really common on job boards where it’s like, hey, you know, we’ll show you the,
0:46:13 you know, the profile and some of the skills and qualifications.
0:46:17 And if you want to be able to actually contact this person for an interview or hire this person,
0:46:18 then you’re going to have to pay us.
0:46:19 Exactly.
0:46:24 Anything around humans going to work that way, like if it’s a marketplace for skills or jobs
0:46:27 or anything, then you have humans, then you have their contact information.
0:46:33 You can hide that and charge for every click or charge subscription and then show it completely.
0:46:39 And then the other way is to let businesses claim their, their items.
0:46:46 So you add items with really poor metadata and then you email all the owners like, like
0:46:49 intentionally poor, like not, not bad, but poor, right?
0:46:51 So you just put title and that’s it.
0:46:52 For example, okay.
0:46:53 Just not super complete.
0:46:54 Got it.
0:46:55 So it’s still there.
0:46:56 Yeah.
0:46:57 Exactly.
0:47:01 So it’s still there that if anyone is looking for items in this directory, they would probably
0:47:04 ignore the one that has only title, but they can still click on it.
0:47:08 And for the sake of quantity, you have it all for the sake of trust.
0:47:09 You have them all too.
0:47:12 If I know that item and I see the title, I’m happy.
0:47:13 It’s there.
0:47:14 Okay.
0:47:15 And then you email all the owners.
0:47:20 And I think this is probably the strategy that will make you most money at the start.
0:47:26 So you just find all the owners, you email them and you say, Hey, your item has 20 people
0:47:28 viewing it last week.
0:47:29 Do you want to improve the listing?
0:47:31 Like right now it’s this.
0:47:32 Yeah.
0:47:33 And do you want to improve it?
0:47:38 Add images, add tags, add contact information and the link to your website or something
0:47:39 like that.
0:47:44 Then click here and claim the item and pay for it.
0:47:45 And then it’s verified as well.
0:47:50 So you just list the perks, it’s verified with a check mark, your contact information
0:47:51 is there.
0:47:54 And the link is do follow because that’s important very often.
0:47:55 Got it.
0:47:59 There’s so many different directions that this type of project can go and what you could
0:48:04 build and how it can make money and how you can get traffic and it’s just lots of different
0:48:07 niches and ideas spin around in my head.
0:48:13 Anything stand out to you as far as mistakes to avoid or common problems because you’ve
0:48:17 built dozens of these things and by your own admission, not all of them work.
0:48:23 So does the hit rate improve over time or what do you see as mistakes to avoid for new
0:48:24 directory builders?
0:48:29 Well, one thing use short names in the domain name.
0:48:30 Interesting.
0:48:34 The shorter the name, the higher is the traffic in my directories.
0:48:37 There’s like direct correlation between traffic and the name.
0:48:43 Because when you’re looking for a good name that has high traffic on Google, often it’s
0:48:48 something out of few words and it’s long and don’t go for that.
0:48:52 So don’t do the best places to go and eat sushi.
0:48:54 Like that’s too long.
0:48:58 Yeah, something six words.info and like that and up.
0:48:59 Yeah, exactly.
0:49:04 So buy only.com or org like these two.
0:49:05 Only these two work for me.
0:49:07 The rest didn’t work even with short names.
0:49:08 Yeah.
0:49:09 I guess.org sounds authoritative.
0:49:15 Like, hey, we’re building the go to database directory in this niche and we got the .org
0:49:16 to prove it.
0:49:17 Yes.
0:49:18 Yeah.
0:49:19 Sometimes the org is better than com.
0:49:24 Or get nerds or technical people or like the people who actually like that domain.
0:49:27 You don’t have to be like a registered non-profit or anything.
0:49:29 It’s just like anybody can register it.
0:49:30 Right.
0:49:31 Exactly.
0:49:32 Exactly.
0:49:34 But you suddenly look like non-profit and that’s why I should trust you more when you
0:49:35 have the org.
0:49:36 Right.
0:49:43 But both work really well and more like a business level mistakes were that I didn’t
0:49:49 put enough attention into thinking through the directory because like it’s from one head
0:49:53 directory is something simple that lists all the items in the space.
0:49:59 But you still have to have this while moment where people enter it and they fall in love
0:50:00 with it.
