How to launch a small digital product into the world

Give me three minutes to show you:

🎨 How to flip a free workshop into an evergreen product
📣 One idea to stand out that is still underrated
💻 What 120 architects decided to do in Ukraine

This week I announced the ​official launch​ of a new business that a few friends and I started earlier this year. It's called Hey Good Game, and it's like a tinier version of ​Tiny​—for brainy games.

What I love most about this is that it combines everything I love: design, business, branding, games, writing, SEO, marketing, and community.

It's easier than ever to start something new.

But this is where it gets tricky: when you start a new project, you lean into what you're great at. For me, that's writing and design.

The dopamine effect I get when sitting down to design a new website or landing page from scratch is like eating a bag of M&Ms. It's early. It's fresh. It's pixel heaven.

But then things ultimately slow down when you need to push your focus into other areas of the business. For me, that's sales and marketing. Ugh.

In the book The E-Myth, it states we're three people in one:

• The Entrepreneur

• The Manager

• The Technician

The entrepreneur lives in the future, the manager lives in the past, and the technician lives in the present.

I am first and foremost a technician. But if you're a solopreneur, you have to adapt and balance your time in the other two roles.

Recognizing your deficiencies and risks early on can help guide you to make better decisions about where you spend your time.

If you're a technician and want to avoid the roles of a manager and entrepreneur, ask for help and learn to develop those skills, or reconsider where you spend your time.

Even if it's something small, like my ​YouTube Masterclass​, I knew I couldn't build it if I wasn't going to commit to testing, marketing, and selling it either.

At ​Hey Good Game​, none of us could handle every aspect of the business. It required us to partner up and rely on the different skills we bring.

Don't be afraid to have fun and start your next project. But make sure to consider the areas you want to avoid ahead of time.

🎨 Make Better Design Decisions

​How to make your sales page much stronger​: A live session on crafting better sales pages.

​Welcome to the Age of Average​: ”Our visual culture is flatlining and the only cure is creativity.“ (via ​Jeremy Enns​)

​How to redesign your Google Docs experience​: Turn your stale and bland writing experience into something more Zen-like.

​A website and an email list are still underrated​: I should write more about this, but this combination acts as a ticket to any concert you want to go to. (I'm still fond of the personal site I designed for the extraordinary writer, ​Charlie Bleecker​. If you ever want to build something like this for yourself, let's chat.)

📸 Make It Yours Moment

After Russia pulled forces out of the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, 120 architects devised a plan to rebuild and make it theirs.

Thanks for reading!

Next week I'll dig into the last of our landing page series, what goes into a high-ticket course landing page, and how I built mine for my live workshop.

​

Your friend in design,

Nate