Connect with Elliott Zelinskas
[00:00:00] Doug: Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to The Doug Show. I’m Doug Cunnington, and I have my buddy Elliot Zilinskas back on the show. How are you doing today? [00:00:08] Elliott Z: Dude, awesome, and thank you for pronouncing my name right. That was incredible [00:00:12] Doug: Thank you. I was, uh, pretty nervous, and I was about to double-check if I got it, so I’m glad you confirmed. And you were on this show a few months ago. We had a great conversation, and I finally pulled my head out of the, out of my ass, I guess, and got caught up on my email, and I was like, “I need to follow up with Elliot, hear what’s going on.”we’re gonna get an update and hear how your summer went and all that kind of stuff. As a quick intro, who are you? What do you do? What kind of stuff do you work on? And then, you know, people should listen to the other episode for sure, but just as a reference point right now, give a little intro.
[00:00:51] Elliott Z: Totally. I’m a former teacher. Used to teach elementary, upper elementary, so third and fourth grade, I love to travel, so most of that teaching experience was at American international schools, like in Hong Kong and Shanghai and things like that. And then I bought a computer during COVID and learned how to build websites, and I pretty quickly started, um, kind of earning income from little digital products that I was making. within five months, uh, website started making more in passive income than my full-time teaching job. And so I continued to teach for a year and a half, and then once my teaching contract was finished, I went full time, and it’s just been over three years kind of living, um, kind of builder, builder world every day [00:01:44] Doug: And I went back to, uh, listen to the episode just to prepare, and I was like, “Oh yeah, you didn’t buy a computer until like…” When you just said, like, you didn’t really use a computer, um, like overall and just kinda… You, you preferred, like, less technology in your life overall. Okay. [00:02:06] Elliott Z: The least technical friend you would have had [00:02:10] Doug: It’s so cool. And now, um, you know, the s- projects that you’re working on, your, your businesses are, like, pretty much online. It’s all 100% computer-based, right? Okay. Well, the other thing is, um, you have a few different things that you’re working on. Some are confidential and stuff. So can you break down the different projects that you’re working on, and then we’ll kind of pull the threads and see where we go? [00:02:35] Elliott Z: Totally. I have this recurring theme and pattern that I continue to see works for others, and I use it myself, and that’s basically take your job title and create the little digital products and assets that help people who have that same career just do their job better, faster, or get the job, or get the ra- get the raise for the job or, you know, make them look better at the job.But I think that career-orientated or, yeah, digital products are sort of more inherently valuable than, say, like, I grew up skateboarding and, like, I don’t know, like, a skateboard e-book is, like, a lot less valuable than, like, a teacher e-book. You know what I mean?
[00:03:13] Doug: Yeah [00:03:14] Elliott Z: Like, hobbies, like, like, professional niches over hobby niches [00:03:18] Doug: perfect way to frame it. And I mean, when I look back and, and think, that was like the, th- the, like, key that I turned as well, ’cause my wife was like, “Why are you gonna start a blog?” This was like 2013. Like, “Why are you gonna do it? Like, why are they gonna listen to you?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” And then I was like, “Oh, I’m a project manager,” so I can frame what I’m doing around that.And then you attract people that are, you know, that have that background, or maybe they’re… For me it’s, like, anyone in IT, they’re like, “Oh, I worked with project managers,” or, “I was part of a project team.” So they’re like, you’re speaking the same language, and I understand what you’re doing, and you have credibility because, you know, it’s the professional area.
But the other big thing, um, especially, you know, in this example, you’re helping people, like, earn money, right? Versus, like, a hobby, which is, you know, purely a hobby. It’s not gonna generate more income or make their life, you know, considerably better from a financial standpoint. So very cool. Okay, so you have those, um, that, that’s kind of your guiding light.