0:50:05 For example, when I launched all GPT, the reason people loved it, there was one clear
0:50:13 reason why I won that game and it was there were 30K GPTs, 30,000 GPTs on the internet.
0:50:14 It’s a lot.
0:50:15 Right.
0:50:16 How can you pick one?
0:50:18 There were no reviews, no ratings, nothing.
0:50:24 And if I put that on my directory, I won’t have enough data to rank on them too.
0:50:30 So I was thinking like I have to figure out how to sort this huge list because every type
0:50:33 of GPT had 100 clones.
0:50:35 Whatever you type, it has 100 options.
0:50:36 Which one do you choose?
0:50:43 I invented this really simple hack where I went to Google and I counted the number of
0:50:48 backlinks to every GPT in a rank based on them.
0:50:52 Because the more backlinks you have, the better GPT probably.
0:50:54 Like there has to be some correlation.
0:50:59 And if you made a clone of somebody’s GPT, it was clear.
0:51:03 Like for example, you search for math teacher, for example.
0:51:09 And then one item has 500 backlinks and other has zero.
0:51:14 It’s obvious that the other one is like not used by anyone, it’s probably not even good.
0:51:19 And when I did that, suddenly the first page of my directory was so good.
0:51:25 You come there and you try something and you see somebody put time into this GPT.
0:51:31 And when you make a directory, you have to really think hard on what can you do that
0:51:34 people try it and they say, wow, it’s cool.
0:51:39 And in my case, people loved it so much that they went on Twitter and they started sharing
0:51:40 it.
0:51:41 So I did nothing.
0:51:45 So I literally just launched it and it went to sleep and I woke up and it was the most
0:51:46 popular directory in the world.
0:51:47 So why?
0:51:53 Because some people saw it, I made a tweet, but it was a small tweet and some people tried
0:51:57 it, liked it, shared it and then it was network effect because it was good.
0:52:00 And with some other directories, I didn’t do that.
0:52:05 I just collected items and I made it okay, but it was not great.
0:52:09 So I think one thing people should really understand is that like directors are easy
0:52:13 to build, but it’s really hard to make it great.
0:52:19 Every directory I didn’t put enough time into failed, or in my case, I don’t say it’s failed.
0:52:21 It’s just in get enough traffic.
0:52:25 And now I have to go back and do the real work so that it’s actually a good directory.
0:52:26 Yeah.
0:52:29 I love that line, easy to build, hard to make it great.
0:52:33 I think that’s a metaphor for so many different side hustles and so many different businesses
0:52:37 where it’s like the motivation is so strong early on, you get the thing going, but then
0:52:41 to really have that marketing flywheel start to spin, it’s got to be great.
0:52:42 Exactly.
0:52:48 You know, to capture people’s attention and get them to do some of that marketing on your
0:52:52 behalf, how to turn one user into two, have them spread the word, it’s got to be really
0:52:54 a strong product.
0:52:59 And that’s the challenging part in turning through the data and sprinkling in your own
0:53:04 industry knowledge and expertise to make it something that is really worthwhile.
0:53:05 I’m excited.
0:53:10 Like I mentioned, dozens of different ideas spin it around as a result of this conversation.
0:53:11 What’s next for you?
0:53:12 You got all these SaaS projects.
0:53:13 You got all these directories.
0:53:16 You got the directory guide at johnrush.me.
0:53:17 What’s got you excited these days?
0:53:24 I really like to help others build businesses on the internet and it just feels so good
0:53:31 when I see someone launching a directory that’s built on my website builder that’s using
0:53:37 my blog generator and the founder has read my directory guide.
0:53:40 So I’ll just do more of that.
0:53:45 And I think my whole mission is to build tools and guides for founders.
0:53:51 So now I launched one more guide called founder guide, where it’s not just the directories,
0:53:52 but it’s the other things too.
0:53:57 How to build SaaS projects, micro SaaS projects, no good platforms.
0:54:00 And I’m launching more products to help the founders.
0:54:04 For example, I’m launching one product specifically for directories.
0:54:07 It’s basically an AI agent that does the curation work for you.
0:54:13 You still have to help it and you have to moderate it, but it does the scraping of the internet.
