I’ve consistently failed at every business I’ve tried to start.
Not because I couldn’t build products - but because I was missing the one skill that trumps everything else.

Distribution is the missing puzzle piece I wish I’d understood years ago.
As Peter Thiel says:

“If you’ve invented something new but haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business – no matter how good the product.”

Building products is the easy part.
As a technical person, I can create virtually any digital product.
Finding products to sell at wholesale isn’t complicated either.
What’s consistently been missing from my business equation?
The channels to reach people.

We live in an age where creating content is easier than ever, but capturing attention has never been harder.
500+ hours of video uploaded to YouTube EVERY freaking MINUTE.
Millions of blog posts published daily.
Getting seen is the real challenge.

What exactly is distribution?
It’s the channels through which your product spreads.
It’s what leads customers by the hand to your solution.
Distribution is a puzzle with 4 pieces: product, marketing, brand, and eyeballs.

Without eyeballs, everything else is futile.
You need people to project your marketing, product values, and brand onto.
And the more targeted these people are to your solution, the more likely they’ll buy.
Personal brands demonstrate this power better than anything.

Kylie Jenner: $900 million cosmetics empire in just 3 years without traditional advertising.
When she announced a product on Instagram, it sold out in minutes.
Her distribution was built-in.

The game of numbers comes into play:
If 10 people see your product, what’s the probability someone will buy?
Now imagine 10,000 people see it. The probability increases significantly.
This is why distribution to the right audience matters so much.

“Content is king, but distribution is queen – and she wears the pants.”

Great content is vital, but it’s your distribution strategy that dictates success.
Most technical founders (myself included) fail to understand that attention is now the scarcest resource in business.

The most powerful distribution strategy?
Becoming the channel yourself.
Your personal brand is the ultimate distribution vehicle.
This is why companies pay billions for influencer marketing – they’re buying access to built-in distribution channels.

So before you spend months developing that perfect product, ask yourself:
Do I have a distribution strategy?
Do I have channels to reach my audience?
Have I built trust with the people I want to serve?

This insight took me years of failed ventures to learn.

“Ideas that spread, win, but ideas that don’t get spoken (or seen) always fail.”

- Seth Godin

Build your audience first.
Become the channel.
Master distribution.
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To dig deeper into the topic, read my full article: https://anticodeguy.beehiiv.com/p/the-only-digital-business-skill-i-wish-i-d-mastered-earlier

The Distribution Blindspot: Why Talented Creators Stay Broke

What do I mean by distribution? It’s the channels through which your product or information about your product spreads. These are essentially the same thing, because once someone receives information about your product, they can make a purchasing decision and take the corresponding steps – whether physical (going to a store) or digital (clicking buttons online). The essence doesn’t change.

Distribution’s job is to lead customers by the hand. First, to your product. Second, to convince them that this specific product solves their problem or addresses their pain point.

Distribution encompasses marketing – the spread of information about your product, or more precisely, about what benefits and value a potential customer gets by acquiring it. Regardless of what product we’re talking about, in the consumer’s eyes, the product isn’t valuable in itself. People buy solutions to their needs.

We’re willing to pay for what we need. For example, we have a daily need for food. It’s undeniable – our stomach makes itself known, and we go to the store to buy groceries. No one needs to convince us to do this. But since this market is commoditized, with all products readily available (just go to a store and choose from a huge selection), the power of marketing comes into play, which aims to convince you that a particular brand is what you need.

The next component of distribution is brand – a name that consumers trust. Even despite some fluctuations in the product itself, even despite different marketing approaches or sometimes the complete absence of obvious advertising (as with luxury brands, which have a slightly different development strategy), having such a brand makes consumers choose in its favor.

A brand is a very powerful and significant element of distribution because, when you have one, spending money on marketing itself isn’t strictly necessary. If in the consumer’s eyes your product already represents value, and if they know your brand, the question becomes what to choose. They most often remain loyal to their brand and repeatedly choose it.

Think about Coca-Cola. When you go to a store, you always see the same brands there. There’s never a situation where you go to a store today, there’s Coca-Cola, but when you come tomorrow, it’s gone, and some other brand is in its place. No, it will stand there for many more years every day and has been standing there for many years every day. You develop a certain familiarity with this brand, and it’s always presented to people.

And every year, for example, Coca-Cola launches its famous New Year’s advertising. It has become such a tradition. This is an example of unsinkable brands that will work and will be associated with people with something, I don’t know, with a holiday, with such events.

And people know that if they go to a store, to any grocery store, they will definitely find Coca-Cola there. Regardless of what day, week, and so on it is.

Further, with a product, marketing, and brand in place, there’s one more component without which everything would be futile – people, or audience, or eyeballs. If we’re talking about modern distribution happening on the internet, it’s attention. And behind every smartphone or computer is a specific living person. That’s why they’re an important component.

You need eyeballs to project your marketing, product values, and brand onto. I think this is obviously understandable, but for some reason, I personally overlooked it for a long time.

Distribution First, Everything Else Second

Personal brands exemplify the power of distribution better than perhaps any other business model. Individuals who have built large, engaged followings can leverage that audience to launch products or services with remarkable success. Take Kylie Jenner, who turned her massive social media following into a $900 million cosmetics empire in just three years without traditional advertising. When she announced a product on Instagram, it sold out in minutes – her first lip kit batch reportedly sold out in under a minute online.

What many technical founders (myself included) fail to understand is that attention is now the scarcest resource in business. Content is abundant – we’re creating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, so much that 90% of the world’s data has been created in just the last two years. Yet human attention remains fixed – we still only have 24 hours in a day. This mismatch between infinite content and finite attention makes distribution strategies essential.

To sell any product, you need people –potential buyers – and the closer they are to the value that this product provides, the better. The more likely someone from this group will make a purchase in your favor. This means you make a sale, which means you earn money. Consequently, the constant presence of information, marketing, distribution of the product itself, its values, and brand in front of potential consumers who are closest to the value, for whom it’s important, who have a pain point that the product addresses – if all this is constantly in front of them, within this circle of people, then this can already be called distribution and business.