Do you have any issues with, um, so many project ideas that you’re like, “All right. I kinda have too much stuff going, and I need to focus a little bit more”? I know that’s a kind of a trend with a serial entrepreneur type folk
[00:04:39] Elliott Z: No, totally. It feels like now that we have this sort of ex- like ultra tool, which is the AI, you can make so much so fast, but you can also kind of go off the rails and make too much stuff that becomes like– The projects are like too thin and you don’t put enough time in them. when we last talked, I was like very, very into like m- just like make different websites.And since then, most of those little websites haven’t actually created more than like $500 a month. They’re like pretty small, like usually like between one to $500 a month. Um, but I have one website that does a lot better. And so for the past few months, I’m pretty proud that I’ve been staying focused on that, and it seems like the more focused I get, the better that business does.
[00:05:28] Doug: Okay. And can you give us an idea of the scope of, you know, the sheer amount in revenue that you’re earning or, like, how much it has grown? Some people are more private, but I always like to ask the question so people know that I am asking the harder questions. [00:05:45] Elliott Z: No, totally. Uh, last month, one of the sites made 19K. The month before that it made 20K. So it’s like, sort of like at a very solid 15K and above. Um, I’m checking Stripe right now. I should have had it open before, but I think there’s, you know, off the top of my head, I think there’s something like 450 monthly recurring…So these are, this is like monthly recurring subscription, so it’s not like one-time payment. And I think there’s like 450 active members right now on the one website, so give or take
[00:06:17] Doug: Okay. And then is this a digital product, SaaS, or what’s, um, the underlying product? [00:06:25] Elliott Z: Yeah. Uh, so I just checked. It’s, there are 448 active subscribers right now, and it is a series of online courses [00:06:32] Doug: How much work is the, like, support, um, whether it’s technical or s- like specific for, like, the course material, um, just in general? ‘Cause that’s a lot of students to work with. [00:06:47] Elliott Z: Totally. It’s not bad. I probably receive about three emails a week, and usually it’s some… It’s, it’s almost always. It’s, you know, at least 75%, it’s people saying, “Hey, can you just cancel my subscription for me?” [00:07:02] Doug: Oh, God. Right. And is it, um, is that just the nature of the course material or the, the, you know, you’re a teacher, so the, maybe the quality of the material you’ve answered many of the questions that people might have? [00:07:16] Elliott Z: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I use… You know, the importance of this whole, like, take your profession and turn it into profit is, like, you should be able to use this product at your own job, so you’re using the product yourself. And by the time that you release it, it should be pretty well, like, done to go for anyone else. And so I personally use this, and now it’s solid. And so yeah, the support is pretty simple. I think it’s really straightforward. People sign up. It’s a self-paced course, and then they cancel it when they no longer need it [00:07:48] Doug: Okay. And how long do people end up, like, enrolling? What’s the average [00:07:54] Elliott Z: Average is three months. It’s not a, like, subscription software where people stay on for a long time. It’s made for a short-term problem [00:08:04] Doug: Okay, got it. And that, um, I mean, I g- I guess you knew that going in, right? Like, that’s all part of the plan? [00:08:11] Elliott Z: Угу [00:08:13] Doug: have to know that the market’s big enough that, like, new folks will come in, and then h- well, hopefully they’ll, like, tell other people about it. Um, can you talk about that a little bit, just, like, having the confidence to go after a market where you know the churn is gonna be, like, just part of it because it’s a problem that’s solved, and then someone moves on? [00:08:35] Elliott Z: Yeah, so the problem… I mean, I’m keeping it kind of vague because it’s my, you know, how I make a living. But it’s very sort of like back in those like, you know, I don’t know, 2010 or sort of like niche site where you might have a little portfolio and, you know, some do, you know, 100K… Or sorry, yeah, maybe 100K a year.Maybe some do 50K a year, maybe some do 12K a year, you know? Um, and so that’s kind of like what mine looks like. Regarding the, like the churn, it’s sort of in a… So what I’m saying is, yeah, a little bit vague, but I can give you like some examples like in a, in kind of an adjacent niche. So there’s demand that’s built in for it.
