🧠 A Ghost Reading Service ft Matt Bidstrup

The $1 Million Bitcoin Bet and Selling The Same App Twice

What’s up party people! We’re back with another side hustle idea!

Before we dive into today’s idea, let’s connect on Twitter!

And if you have any ideas for this newsletter, check out our suggestion box!

1. Business idea of the Week: Ghost Reading Service

This week's business idea is brought to you by Matt Bidstrup, the creator of The Steel Road.

Each week he sends 3 emails: 1 business idea, 1 business lesson, and 1 with curated content for non-tech business owners. 

The idea: Ghost Reading

You’ve probably heard of a ghostwriter, the copywriting wizards behind viral tweets and blog posts. They help busy people communicate their ideas with maximum effect.

A ghost reader is similar, except you read the books that busy professionals are “supposed” to read (as dictated by coworkers, bosses, influencers, etc.) so your clients don’t have to.

How to get started:

Step 1. Start with three books. You know the ones.. the typical business books that everyone recommends and says you should read:

• Atomic Habits

• Think and Grow Rich

• Man's Search For Meaning

Read these books very thoroughly. Take notes, and listen to the audiobook. Highlight quotes you like and that stand out to you.

Step 2. Use LinkedIn to build your audience. Post an insight from one of your 3 books twice a day. Engage with business owners' posts and write meaningful content. Share quotes from the books you have read.

Step 3: Optimize your LinkedIn profile with a solid picture, header, and summary. 

Step 4: Offer your services as a ghost reader and start to promote them in your posts. When a post about a certain book does well, add a comment offering your ghost-reading services. Start your pricing low like $250 a month for 2 books. Overdeliver with your first clients and provide them with insane value in exchange for testimonials. Over time as you build credibility you can raise your prices.

Check out this case study from an entrepreneur who has built a ghost reading business:

How one guy juggles 4 side hustles while being a full time student.

On The Steel Road you aren't going to read about drop shipping, e-commerce, affiliate marketing, or other sketchy business ideas that seem too good to be true. It's all about tangible service businesses that take some effort but create awesome value.

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2. The $1 Million Bitcoin Bet.

Balaji is a crypto investor and ex-CTO of Coinbase and he’s ringing the alarms on the American financial system.

Because of the recent bank failures, Balaji believes hyperinflation will kick in and Bitcoin will hit $1 million.

And he’s putting his money where his mouth is.

Balaji made a bet with James Medlock that bitcoin will reach $1 million per coin in the next 90 days.

So here’s how it goes:

• If bitcoin is >$1 million on June 17, James owes Balajji $1 million.

• If bitcoin is <$1 million on June 17, Balajji owes James $1 million.

This is quite possibly one of the worst bets I’ve ever seen.

All James has to do is buy 2 bitcoin right now for ~$27,000 and he’ll win either way.

Because if James loses the bet, he’ll just send Balaji one of the bitcoins he bought, and the other bitcoin will cover his initial buy-in (plus a whole lot more).

But what do you think?

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3. Selling The Same App Twice.

If you frequent Twitter as much as I do, you’ve probably seen a tweet or two from this profile picture:

That’s the Twitter picture for the infamous Nikita Bier.

Nikita is well known for his sh*t posting on Twitter, but he’s also really good at one thing: Building viral social media apps.

Nikita has two exits under his belt, selling social media apps to both Facebook and Discord.

But the best part of it all?

Nikita created and sold almost the same exact app both times.

In early 2017 Nikita co-founded the app “tbh” which allowed high schoolers to answer questions about each other anonymously.

Later that year the “tbh” app hit #1 on the app store charts and Facebook acquired it for roughly $100 million.

Facebook ultimately decided to shut down “tbh”, but in order to earn out the purchase price, Nikita joined the product team and signed a non-compete.

But when Nikita finished his earn-out in 2021, he left Facebook to start his next venture.

In 2022, Nikita started the “Gas” app which does almost the exact same thing as the “tbh” app.

And the result? The “Gas” app hit #1 on the app store and was acquired by Discord.

This guy literally built the same app twice and sold it to two different companies.

Legendary.