So, to sum up what we’ve covered: the skill that I wish I’d mastered earlier is distribution – the art and science of getting your product, content, or message in front of the right people. Without distribution, even the best product will languish in obscurity. With strong distribution, even an average product can thrive.

For personal brands and one-person businesses, distribution is the core of your business strategy. It’s about building channels to reach your audience before you even have a product to sell. It’s about becoming the channel yourself.

Remember, we live in an attention economy where eyeballs are the most valuable currency. As Seth Godin succinctly put it:

“Ideas that spread, win, but ideas that don’t get spoken (or seen) always fail.”

In a world where anyone can create content, getting noticed is the hardest part.

The game has changed. It’s no longer “build it and they will come.” You can build an audience and build a business at the same time nowadays. This is the lesson that took me years of failed ventures to learn, and it’s the insight that can save you from the same fate.

So, before you spend months developing that perfect product, ask yourself: Do I have a distribution strategy? Do I have channels to reach my audience? Have I built trust and credibility with the people I want to serve?

If the answer is no, that’s where you need to start. Build your audience first. Become the channel. Master distribution.

Imagine yourself in a crowded marketplace, trying somehow to attract attention. How would you do it?

You could entertain the audience by showing something funny, unusual, or interesting. I immediately picture someone on a pedestal or stage putting on a show, with a huge crowd gathering around them.

Or you could provide real value. I picture a religious follower standing on a pedestal, sharing life wisdom through the lens of religion or worship of some deity. For many people, this represents value – they gather around, listen, agree, and appreciate these life principles.

And finally, inspirational or motivational content – a good example here is Tony Robbins or channels with short motivational videos.
This person isn’t selling anything directly. Well, they’re selling loyalty to their church or their religion’s brand. That’s their product. But the essence doesn’t change – it’s a free way to attract an audience, a tool that allows them to gather attention without cost.

People gather around and start listening attentively.

The reality is, no matter what personal brand or business you’re building, you need an audience. It’s the missing element most aspiring entrepreneurs overlook. According to research from Conductor, brands that provide valuable content are 131% more likely to convert prospects into customers compared to those that don’t. And yet, most creators focus on platform tactics rather than understanding the psychological drivers behind content consumption.

There are three categories of content that people consume: entertainment, educational, and motivational/inspirational. Any content that spreads online falls into one of these three categories.

By understanding these categories, you can position yourself and your brand to attract the right audience that eventually buys from you.

Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail At Building An Audience

Most aspiring entrepreneurs make the same critical mistake: they don’t understand how content categories drive different psychological responses. Instead, they scatter their efforts across platforms without a coherent strategy for engaging their target audience’s mind and emotions.

Each of these categories can be successful on its own. If you create content in just one category, it can thrive independently. This applies to someone like MrBeast – purely entertainment content. There’s no educational subtext or motivational angle. It’s an entertainment show, period. Or any gaming streamer – that’s also entertainment content designed for one purpose: entertaining the user.

Then there’s educational content. This content aims to teach something, to present new information that expands your knowledge, abilities, and skills in a particular area. It’s content after which you develop new neural connections that you can apply in life.

Many people mistakenly consider popular science channels as educational, channels that talk about science, for example, I really love channels like ScienceClick or The History of the Universe that talk about how our universe works, about cosmology, about the latest scientific discoveries and everything related to it.

At first glance, it seems like educational content, but in my opinion, it’s purely entertainment because, well, I won’t learn anything new by watching these videos. They may provide some educational tools or information that can be considered educational, but mostly we watch such channels for entertainment. It’s not something that I, as a scientific researcher, would watch and then go make notes based on what was said in that video.

This in no way diminishes the importance of these channels and doesn’t make them better or worse. There’s no concept that one type of content is good and another is bad. No, these are all equivalent categories, and the question is only which category you choose to develop your business and personal brand.

And finally, inspirational or motivational content – a good example here is Tony Robbins or channels with short motivational videos.

The Three Content Categories: How To Attract an Audience That Buys

Most entrepreneurs fail at audience building because they don’t understand content psychology.
There are only 3 types of content that build an audience that buys.

1. Entertainment content is the easiest to spread.
MrBeast or gaming streamers gather massive audiences because our brains love fun.
Entertainment will never be taken away from a person.
In all times, any show gathered masses of people in squares or in the Colosseum.

2. Educational content builds the deepest trust.
It’s the hardest to spread because, honestly, few people want to learn anything new.
With age, our brains become increasingly rigid.
They want to maintain status quo, not challenge existing beliefs.

3. Motivational content sits somewhere in the middle.
It attracts those who have goals but need that emotional push.
When times are tough and chaos fills your head, a Tony Robbins video quickly breaks negative thoughts and sets the right tone.

Each category spreads differently.
— Entertainment: Goes viral easily, attracts massive audiences
— Education: Spreads slowly, attracts committed learners
— Motivation: Medium spread, attracts goal-oriented people
The broader the appeal, the easier it spreads.

Your product must match your content category.
MrBeast makes entertainment content → sells chocolate and burgers (mass market products)
Tony Robbins makes motivational content → sells courses on personal growth
This alignment follows the psychology behind it.

One thing about educational content: it converts better.
Conductor research found brands providing educational content are 131% more likely to convert prospects to customers.
Yet most creators focus on platform tactics rather than understanding psychological drivers.

The educational content formula:
1. Deliver genuine value
2. Establish yourself as an authority
3. Build unwavering trust
4. Offer a product that solves their problems
It’s not quick, but sustainable.

When we learn something valuable from someone, we feel a sense of reciprocity.
As Jay Baer says:

“If you sell something, you make a customer today; if you help someone, you make a customer for life.”

The key question isn’t which platform to use.
It’s which content category aligns with:
1. Your natural strengths
2. Your product type
3. Your target audience’s psychology
Get this right, and everything else falls into place.

Understanding content psychology gives you clarity:

Entertainment → builds likeability
Education → builds trust
Motivation → builds emotional connection

The strongest brands combine all three, but lead with one primary category.
What’s yours?

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Each category spreads differently

So, understanding this categorization, you can build your positioning, your brand that you’re going to build, and you need to understand what content you’ll be distributing.

