1. How a Parking Ticket Caught a Killer
By 1977, he killed 6 people and wounded 7 others.
David Berkowitz (aka the Son of Sam), was a 24 year old serial killer that terrorized New York City.
David started out burning buildings, and eventually turned to murder.
David was obviously a very bad person, and committed horrid crimes, but thats not why I brought up this story.
During Davids killing spree, the New York Police were never able to identify him. The DNA technology was not as advanced in the 70’s, and David left very little evidence.
This all changed when the police decided to re-think their strategy. Instead of looking for witnesses, or DNA, or the usual clues, they decided to look at parking tickets.
The police figured that if David had driven to the murder scene, it was un-likely he would have remembered to go back and fill the meeter.
After filing through 100’s of parking tickets, the police found a ticket for a 1970 four-door yellow Ford Galaxie, belonging to David Berkowitz.
When the Police showed up at Davids door, he simply said "Well, you got me".
So why did I tell this whole story about a serial killer? Because theres is something to be learned in the way the Police went about catching the killer.
Instead of going along with their usual protocol, and collecting the normal evidence, they looked at the situation in a new way. If David drove to the scene and left his car there, he most likely got a ticket.
This outside-the-box thinking can be applied to problems you have in your own life. Most problems have simple answers, but sometimes solutions to finding answers are complicated.
If you re-position your current thinking, you may just discover your answer.
Source: American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
- Btw, I’m reading this book and its 🔥 . I highly recommend 👌
2) A Life Hack You Don’t Need.
I love a good life hack.
Like… how to fold a fitted bed sheet or how to get extra food at chipotle.
But here’s one you probably don’t need:
No lesson here. Just wanted to share.
Have a great Sunday!
3. Business idea of the Week: Twitter Affiliate Marketing
Warning: this week's idea is a side hustle. Something you can start tomorrow, and scale passively, but not a business that’s going to make you rich.
Here we go..
The idea: Promote affiliate links on Twitter. For example, sign up as an affiliate for Nord VPN. Every-time someone tweets: what is the best VPN? - you respond with your affiliate link, and why Nord VPN is great. People asking for opinions on Twitter are sales leads looking to buy, and you’re just providing them your link to make the purchase.
Every time someone signs up with your link you get a commission on the initial sign up payment, as well as a piece of all the renewal payments. Check out these commissions:
That means if someone signs up for the monthly plan with your link, you get paid $11.99 for month 1, and $3.60 every month they stay a customer.
Beautiful passive income.
Here’s an example of someone asking for a VPN on Twitter 9 hours ago:
How to scale this? The obvious answer here is to create multiple Twitter accounts, with multiple affiliate links and niches. For example you can have 1 twitter account for Nord VPN and one for a HubSpot affiliate account. (HubSpot pays 15-100% commissions)
You can also hire VA’s to constantly find leads on Twitter and respond to Tweets that meet your criteria. With the right team of VA’s and systems in place, this can be a great passive side hustle.