So if you think of, for example, and again, this isn’t what I’m doing, but I think it’d be a fair niche if you had some expertise in this. But like every single year, thousands of people apply to colleges, so there’s like demand that’s built in because it’s a thing that people have to do. So if people need to write their personal essay to get into college, there’s a, like, there’s a market to help people do that, and this is not what I do, but it’s something similar to that
[00:09:33] Doug: Okay. Yeah, perfect, perfect type of analogy. So I am curious about like, uh, the, the marketing portion of it and the growth. Uh, I… Well, actually, I’ll just ask that. Has there been growth? Are you, like, accelerating, like how many people come through, that sort of thing? So it sounds like it… We’ll just say it’s like seasonal because you gave that sort of, uh, essay example for people applying to colleges.So is it like that? Like each, um, each year there’s more people enrolling
[00:10:04] Elliott Z: It’s actually a monthly basis. So it’s not seasonal, but people need to do this thing every single month. But you don’t– Sorry, the same person doesn’t do it every month, but you have to do it at some time, but you can do it at any month. And regarding the growth, yes. So ever since I learned about building with AI around the same time that you and I started, um, you know, we had the first conversation, the business has grown, I’m looking at my Stripe right now, 217% from January, which is when I learned how to use Claude Code or just whatever kind of AI that you prefer.But so it, it really continues to grow because you can now make digital products so much faster, so you can make more faster, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been, like, creating a system of building digital products
[00:10:57] Doug: And I like the way that you gave the growth. It was just like the revenue in Stripe, not some upstream part of the funnel. It’s just like it has grown that much. Congrats. That’s pretty amazing. [00:11:09] Elliott Z: Yeah. [00:11:09] Doug: Did you, um, have… Does that surprise you? [00:11:13] Elliott Z: It delights me, that’s for sure. Man, I mean, making your own living is difficult, right? And if… I was just talking with a buddy of mine. He has a full-time job. He’s an engineer. He’s a really smart guy, and he has, like, kind of… I’ve known him for a long time, and we’ve been talking, and he created his own online course to help other engineers.I forget what type of engineer he is, maybe a civil s- civil engineer, I’m not sure. But, um, he’s, like, not a software engineer. And, and he’s been… Last month, uh, he made, like, $800, and he’s, like, taking these principles that I keep Like, take your profession, turn it into profit. Make things that help you at your own job.
And he did that, and last month, he… it was nearly $800 for the month. And, um, I mean, a- and, you know, sometimes if you stop making sales, then it can be scary. And he just reached out to me on my walk back home today, and he was like, “Dude, I haven’t made a sale in a week.” And, and he doesn’t know why, so we were talking before you and I got on the line. And you just have to think, like, you know, “What was I doing before that started making sales? And I should just double down on that.” Because like we talked about earlier, it’s easy to say, like, “I’m gonna build another feature.” Um, but maybe you should just keep marketing what you already have
[00:12:31] Doug: Perfect segue. So talk about your marketing strategy m- maybe at the beginning and, like, where it is now, things that you are doubling down now. I mean, the thing is you need to have data, and we should all be, like, testing a little bit here and there because we are… I mean, we all have blind spots, and we have assumptions.We’re like, “Ah, that’s not gonna work.” But sometimes when you try something, the exact thing might not work, but it may give you an idea for something else. So where’d you start? Where are you at now? And we can dive into some of the, the growth and some of your marketing strategies.
[00:13:08] Elliott Z: Started with SEO optimized blog posts. Luckily, at the very beginning of this kind of I bought a computer, my friend had an SEO course, uh, not that he made, but one that he purchased, and he gave me his login credentials for that. And so I, like, studied it like crazy, and feel like my SEO background is pretty fairly, you know, fairly equipped. And so I started writing blog posts, you know, doing the classic, like, get an Ahrefs subscription, make the entire list of long-tail keywords that you feel you can rank for, make blog posts about those. Those types of blog posts, of course, you can make sort of programmatically and a lot faster with AI now.So I’m still doing that. Um, I then to creating YouTube videos, and personally, I’m a big fan of both blog posts and YouTube videos because they have a longer shelf life. They live longer as evergreen assets, especially if you’re creating something that people are actually searching for, and that’s what I do.