Educational content, although it could be called the most useful from a human development perspective, no matter how much you’d like to present it, has the lowest spreadability because, frankly speaking, few people want to learn anything. As a rule, with age, a person becomes increasingly rigid, and the brain increasingly wants to maintain the status quo and not change what already exists.

But what it definitely wants is entertainment. Entertainment will never be taken away from a person. In all times, any show, before there was internet, television, or any such things, gladiator shows, theater, and so on, always gathered masses of people in squares or in the Colosseum. It was always a center of attraction.

So entertainment is something that unites us, something that’s very easy for a person to agree to. This is something they rarely refuse.

And this is the most massive category, which is why we see among top YouTubers people like MrBeast or PewDiePie who make entertainment content, because most people in the world are quite easily attracted to entertainment.

Accordingly, this is the most easily digestible content, and it’s easiest to spread, easiest to attract eyeballs to it, so you need to be aware of this.

Motivational content is somewhere in the middle, and it quite easily attracts an audience because it’s relevant for almost every person, but just not everyone consciously realizes they need a dose of motivation. Everyone has their own goals and, accordingly, their own engines that make them get up in the mornings or, conversely, lie in bed as long as possible. In this case, you don’t want any motivation; you don’t need it at all.

But if you understand that you need to do something in your life, then you’ll likely find a way to consume inspiring content.

And finally, the educational category is the most difficult in terms of attracting eyeballs because people usually need to be forced to learn. We’ve had this since childhood. We can’t just go to school or university of our own free will. Well, some probably can, for whom it’s a real pleasure, but such people are a minority. As a rule, for most of us, it’s something we have to force ourselves to do.

And here motivation is, let’s say, the threat of your future existence, and various methods come into play: that you’ll be homeless on the street, unable to earn money, unable to get a job, end up on the street, in prison, or somewhere else. In general, no rosy prospect awaits you. This is a pretty serious motivator for many to finish school, university, get an education, and that’s how it is.

But until you understand that this whole thing is aimed exclusively at making you a cog in the general mechanism of some other system, until you realize that you yourself can be a builder of these systems and thereby escape from the matrix of the predisposed scenario.

Beyond Niching Down: The Multi-Interest Personal Brand Business

Throughout my life, I’ve tried dozens of different business models. Completely offline businesses like a flower shop or a guesthouse in Bali. Classic online stores, dropshipping, online courses – basically everything that was trendy when information about that business model was spreading across the internet.

I’ve even run development agencies. It’s something I’ve been doing for many years, but I don’t consider it a business because I don’t have a working mechanism that brings me new clients. All the clients I have come through word of mouth – they’re recommended by previous clients. And honestly, I don’t do absolutely anything to develop this as a business. It’s more of a supporting mechanism that allows me to earn additional income, but it’s not my main source.

And yes, I’ve tried various methods that should bring in clients: advertising, agency branding, cold emails, and other approaches that should theoretically attract clients somehow. But for various reasons, none of them worked.

The main reason was a lack of clear motivation and understanding that this was, first, a working mechanism, and second, something I could do constantly, regularly, and with pleasure. Typically, everything boiled down to the fact that I needed to force myself to do it, to put it on like a straitjacket. But it felt artificial, a tortured process, a necessity.

And they left me feeling that something wasn’t right, and so everything turned into, or rather, ended in self-sabotage. I would simply stop before achieving results.

According to a 2023 creator economy report, this experience isn’t unique – 46% of independent content creators say it’s hard to be successful, and 41% struggle with burnout when trying to force themselves into business models that don’t align with their natural interests.

What if there was a better way? A business model that feels authentic, that aligns with who you really are, that doesn’t require you to become someone else just to make money? I’m about to show you how the multi-interest personal brand business can provide exactly that – a way to build a sustainable future-proof business around the real you.

Choose your niche is a horrible advice.
I've tried dozens of business models.
Offline and online stores, courses, dropshipping, agencies - all ended in self-sabotage or debt.
What if there’s a better way?
A business that feels authentic.

Traditional business models demand you become someone else.
You read the books, follow the blueprints, plug in the values - yet it still doesn’t work.
Reality has too many variables to fit neatly into someone else’s formula.
I kept hitting that wall too.

The typical advice: “Choose your niche!”
Pick one thing, stick to it forever, become the [insert niche] expert.
But what happens when you’re tired of talking about fitness and secretly want to share your gardening passion?
You’re trapped in a box of your own making.

What if a personal brand was built on… your actual personality? (shock goes here)
That unique combination of experiences, skills, and knowledge that only YOU have.
Not a narrow niche, but the full spectrum of who you are.
The real you that people actually connect with.

Think about your own interests:
Maybe fitness connects to your cooking passion → Which connects to organic gardening → Which connects to sustainable fashion → Which connects to mindful living
These aren’t separate niches - they’re YOU.

When you build an audience based on your personality rather than one narrow topic:
1. You’re never boxed in
2. Your authenticity shines through
3. You create a unique “melody” no one else has
4. Your genuine passion attracts people

The distribution problem is solved naturally that way.
You build an audience of real people who trust YOU, not just your expertise in one area.
When you offer something to this audience, they’re already primed to listen - because they connect with you as a person.

Most content creators live in single-niche prisons.
They become interchangeable voices saying the same things.
But when you share multiple interests through your unique lens?
You become irreplaceable.
People follow YOU, not just your topic.

The practical step: Map your personal interest graph.
List all your interests, then connect the ones that naturally relate.
Find the patterns - the personal "ikigai" where your interests intersect.
This becomes your content foundation.

According to research, creators who build community platforms retain audiences at rates 3x higher than those with one-way content feeds.
Why? Because people crave authentic connection, not just information.
You can offer that full spectrum.

I’m inviting you on this journey.
Away from rigid business models that feel like straitjackets.
Toward building something that aligns with who you really are.
A business that feels natural, sustainable, and genuinely yours.
Will you join?
______________________________
Read the full article here: https://anticodeguy.beehiiv.com/p/beyond-niching-down-the-multi-interest-personal-brand-business-part-1

Why Traditional Models Never Quite Worked

It was like that picture where a guy with a pickaxe is carving his way to wealth, and there’s just one centimeter left to the coveted crystal deposits, but he gets discouraged and leaves. That’s how it often turned out for me.

