My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Renting vs Owning Digital Real Estate
Traffic sources can be categorized as 'rented' (paid advertising where traffic stops when you stop paying) versus 'owned' (SEO, content, community where you build lasting value).
Decision Rule
Prioritize owned traffic sources that compound over time, but use rented traffic for immediate needs and testing. Owned traffic becomes more valuable as 'land prices' (competition) increase.
How It Works
Rented traffic gives immediate results but costs increase over time and you have no control over pricing. Owned traffic takes longer to build but creates compounding value that competitors can't instantly take away.
Failure Modes
Only using rented traffic and having no moat
Only using owned traffic and having no immediate results
Treating owned channels like rented ones
Not diversifying traffic sources
Example Decision
“A startup uses Google Ads for immediate customer validation but simultaneously builds SEO content. As the ads get more expensive, the SEO traffic grows and provides sustainable growth.”
Related Knowledge
Work intensity is equivalent to athletic or musical practice
Don't feel guilty about working long hours on things you love - it's practicing your craft
Efficient Markets Business Framework
A business model based on identifying and removing inefficiencies in markets where transactions that should occur don't happen due to structural barriers.
Movement-First Category Creation
A strategy for creating new business categories by building movements around ideas rather than products, making the category accessible to everyone including competitors.
Mathematical Induction Business Philosophy
A business approach based on mathematical induction: if you can start (n=1) and always take the next step (n+1), you'll succeed infinitely.
Optimize content and website to appear in AI answer results instead of just search rankings
Your content appears as citations in ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI tool responses.
Create SEO content that ranks highly by deserving to rank higher than current results
Your content consistently ranks on page one for target keywords and drives qualified traffic that converts to leads or customers.