I make a lot of videos. About 60% of the people find me from videos. The other 40%– or about 30% find me through the SEO blog posts, and then the other 10% find me either on a, um, you know, someone shared a link on Reddit or a Facebook group, something like that
[00:14:35] Doug: so that’s how they find you. And do you have an idea of like better conversions from YouTube, for example, versus other, or does it not matter to you? [00:14:49] Elliott Z: I would be totally down to learn that. I honestly have no idea even how to figure that out. Of course, like, we have this machine, like AI, and I’m, I b- I bet it could, like, tell me. But just the attribution, I feel like if sales are coming in and things are going well, I just wanna do more of the making on things that seem to be going well rather than kind of confusing myself with data. A lot of people have different thoughts about that, but I just, I love doing the thing that makes money rather than figuring other stuff out. And for my brain, simple is where it’s at [00:15:22] Doug: Largely agree with you. I know when I was doing more, um, just course sales, I was trying to find that type of information. Hard to figure out because you don’t know if someone had multiple, um, im- or sorry, you don’t know from where they got all the touchpoints, and it’s like m-maybe YouTube, but that could’ve been after they read your blog for a long time.So you never really actually know. It’s always, like, kind of fuzzy anyway. But back in those– I mean, people are still like, “Oh, you gotta look so hard at the data, and let’s, like, let’s slice it and dice it.” And I was like, “I don’t have enough data points for this to be significant at all. This is just… I mean, it looks good on paper, but it’s not going to scale in the way that…”
Well, people were selling tools back in the day, so it was like they want you to buy the tool and use the automation or whatever. So,
[00:16:17] Elliott Z: Right [00:16:18] Doug: okay, so back on track a little bit. The thing that I find a few things interesting. So number one, just confirm the year that you got the computer, and you were like, “Hey, I’m gonna try some online stuff.”What year was that?
[00:16:30] Elliott Z: 2020 [00:16:31] Doug: Okay, so 2020. So, and then you’re learning SEO around that timeframe within a year or whatever. And basically, like, by then, I was already like, “Oh, man, this is, like, much harder than it used to be, uh, just a few years earlier.” And I’m like, “I, I’m not super interested in doing that right now.”But what you just outlined was the exact same things that we were doing, like, you know, seven years before or 10 years, like, before I got started. So it was like blogs, SEO optimized, YouTube or something else, and e-exact same thing. So any observations from your standpoint knowing that, you know, people like me were like, “Ah, man, I’m, I think I’m done with this for now,” but you’re just getting started, and you’re like, “This is amazing.
Like, this is changing my life. I can’t believe I, I can, like, learn SEO, like, pretty quickly.” And I’m like, “Ah, ship has sailed. SEO is so different now.” So w-what do you think, old people like me?
[00:17:32] Elliott Z: I just jumped on a call last week with someone else, and they’re just amazed. Like, they were, they were– They just kind of mentioned what you, you just said. They’re kind of– They were in the space a lot longer than I have been, and they were like, “Dude, you’re doing what Matt Diggity and all of these guys were talking about 15 years ago, and you’re doing the exact same thing, but creating digital products instead of affiliate links, and it’s working.”And I, from, like, my perspective, I’m just, like, throwing my hands up in the air and I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know. Like, it still works. People still use the internet.” And, and I, I’ve met a number of people who are sort of, like, baffled or something. Um, but I don’t… I, I mean, I feel like the market is bigger. More people are– They want a digital product instead of, you know, like a physical e- a physical book.
They want things faster. They want it more convenient. And if you can make your website, know, and work well and, you know, show real testimonials I mean, and people, if people want the thing, they’re gonna get it
[00:18:41] Doug: I listened to an interview over on, um, Niche Pursuits the other, the other week, and it was a influencer creator that does Amazon affiliate. That was my bread and butter, right? Amazon affiliate. S- But he’s doing, I guess it’s the influencer program, and so he does, like, these short video reviews on Amazon, and I think he was making, like, 25, 30K a month.A lot of the– I mean, everything has changed so much, but it’s exactly the same. So he was mentioning, like, the kind of research, like, “Hey, can I give a better review than the ones that are out there? Are they selling a lot of products?” There’s a handful of keyword or, like, niche research type tools to give you a little more information, and then he’s like, “Yeah, but I just make, um, you know, do these videos.