I’m aware of this pattern, but I truly don’t have that inner feeling of wholeness with these processes, with these approaches. They don’t seem genuine somehow.

I feel like it should happen differently, that something should occur in a way that aligns with my personality, with what I enjoy doing, and with what brings me pleasure, with some internal feeling I have.

Maybe I’m getting too philosophical here, and many seasoned business people would say that business is absolutely different – there’s nothing irrational about it, everything is very simple and mechanistic.

And many do business that way. You just do what you need to do, hire a team of marketers who do everything for you, handle advertising, hire other people who deal with promotion, client acquisition, and so on.

But I’ve never been able to take my projects to the stage where I had enough money to hire a team, so I had to do everything myself. And doing it yourself is okay up to a certain point and time – when you’re learning a skill, when you’re studying something and performing the first iteration, it’s quite normal. But then, when what you’re doing doesn’t bring significant results, you hit a wall: either you need to spend more resources on it, and again, the question arises of human, financial, or time resources.

It’s a question of all three. Most of them are covered by the resource of money – when a business brings in money, you can spend it to buy other people’s time and free up your own, but none of my projects have yet brought me enough money to afford that.

There were other projects that should have brought in much more money, with high margins, like SaaS projects, various tools that were supposed to sell themselves.

In the end, they all led to debt because, again, I had to pay the team that created these products and handled development. They didn’t bring in money, so funding came out of my own pocket, which led to negative income – I took out loans and then had to repay them.

And it all boiled down to me getting a job to pay off the debts I incurred after trying to do business.

But there’s a blueprint, right?

My last such project was another startup where I invested $25,000, which is a classic amount by startup world standards. And in this story, everything was actually done according to the canons of launching startups – $25K in investments from “friends, family, and fools.”

The fools in this case were ourselves, the partners who covered each other’s weaknesses. I was the technical founder, we had a founder who was the face of the brand, then a business development person and an operations director.

So we had everything we needed – money, resources, we built a product that constantly pivoted. We did continuous market research, talked to users and customers, flipped the product several times, but after several years, having spent all the investments made in this project and not finding product-market fit, we successfully, or rather, unsuccessfully, just folded the project and parted ways, recording the losses.

But it’s supposed to be different, right? After all, we did everything by the playbook, according to what others had already done, and it seemed like nothing could go wrong.

People had already walked this path. They laid it all out in a book, saying, “Please, do it by the book, here’s a blueprint, just plug in your values, and you’ll get a business.”

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in life because reality is something with a huge number of variables that can’t be accounted for in any book.

A book is written at one moment, read at another, when even the environment in which you’re doing business has changed beyond recognition. And the book actually needs to be rewritten.

There are some books that, of course, can live forever, describing some universal principles that will probably only change over millennia, when humans evolve and noticeably differ from, say, our current model of thinking, behavior, and body.

That is, maybe, I don’t know, we’ll grow into some cybernetic bodies, and we’ll have a completely new structure of values.

But while we’re in our current state, these things don’t really change, so in our current state of consciousness, these universal principles work.

I’m talking about classic books that have lived not just for decades but for hundreds of years and still remain relevant.

But business literature doesn’t fall into this category. It becomes outdated very quickly, and I’ve actually read an enormous amount of business books throughout my life – literally everything that caught my eye, or any recommendation related to business immediately went on my reading list.

I would download the book, buy it, or find it, or borrow it from friends, and devour it eagerly, leaving no remnant.

And I always tried to apply this knowledge because each time it had profound meaning, and I understood that it’s all applicable, it’s all relevant, and there are a huge number of examples where it worked.

But for some reason, it didn’t work for me.

How many eggs baskets do you have

The next point is the immediate unlocking of possible content options, products that you can offer, and you again don’t sew yourself into a narrow specialized niche, where you can only come up with a limited set of products. Obviously from a sports creator we all expect that he will sell protein powder, or pre-workout tablets, a completely expected story, and in most cases that’s how it happens.

No, now, as a multi-niche brand you can sell, for example, seeds for growing bok choy in your backyard, or stylist services to pick suitable clothes for yourself. These are completely different things, and they complement each other, and they don’t contradict each other, so diversification immediately comes into play. The famous “don’t keep all your eggs in one basket”.

An extremely useful principle, especially here, in business, which is constantly changing and in which you need to adapt, and this adaptability appears for you just with the versatility of your personal brand, you don’t have this limitation.

Now you’re greatly expanding your audience. If before the audience was attracted only by that narrow segment that was covered by your one interest, which all your content was aimed at, now there are many interests, and, accordingly, the potential scale of your audience also increases, because, guess what, you’re not the only one in the world who combines several interests, not only are you interested in not just one thing, but many different things.

Take any person, and there are, of course, maybe such exceptions that really dedicate their life to only one thing, but even this is a very superficial judgment about a person, if you look deeper, then, as a rule, it’s always a combination of different interests.

Even if Thomas Edison tried to make the same light bulb ten thousand times, besides this he was interested in a huge number of other things, which just brought to his work this understanding of how everything is interconnected, and how to make his inventions, for example, useful, applicable in life, and not just some fun experiments in the laboratory, he was a very well-rounded person.

Or take Leonardo da Vinci, who simply spread his genius across a huge number of domains – art, science, even biology and medicine, architecture, and painting. This is just a colossal, rather, the most extreme, probably, example that can be imagined, of such a handy, leggy person, for whom all this also worked out perfectly, and I, of course, admire such people, it seems like something unreal.

You can take our contemporaries, like Elon Musk, who knows how to write programs, play computer games, launch rockets into space, make electric cars, establish connections with the president and play politics, buy out social networks and so on, this is also an extremely well-rounded personality, who precisely with the combination of all these interests attracts attention to himself, this is one of the most interesting people known to a huge number of the planet’s population.

Someone loves him for one thing, someone loves him for rockets, someone loves him for Tesla, someone loves him for his closeness to the president, someone, on the contrary, doesn’t love him for this, but in essence it doesn’t change, it attracts attention to him.