0:54:18 It does the enrichment of the data and it finds the emails of the items and then it helps
0:54:21 you send them an email to claim the item.
0:54:24 So basically I’m trying to automate the whole directory thing for myself because I have
0:54:29 more than 20 and I don’t have resources to run them all and I want to automate it.
0:54:33 And when I automate it for myself, I basically automate it for the others too.
0:54:34 Well, very good.
0:54:37 We’ve got the founders guide on top of the directory guide.
0:54:38 We’ll link up all this stuff.
0:54:42 One platform was the directory builder platform of John’s.
0:54:44 We’ll link all this stuff up in the show notes for you.
0:54:48 All you got to do is follow the show notes link in the episode description and I’ll get
0:54:49 you right over there.
0:54:50 John, this has been awesome.
0:54:52 Thank you so much for stopping by.
0:54:56 Let’s wrap this up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:55:03 Enjoy the process, not the outcome because it takes way longer than anyone expects or
0:55:04 anyone says.
0:55:09 And for me, personally, it took more than 10 years to get to a place where I could
0:55:12 build things and make money on them.
0:55:17 So I think if you start this and expect to make money in a few months or a few weeks,
0:55:19 you’re going to have difficult times.
0:55:20 So well, come on.
0:55:24 That’s, you know, where’s the clickbait headline in that, you know, it took 10 years.
0:55:25 Exactly.
0:55:28 So I say things people don’t want to hear, but I think the only thing you have to be
0:55:36 focused as a startup founder or somebody doing side hustles is just be better than yourself.
0:55:40 Today you have to be better than yesterday and just try to learn because the business
0:55:45 in side hustle is no different than musical instrument or sport.
0:55:48 Like there is no secret to become good at sport.
0:55:51 You have to just do a lot of the sport.
0:55:55 And I think exactly same goes with side hustles or businesses.
0:56:00 You have to learn, you have to learn to sell, learn to build, learn to design, learn to
0:56:03 market and it takes years to do that.
0:56:06 That’s why look at this as learning.
0:56:11 And then as a side effect of this, one day, you know, you will get great results.
0:56:13 Be better today than yesterday.
0:56:15 Enjoy the process.
0:56:19 Wise words from John Rush, a couple takeaways from me before we wrap.
0:56:25 I liked the section on niche research first, trying to come up with maybe even a potential
0:56:30 monetization model before you go into it, looking at the existing competition and seeing
0:56:35 if there are already directories ranking, which, you know, an earlier me would have
0:56:36 been discouraged by that.
0:56:39 But no, John says, hey, that’s actually a positive sign that Google is rewarding and
0:56:40 ranking.
0:56:44 If I can build something that is better, that’s differentiated in some way, then there’s a
0:56:46 chance to compete and win there.
0:56:52 I like the, you know, speed of execution part, this like, you know, quick launch, quick validation.
0:56:56 Like, look, if nobody likes a thing, then either back to the drawing board or try something
0:56:57 new.
0:56:58 Like maybe that just wasn’t good enough.
0:57:02 And I liked your line about, look, AI makes things look average.
0:57:03 Don’t be average.
0:57:07 You got to love the niche, fall in love with this problem and really build something that
0:57:14 is great, that is worthy of traffic and attention in an era of really fragmented attention.
0:57:15 So build something that’s great.
0:57:17 AI makes things look average.
0:57:18 Don’t be average.
0:57:21 Whether you’re a first-time listener or a long-time listener, thank you so much for
0:57:23 tuning in to The Side Hustle Show.
0:57:28 If you’re wondering what to listen to next, make sure to build your own personalized playlist.
0:57:33 How it works is you go to hustle.show, you answer a few multiple-choice questions, takes
0:57:38 a couple minutes, you can do it on your phone, and it’ll spit back out a custom curated playlist
0:57:43 based on your answers for the Side Hustles or the episodes, eight to 10 episodes that
0:57:49 will hopefully be most impactful and insightful and actionable for you based on where you’re
0:57:50 at, where you want to go.
0:57:52 Again, that’s hustle.show.
0:57:55 Big thanks to John for sharing his insight today.
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0:58:08 That is it for me.
0:58:10 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:58:13 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen, and I’ll catch you in the
0:58:15 next edition of The Side Hustle Show.