I have, like, 5,000 videos,” or something like that. And then he mentioned Amazon changing the commission rate. A-again, it’s just like it rhymes exactly with the stories from before from, like, 10 years ago, and I’m, I was, like, a little bit shocked, but also I was like, “Oh, wow, people are still doing pretty much the same thing.”
It’s just like we went from blogs back in the day, and now they’re doing video, short form video, still a volume play, still the same kind of keyword research. Super interesting. Okay. I love it because I, again, where I’m sitting, I’m just like, “Oh, I don’t even know if this stuff is possible anymore.” When I emailed you, you were, like, super pumped, and you were like, “Now, now’s the best time to, uh, like, get started.”
And, uh, so tell us more in some of the stuff you may have, like, um, already kind of mentioned, but, like, give us, give us the case, like, if someone, maybe they haven’t started m-much, maybe they’ve started a blog and they’ve tried a few things, but nothing really clicked, and you laid out a few signposts for, for us.
But yeah, if you could, like, give someone an overall strategy on how they might think about approaching it and, like, how to get started without getting overwhelmed. That’s the other thing now. There’s so much info where if you go watch a handful of YouTube videos and you’re learning, you’re like, “Oh, shit, I have to do, like, 1,500 things.
I’m totally– Like, I, I don’t have time for this.” So broad question. I’ll let you lay it out. Uh, since you’re a teacher, you could clean up my question and give a, a good answer.
[00:21:13] Elliott Z: For anyone who’s just starting, I love low competition things. So first and foremost, I wanna start there because low competition is beautiful. Even if there’s 100 people searching something, if you can make that… I, I think there’s something great right now with combining your expertise of your professional career background with AI. And the thing is that what you don’t wanna do is overthink something. I think once you figure out how to r- like, put up a blog, you have your own website, you can make a lot of digital products in a day. It might take the whole day, but you can make it in a single day. And if you make, I don’t know, five digital products in a day for a month, so I, so, uh, a- a- first of all, and this is you are making something that people are searching for.That’s the whole thing. Make something that people are searching for based off your professional career using AI to make the production of the product faster, you will make a sale And thing is someone, a, a, a friend of mine just– another friend re- just reached out, and she was like, “Dude, tell me what you’re doing.” Sh- she has a PhD, she’s super smart, and of course, like a lot of people, they would love to work for themself, um, and either not have the job or love to get $1,000 or more or whatever, just some extra income in so that, you know, for her case, she needs to pay off these student loans because again, she has a PhD.
She has tons of years of student loans. And, and yeah, I think, you know, she sort of was like, you know, “Give me the 80/20 of it,” and I did, which I– is what I just told her, and then she sent me a link to what she made, and she put it on Gumroad. And there’s nothing wrong with Gumroad, but that is not at all what I suggest.
You have to sell it on your own pro– uh, yeah, your own website. So instead of going on Amazon or Gumroad or Etsy or any of these, sell it on your own product and then the evergreen blog post or really the video. A lot of people don’t wanna get on video, and honestly, I’m not even on the videos that I’m making.
It is just slideshows of showing the product. And so show the product and h- what it can, you know, be used for and how it can be helpful to others, and then eventually with the internet, like marinates everything that’s in it, and someone will pick it up. And so what I would recommend is, again, use AI to make things that you understand that people are searching for, publish them on your own blog, utilize long-form areas that aren’t just here this second, gone next second, like social media, and that stay on the internet for a long time, which for me is YouTube and the blog post.
So do that, and I think you will 100% make a sale
[00:24:17] Doug: So a couple follow-up questions. With, um, Gumroad that your, your friend, like, put a, a product out. And for people that don’t know, I used them back in the day just for, like, payment processing. It was, like, an easy way to, like, deliver a PDF or whatever. But why don’t, why don’t you think Gumroad is good in this scenario?‘Cause it was just on a marketplace?