This is exactly what we want to do with our personal personal brand, that is, based on our various interests, we want to attract a different group of people with whom these interests combine.

And here you go, a huge number of opportunities opens up before you, and immediately the size of the potential audience increases many times as soon as we start applying this.

Most people think niching down is the only path to building a personal brand.
But what if your diverse interests are actually your greatest competitive advantage?
A thread on the multi-interest personal brand that no one can copy:

Last week I questioned why we’re always told to pick one niche.
I can’t force myself into a single box.
I’m into business, tech, philosophy, and travel.
When you stop limiting yourself - you create a business impossible to replicate.

“Escape competition through authenticity… No one can compete with you on being you.”

- Naval Ravikant
Your unique combination of interests is your competitive advantage.
Don't be a commodity.
You’re a work of art.

Elon Musk: coding, rockets, electric cars, social networks, gaming.
Leonardo da Vinci: art, science, medicine, architecture.
What do they have in common?
They never confined themselves to one niche.
Their power is in diversity.

Each interest attracts its own audience.
Some follow your business content, others your tech insights, others your travel stories.
And guess what?
Many of these people share MULTIPLE interests with you.

The multi-interest approach immediately unlocks more content options.
You’re not stuck creating the same predictable products everyone in your niche offers.
You can sell exactly what YOU would want to buy.
And that’s liberating.

I was terrified when I started my personal brand.
What if I run out of things to write about?
But embracing all my interests gave me endless content possibilities.
Now I plan publications weeks ahead with zero writer’s block.

Here’s where the business comes in:
✅ Your personal brand (unique combination of interests)
✅ Your audience (people who share your mindset)
✅ Your products (solutions to problems YOU experience)
✅ Distribution (already built through your audience)

The easiest product to create?
One that solves your problem first.
If you need it, others in your audience probably need it too.
My first product - a content creation system with AI - came from solving my own challenge (launching soon).

The beauty of this model: you literally just live your life.
Share your findings, thoughts, and skills.
Explore your interests deeply.
Build a community around common curiosities.
This brings you income while feeling completely natural.

So, no more excuses:
— Your unique combination of interests is the foundation of a business that can’t be copied.
— Your personality is the differentiator in a crowded marketplace.
— Your growing audience becomes both your distribution and your community.

In a world where attention is the new currency, cultivating a loyal audience around your authentic self is one of the best investments you can make.

Would you like to know more about building your multi-interest personal brand?
Read the full article here: https://anticodeguy.substack.com/p/beyond-niching-down-the-multi-interest-01f?r=1m5hbt

Where is the business

Now, where’s the business here?

Okay, I start my personal brand,
okay, I don’t go into one deep niche,
okay, and I have content,
I understand what to create this content about.

But where’s the business here?

I have an article about the essential parts of business, which are people, product, distribution, brand. We’ve so far missed two elements from all this, although the first two we’ve actually already covered:

The brand, precisely your personal brand, which will be unique in the market, not replaceable by some other, non-commoditized, precisely for the reason that you are a combination of different interests, you are that very unique composition, which another person can’t repeat, unless somehow he manages to live your life from your perspective.

People or audience, and as soon as you begin to attract these people, they’re attracted by the fact that they follow your interests, and you do this naturally on social networks, on the internet, then over time you gather this audience, which suits you by type of thinking, which is somewhat akin to you, these are your followers.

What we haven’t covered is the product, which I’ve already, by the way, partially touched on, and the distribution.

You followers know your interests and know your audience as well, because you’re actually its main representative. Remember, you combine various interests, and some from your audience, will definitely repeat at least one of these interests, and will definitely match with you in understanding.

And each of your products, it can be either in a combination of these interests, or follow one interest.

What is a product? A product is a tool with which one or another need is closed.

We can return even to basic needs, so that the understanding is very simple and clear. If a person needs to eat, he needs food, food is a product that closes his need, it’s hunger.

Here we refer to Maslow’s pyramid, with the basic human needs, or think about the eternal four markets – health, wealth, relationships, and happiness.

Everything that’s directed at these four markets – they are infinite, as long as there is a human, in his current incarnation, until we’ve changed, haven’t become some bio-robots and our sphere of interests hasn’t changed, these markets are inexhaustible.

The food is a subdomain of health. If you don’t eat, you, accordingly, will endanger your own life, or health.

So, your product should close one or several needs of your audience. And the easiest way to do this is to make this product close your need first.

Build a product for yourself

You as a representative of this audience, you perfectly know what interests you. You perfectly know what you need, and you can make something that closes your need.

If you need to close it, then, again, there’s a high probability that it will close someone else’s need from your audience.

What is this product? I’m speaking very abstractly now, because, it seems to me, we need to devote a separate article and discuss separately on this topic in order to build understanding.

But the market is already very wide, it’s not limited to just some one option. Personally, I prefer digital products, because they have the highest margins, they’re the easiest to distribute, they can be made once and sold up to infinity, especially if these are such evergreen products, which will always be relevant.

For me this is closest, because I’m an IT guy. But this, again, is my combination of interests, experience, and skills, which I can cover most easily. It’s easier and faster for me to make a digital product, and I have all the necessary skills for this, but you need to look at yourself.

This can be an absolutely offline story, the example with the seeds from a bodybuilder, or a styling service. There’s a very wide choice of options and possibilities here.

“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.”,

Oprah Winfrey

Distribute across your audience

And finally, distribution, which is actually naturally covered by the presence of this audience. If you have an audience, then all you need to do is to let them know that you have your product.

Here marketing, sales, and presentation skills come into play. You need to show that these products have some value, which you possess, which you can offer, and they close some need for your audience.

As a rule, any product comes from some pain in the consumer, and you can just say such a simple thing as, for example:

“I, when I started building a personal brand, faced the first problem or the first pain – creating content. And I needed to come up with a system for myself that would allow me to create content. And I was actually very afraid of this at first, because I didn’t understand what I needed to write, where I would need to get a huge amount of information, data, and so on.

But in the end I managed to build a system for myself, which I, of course, constantly tweak. And it allows me, without spending a lot of time, to generate a huge amount of content, which literally allows me to plan publications for several weeks and even months ahead.

