There have only been a few times in my life where I’ve been able to get into a flow state, for multiple days in a row.
So focused/excited about the work at hand that I forget to eat.
The first time I remember this happening was in college.
It was summer, and I was working at my sister’s real estate office in Boston.
My brothers and I used to do rentals during summer break.
Best job ever.
Bring people around to see apartments they’re already interested in.
Open a few doors, have a few conversations, and then collect half-a-months rent as a commission.
Should be illegal. But I don’t make the rules.
Anyways, there was a downside to the job.
Craigslist.
In order to work in my sister’s office, every agent had to post every rental listing on Craigslist(dot)com.
That’s where we got most of our leads from.
On average that meant about 50 separate Craigslist postings per agent, per day.
It was tedious work. Took forever (sometimes up to 2 hours).
Plus, keeping all the details straight about each listing was challenging.
Was this a 1 bed, or 2? How many bathrooms again? Pet friendly? What was the move-in-date? Are these the correct photos?
Oh, and if you tried to post too quickly, Craigslist would throttle you. You’d get locked out for 10 minutes.
So I had an idea.
What if I automated the process?
The thought of never having to manually enter another Craigslist post again was thrilling.
Enter flow state.
5 days and a simple excel sheet with some Visual Basic later, and the automation worked!
I could press a button and the automation would run for about 30 minutes, publishing every Craigslist post I had that day.
No intervention required.
I skipped a ton of meals, didn’t shower all that often 😅 and didn’t leave my house much to make that work.
The only other time I’ve done that was when I started my second niche site…
Niche Site Reveal
In September last year I decided to start a second niche site.
My first niche site was doing incredibly well (700,000+ page-views and doing around 40,000 a month in profit) and after nearly 3 years of working on it, I was ready to try my luck again.
But what would I write about?
After doing quite a bit of digging, I stumbled on the Home Appliance niche.
The overall approach was similar to my first site – troubleshooting. Just write about popular products and the issues they encounter.
What’s the first thing you do when something breaks, or stops working in your home?
I Google it.
Turns out millions of others do too.
I spent a few hours doing keyword research and realized that while the appliance niche is a bit competitive, there were/are untapped opportunities.
Plus I had it on good authority that this niche regularly does $50-$60 RPMs (often higher).
So I went to work.
27 days later I had a website live with nearly 30 posts published on it.
The site?
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Highlights
- This niche site is now 7 months, and 28 days old
- I published a total of 29 posts
- 108,000 total impressions so far
- 2,060 total clicks so far
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That’s it.
A relatively short Niche Twins newsletter.
The first of its kind.
Out in the wild.
Feels weird, I know!
But I really want to let this one simmer.
I want to give you a chance to review the site.
Poke around. Make yourself at home.
Mi sitio web es tu sitio web.
Does my niche site look/feel similar to the one you’re working on? Or different?
In what ways?
Form your own opinion of it. Be critical.
How likely is it that my site succeeds long term?
What makes you think that?
This week I revealed my site.
Next week I’ll explain in detail why I probably won’t work on it ever again.
Enjoy the weekend.
But don’t forget to do your homework.
Chat soon.
-Mike
Niche Twins newsletter sent weekly on Fridays at 8:30 AM ET