[00:24:39] Elliott Z: No, good, good, good question. They just, they ta- uh, so there’s, again, there’s nothing wrong with any selling on another platform. It’s just that they take part of the profit. And so if you’re… I mean, I wanna make, you know, I wanna make as much as I can. Stripe is already gonna take 3%, and so I’m not sure that these platforms like Etsy or Gumroad or there’s probably a ton other, I don’t even know.I just think it’s, you’re building a more sustainable business when you own that relationship and you own– You get people to your own little property, and there’s just more that you can do, you know, with them, for them. You know, you can get them on your email list and you can build a relationship. You can say, “Here’s, you know, a free email opt-in.”
And, you know, with AI, you can just this, like, just say, tell Claude Code or Codex, whatever you’re using, you know, put a slider email opt-in on this page where you control the website, but you don’t control Etsy, and they are gonna have the, um, you know, deterministic, um, you know, es- uh, you know, they’re gonna tell you it’s their platform, what they want.
Just like what you mentioned with your friend, the, the, uh, commission was cut on Amazon. And I don’t want that to happen to me, so I just sell in my own place
[00:26:02] Doug: Got it. I know, um, when I was selling my courses, people were like, “Oh, you gotta go on Udemy.” And I was like, “Fuck that.” So s-similar thing. I mean, you don’t control… I didn’t want anyone, um, to be able to put my products on sale for like 90% off or whatever Udemy was doing, and I was like, “Yeah, it’s not, not gonna work.”I’m much happier selling like, whatever, 10% of the, the sales and earn so much more. Okay, all good. The other follow-up is around balancing competition. So you were like, “I love low competition,” and there is, there’s some issue being like, you know, the first to market because you have to spend a lot of time educating people on like what this is and why it’s valuable.
So how do you balance that so that you know if you create a product, there’s a m- higher likelihood for the people to actually want to pay money for that thing, maybe because there is competition, but not too much. So how do you balance that?
[00:27:07] Elliott Z: Totally. A- and as you know, there are certain queries or searches that are more value intent, more purchase intent, and, you know, if someone searches worksheet or template or PDF or e-book, those people are looking for the thing, and they have a higher likelihood of buying. So if you find something and you can make it, I would say go ahead and make it.Again, whether there’s, quote-unquote, “high or low competition,” you know, that’s gonna be different for each person. Some people, you know, how long is a piece of string, right? So, like, some people say, “This number is too high for competition,” and some people will be like, “Um, that’s okay with me,” w- you know, on the high or low spectrum.
And so I, again, I don’t even really look too much into these numbers. I just say, “Wow, people are searching for this. If I know about it, and I can make it…” And especially speed is really important, so if I can make it quickly and it works, then I’ll just go ahead and do it, and then I’ll put it on the website.
And so the website that I’m, I’m really referencing that is making, you know, made last month, it’s just an entire website of a library of things that people search for in a specific niche
[00:28:22] Doug: Cool. All right. So much info. I, I wanna get back to you, um, you know, in a few months and hear what’s going on. Very exciting. Congratulation on all your success here. And you have a new project that you’re working on, so I’ll give you a minute here to let people know where they could find you and, um, your, your project.I don’t know if it has a name, so I’ll just, I’ll say project
[00:28:47] Elliott Z: Totally. Yeah, I mean, my name’s Elliot Zelinkis. You might find, you know, probably a bunch of skateboard photos on the internet, but, uh, these days I just like to build things online. The project I’m working on that I just mentioned to Doug before we started recording, it’s called builderclub.ai. I’m just obsessed with this, and I feel like there’s a lot of skills and opportunities and s- stuff that I personally wanna learn more about.So I have created a blog. This is the first time I’m telling anyone about it. Even my… Like, all of my builder friends don’t even know about it. I haven’t even told them. It’s just a tiny one-page blog. I’m interviewing other builders who have also built profitable businesses with AI. I would just go there, builderclub.ai
[00:29:25] Doug: All right, we’ll link up so people could find it really easy. And, uh, thanks a lot [00:29:30] Elliott Z: Dude, such a great time. Thanks so much, Doug