And now I absolutely don’t have writer’s block, or some need to search for inspiration. My system works like clockwork, and I’m going to use it.”

Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? And if you’re thinking about creating your brand, then, at a minimum, you understand that such a need will arise, or, if you’re already doing this, you have this need.

So the first product takes shape, for example, from my point of view, this is the system that I use. I can simply sell it. And guess what, that’s exactly my first product – the System of content creation with the help of AI, witch I will announce very soon.

And just now I literally did that very distribution that I was talking about. And if you’re reading this now, accordingly, we have at least one interest in common, and this is an interest in business, in building a personal brand.

And surely you also have the task of creating content, if you decide to go down this path. And I’m offering a solution to this problem right here.

And, since my audience consists of several people, then this is the distribution, I give notice that I have a product, and then you make a decision about acquiring this product.

Money Buys Everything (Despite What They Tell You): The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Freedom

Most people are fed the same bullshit their whole lives: “Money can’t buy happiness.” “Money doesn’t solve your problems.” “The best things in life are free.”

What a load of crap.

In our modern world, money doesn’t just solve problems – it solves almost everything. And I’m about to show you why the conventional wisdom about money is not just wrong, but actively designed to keep you enslaved.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: in today’s society, money can buy practically everything – health, happiness, relationships, and most importantly, freedom. I’ll prove it to you, point by point, because understanding this reality is the first step toward achieving the independence you’ve always wanted.

Look, I get it. The idea that “money isn’t everything” sounds noble. It feels good to say. But it’s a convenient lie that benefits everyone except you. While you’re nodding along to platitudes about how “the simple life is best,” the people who actually control the system are accumulating wealth and the freedom it brings.

Why? Because they know what I’m about to tell you: money is the most powerful tool for creating the life you actually want. Not because cash itself makes you happy, but because it removes the barriers preventing you from living on your own terms.

A study from Princeton University initially suggested happiness plateaus around $75,000 in annual income, but newer research from University of Pennsylvania found no happiness ceiling at all – more money continues to improve well-being, especially for those who use it strategically. It’s not about hoarding cash; it’s about what that money enables.

What follows is the equation for freedom that nobody taught you in school. I’ll break down exactly how money translates to independence, why you’ve been programmed to believe otherwise, and the clearest paths to building wealth on your own terms.

By the end, you’ll understand why this reframing isn’t about greed – it’s about creating a life where you control your time, location, and choices. Where you’re not trapped in someone else’s system.

Ready to see how deep this rabbit hole goes?

The Real Power of Money (Everything They Don’t Want You to Know)

Let’s start with the most common lie: “Money can’t buy health, happiness, or love.” I call bullshit. In today’s world, money can directly or indirectly buy all of these things.

Money Literally Buys Health

Think about it. With enough money, you can get organ transplants, cutting-edge treatments using stem cells, and access to experimental therapies most people never hear about. We’re getting closer to curing cancer every day – and do you think that research happens for free?

The statistics are stark: wealthy Americans live 10-15 years longer than poor Americans. A study found the richest 1% of men live 14.6 years longer than the poorest 1%. For women, it’s a 10-year gap. That’s an entire decade of life, bought and paid for.

Money buys the best doctors, the healthiest food, stress-free environments, time for exercise, and preventative care that catches problems before they become terminal. When you’re wealthy, you don’t ignore that strange pain because you’re worried about the bill. You don’t put off checkups because you can’t afford to miss work.

To be continued...

They feed us the same BS our whole lives:

"Money can't buy happiness." "The best things in life are free."

What a load of crap.
In today's world, money not only solves problems, but also buys freedom itself.
Here's the uncomfortable truth:

Wealthy Americans live 10-15 years longer than poor ones.
The richest 1% of men live 14.6 years longer than the poorest 1%. For women, it's a 10-year gap.
That's an entire decade of life, bought and paid for.
Money literally buys health.

"But you can't buy love!"

people protest.
Well, not directly - but money creates the conditions where love thrives.
20-40% of divorces are attributed to money problems.
Financial stress kills relationships.
Remove it, and watch what happens.

Money literally buys freedom from worry.
It buys options.
It buys time.
These are the actual ingredients of happiness, not the crap they sell you in motivational posts.

Money buys freedom in multiple dimensions:
Financial freedom - assets that work for you
Location freedom - living anywhere you want
Choice freedom - working on what matters to you
All of these are direct functions of your bank account.

Got €250,000?
You've got permanent EU residence in Greece.
Around $150K can make you a citizen of several Caribbean nations with visa-free travel to 130+ countries.
The whole world opens to you when your passport is backed by cash.

Why does no one teach this in school?
Because the system needs workers - a compliant labor force that doesn't ask questions.
Modern education was literally designed to produce factory workers: punctual, docile, and sober.
You're taught to be an employee, not an owner.

A conventional job is trading your freedom for money.
You spend time on someone else's project.
You need permission for vacation.
You can be fired anytime.
62% of Americans would prefer to be their own boss.
Yet most remain trapped in jobs out of fear.

The FIRE approach (Financial Independence, Retire Early) works but requires extreme frugality and decade+ timelines.
Only about 1% of people aged 40-44 actually retire early.
I respect the discipline, but I'm not interested in pinching pennies until I'm old.

Trading/crypto? Essentially gambling.
97% of futures traders end up losing money.
38% of crypto holders sold at a loss.
Professional trading is possible but requires years of practice and capital.
For most, it's as reliable as lottery tickets.

What's left as a path to freedom?
Building a business that solves real problems.
Unlike a job, income isn't tied to your time.
Unlike trading, you create actual value.
Unlike FIRE, you can generate wealth in years, not decades.

The feeling when people benefit from what you've created, when they thank you for solving their problems...
That satisfaction is unmatched.
And if you're earning good money from it?
That's when everything falls into place.

Freedom + purpose = the ultimate win.
________________________

Read the full article on the topic: https://anticodeguy.beehiiv.com/p/money-buys-everything-despite-what-they-tell-you-the-uncomfortable-truth-about-modern-freedom

Let's continue.

Money Creates Relationship Opportunities

“But you can’t buy love!” people protest. Well, not directly – but money creates the conditions where love thrives.

With financial resources, you can create amazing experiences with potential partners. You can travel together, enjoy romantic dinners, and show up as your best self instead of being constantly stressed about bills. Money gives you the freedom to meet more people and the confidence to pursue relationships without desperation.

Is someone initially attracted to your success? Maybe. But who’s to say genuine feelings won’t develop once they get to know you? Real-world data shows that financial stress is one of the top predictors of divorce – roughly 20-40% of divorces are attributed to money problems. Wealthier couples have significantly lower divorce risk, not because rich people are better at relationships, but because financial stability removes a massive source of conflict.

Money Directly Impacts Happiness

The data is clear: financial insecurity makes people miserable. A 2023 collaborative study showed that while the least happy individuals saw happiness level off beyond about $100,000 in annual income, the happiest people gained even more happiness as their wealth increased.

Money doesn’t just buy stuff – it buys freedom from worry. It buys options. It buys time. And these are the actual ingredients of happiness.

Think about what makes people unhappy: stress about bills, hating their jobs but being unable to quit, feeling trapped in bad situations, lacking control over their lives. Money solves all of these problems.

As Warren Buffett said:

“Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.”

That freedom – to choose your path, take risks, innovate – is what leads to fulfillment.

Money Is Freedom

This is the big one, and the reason I’m writing this. Money buys freedom in multiple dimensions:

Financial freedom – the ability to live without working because your assets generate enough income. Once you have sufficient savings or passive income, you’re no longer forced to sell your time for a paycheck.

Location freedom – the power to live anywhere without being tied to a specific job location. With money, you can travel or relocate without asking anyone’s permission.

Money can literally buy the legal freedom to move globally through investment visas or “golden passports.” Over 30 countries offer residency or citizenship in exchange for investment. Got €250,000 for Greek real estate? You’ve got permanent EU residence. Around $150K can make you a citizen of several Caribbean nations, giving you visa-free travel to 130+ countries. The whole world opens up to you.

Freedom of choice – the ability to spend your time on projects you care about instead of ones that just pay the bills. When you’re financially secure, you can pursue your interests, start businesses that align with your values, and walk away from toxic situations.

Freedom to help others – with resources, you can make a real impact through philanthropy. Building wells for clean water, constructing homes for those in need, funding medical research – none of this happens without money.

The System That Keeps You Working

So if money is so important, why are we constantly told it doesn’t matter? Simple: the system needs workers – a labor force that doesn’t ask questions and keeps the machine running.

There’s a reason schools don’t teach financial literacy. There’s a reason we’re fed stories about the virtue of modesty and the corrupting influence of wealth. It’s aimed precisely at keeping normal people from pursuing true financial independence.

In my home country, there was an explicit narrative that you can only get rich through corruption, theft, or being born wealthy. This is nonsense designed to keep people in their place. In more developed countries, the narrative is subtler but serves the same purpose – keep people satisfied with just enough, never reaching for more.

Do you think it is a conspiracy theory? Modern education systems were literally designed to produce compliant workers. As Quartz reported, “the modern education system was designed to teach future factory workers to be punctual, docile, and sober.” The industrial-era school schedule (sitting in rows, moving at bells) emerged to prepare children for factory life.

Even today, most curricula teach you to be employees rather than business owners. As Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad Poor Dad) points out, schools teach people “to work for money, not how to have money work for them.”

The Job Trap

Let’s be blunt about what a conventional job actually is: trading your freedom for money.

When you work a 9-to-5, you spend your time on someone else’s project, building someone else’s dream. Your income depends on your boss’s whims. You need permission to take vacation. You can be fired at any time.

According to a Gallup poll, 62% of Americans would prefer to be their own boss rather than work for someone else. Yet most remain employees out of fear or the need for steady income. Only about 21% of employees globally report being actively engaged at work, with the rest feeling unfulfilled or constrained.

I see nothing wrong with work – for me it was a first step. But every time I worked for someone else, the itch to do my own thing intensified. I felt I was made for something bigger, something that was truly mine.

Naval Ravikant puts it perfectly:

“You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity – a piece of a business – to gain your financial freedom.”

As long as you trade time for money, your income stops when you stop working, and someone else captures the residual value of your work. Owning assets or a business lets you decouple income from hours worked.

This is the fundamental truth: a conventional job rarely leads to financial freedom unless you have an unusually high salary coupled with aggressive saving and investing. It’s a stable path, but not one that leads to true independence.

The Freedom Business Matrix: Why Personal Brand Wins in the Digital Age

Finding the right business model to create true freedom isn’t easy. Most people jump between options, never fully committing to one path – ending up with neither freedom nor success.

I’ve been there. I’ve tried the conventional employment route, explored various offline and online business models, and spent years searching for the perfect freedom vehicle – a business that’s completely mine, brings immediate income, scales well, and aligns with my passions.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably experienced similar frustrations. Maybe you’ve tried freelancing but found yourself with multiple bosses instead of one. Perhaps you’ve built someone else’s dream through a job or agency work. Or you’ve dabbled in online businesses only to discover they require constant attention without delivering the freedom you crave.

Here’s what most freedom-seekers miss: not all business models are created equal when it comes to independence. Some require massive capital, others demand specialized skills, and many just create a different kind of prison – one where you’ve built a machine that owns you rather than setting you free.

According to Gallup research, 62% of adults would prefer to be their own boss, yet most remain employees because they lack a clear roadmap to building a sustainable business. Even more troubling, Gallup’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace report found only about 21% of employees are actively engaged at work – meaning most people are trading their precious time for projects that don’t fulfill them.

In this article, I’ll break down the key business models available today, evaluate them through the lens of freedom and control, and reveal why building a personal brand emerges as the optimal strategy for most people seeking independence in the digital age.

By the end, you’ll understand exactly which business model aligns with your resources and goals – and why the most accessible, scalable, and future-proof option might be hiding in plain sight: you.
_________________________________

The Business Model Showdown

Let’s evaluate the major business model categories through the lens of what actually matters: ownership, scalability, barrier to entry, and freedom potential.

Resource-Based Businesses: High Reward, High Barrier

Resource-based businesses profit from owning or extracting natural resources – oil, minerals, land, etc. This is a massively scalable model that generates colossal wealth.

Just look at the evidence: the wealthiest individuals of the 19th/20th century were often resource tycoons (Rockefeller with oil, Carnegie with steel). Today, companies like Saudi Aramco have valuations around $2 trillion and make over $100 billion in annual profit – a scale hard to match in other industries.

If you have the opportunity to do resource business, go for it. The profits can be enormous because resources themselves are high-value and often monopolistic – owning a rare mineral mine gives you pricing power that’s hard to compete with.

What’s the catch? Most people don’t have access to this model. Resources typically require large capital, government licenses, and come with geopolitical risks. They also face commodity price volatility (remember when oil crashed in 2020?) and increasing environmental scrutiny.

While some entrepreneurs do break into resources (like wildcatters in the American shale boom), this isn’t a realistic starting point for most people seeking freedom without massive capital or connections.

More business models in the following posts.

Let's continue to evaluate different business models.

Production/Manufacturing: Building Real Value

Manufacturing tangible products at scale can create tremendous wealth. The model is straightforward: make something the market needs, produce it efficiently, and sell it for profit.

Real examples prove this works: James Dyson started making vacuum cleaners when established companies didn’t believe in his design. After years of iteration (and even personal debt), he built a global appliance company and became a billionaire. Sara Blakely started Spanx with a simple prototype (footless pantyhose) and became the youngest self-made female billionaire at the time.

Today’s richest individuals include manufacturers like Elon Musk with Tesla – which, while tech-heavy, is fundamentally a car manufacturing success story requiring factories and production expertise.

But the model has its limitations. High capital requirements, competition (often from lower-cost global producers), supply chain complexities, and technical expertise needs. Small manufacturing businesses frequently struggle against imports unless they focus on high quality, niche products, or innovative processes.

If you have the desire and technical skills to create products at scale, this is an excellent option. But it’s not typically the first business most people can bootstrap without significant resources or domain knowledge.

Local “Brick-and-Mortar” Businesses: Underrated Stability

Local service businesses – laundromats, carpet cleaning, lawn care, plumbing – are deeply undervalued in today’s tech-obsessed culture. Yet they offer remarkable stability and are largely protected from AI disruption.

The research confirms this: a widely cited 2013 Oxford study (Frey & Osborne) found that physical service occupations had the lowest probability of automation, as they involve complex physical tasks in unpredictable environments. Even as robots advance (like robotic lawnmowers), they become tools sold to service providers rather than eliminating the service entirely.

These “boring businesses” can be quietly profitable. The book “The Millionaire Next Door” found that many U.S. millionaires were owners of unglamorous local businesses like HVAC companies or auto repair shops that steadily accumulated wealth.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects many skilled trade jobs will continue growing through 2030, whereas some office jobs are declining due to software automation. During recessions, people still need essential services (plumbing, cleaning), making these businesses relatively recession-resistant.

The main limitation of this model is scale. A lawn care or laundromat business serves one city; you can open multiple locations, but it’s linear growth, not the exponential scale of an internet business. They also require daily operational effort or good managers.

But for practical freedom-seekers, local service businesses offer a proven path with lower competition and more stability than many shinier options.

Most people jump between business models, never finding true freedom.
After trying everything from employment to freelancing to agencies, I discovered why personal brand is the ultimate freedom business.
Here's the matrix I wish I'd seen 10 years ago.

Let's evaluate major business models first:
- Resource businesses - Insanely profitable (Rockefeller)
- Manufacturing - scalable (Dyson)
- Local service - stable (plumbers)
- Online business - global reach
But they all have critical flaws for those seeking true independence.

Resource businesses require massive capital, licenses, and connections.
Unless you have millions or government relationships, good luck breaking in.
The wealthy oil barons of history had advantages most don't.
Not a realistic opportunity for 99% of us.

Manufacturing needs technical expertise, supply chains, and significant startup costs.
Yes, Sara Blakely built Spanx from scratch.
But for every success story, thousands fail against cheaper global producers.
Great if you have the skills.
Most don't.

Local businesses are deeply underrated freedom vehicles.
Laundromats, cleaning services, HVAC - boring but profitable.
They're AI-resistant, recession-proof, and build wealth steadily.
One but - linear growth.
One city, one location at a time.

Online business democratized entrepreneurship, but created new traps:
1. The agency prison - trading one boss for many clients
2. Platform dependency - one algorithm change can destroy everything
3. Global competition - low barriers mean everyone's fighting for attention
Sound familiar?

Personal brand solves the core problems:
- Complete ownership (it's uniquely yours)
- No boss (not even clients)
- Platform-independent (diversify across channels)
- Direct monetization (sell what you create)
- Natural differentiation (nobody can be you)

Step 1: Break platform dependency
Don't build on rented land.
When India banned TikTok, creators who had already built on Instagram survived.
Pick 2-3 platforms where your audience lives.
Create on your primary platform.
Repurpose across others.
Maintain consistent messaging.

Step 2: Own your audience (not just rent it)
Your email list is the most valuable asset in your business.
Platforms come and go, but your direct relationship with subscribers stays forever.
One simple lead magnet + consistent value = freedom insurance against any platform changes.

Step 3: Create direct income streams
Don't rely on platform ads
Find your audience pain points
Create digital products solving specific problems
Offer high-value services leveraging your expertise
Build communities around shared interests
Own the relationship = own the revenue

Step 4: Co-create with your audience
Creating products in isolation is the biggest mistake
Listen to the questions your audience asks.
Solve problems they've told you (!) they have.
Test MVPs before full launch.
Lower risk, higher conversions.

Final step: Future-proof with authentic connection
As AI advances, genuine human experience becomes more valuable, not less.
Share personal stories AI can't replicate.
Use technology as a tool, not a replacement.
Your humanity is your competitive advantage.

Your personal brand, once established, becomes an asset that works while you sleep.
The best time to start was years ago.
The second best time is today.
Your freedom doesn't need to be perfect - it just needs to exist.
The world needs your voice.
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Read the full article: https://anticodeguy.beehiiv.com/p/the-freedom-business-matrix-why-personal-brand-wins-in-the-digital-age