Read time: 5 min

Hey there, Arjun here

This week's topic: The subtle art of productizing yourself

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1 - The Principle

Productization = Distribution of value

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‍Productization can be quickly summarised as crafting products by turning your interests and expertise into a marketable and valuable product.

But most people build products for the sake of monetization and not value.

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Here's how to build valuable products.

Over the past 3 years, I’ve built many digital products, including apps, icon packs, UI kits, design systems, fonts, checklists, templates, tools, books, and courses.

Needless to say, I have a lot of experience when it comes to building digital products.

Both how to build a valuable or a bad product.

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2 - The Anatomy

In this letter, I’ll discuss how you can build a valuable product using a 3-step process I call the CCO Method

Before we dive deeper, I need you to understand this ↓

1. You need to have a metaphysical curiosity when you are building your own product.

2. You need to have a clear outcome for the people who buy your product.

3. How will they change and what will you do to make them go from A to B?

The biggest reason why most people quit in the first 1-3 years of business is monetization.

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There are 3 parts to monetization:

1. Different ways to monetize your skills and business
2. Should you focus on content first or product first?
3. Do you need to wait to start selling products?

Ever since I started this entrepreneurial journey, I was always a product guy.

I always tried to make the product valuable and favored productization over services.

Selling a service isn’t bad but productization gives you leverage in this digital economy.
Products are infinitely scalable but they’re slower to take off at the start.

This means that it will take some time before you start seeing real progress in selling products.

This is why you should also have a productized service in the meantime.

It will help you collect capital.

So what kind of products?

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1. Educational products
2. Tools
3. Memberships

And how do you send traffic to those products?

Useful Content

Use your content to validate ideas. Understand your audience's pain-points and create a unique solution based on that.

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3 - The Action

Okay, let’s get into the CCO Method.

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There are 3 phases to building a valuable product ↓

1. Curiosity Phase

2. Creation Phase

3. Optimization Phase

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1 - The Curiosity Phase

This is basically whatever that goes before you build the product.
It includes the research (market and customer research). But more importantly, the offer creation.

You need to craft the offer for your product before creating the actual product itself.

In order to do this, you need to be curious.
- Why do people buy products?
- Why do people want to improve?
- What makes them come to you?

Ask yourself a bunch of questions and try to answer them from both an intuition feeling and from data-driven responses.‍

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2 - The Creation Phase

This is where you actually create the product. Here are my 2-cents to help you in this creation phase:

1. Open up a notion document (or any note-taking app) and outline your product. For example, if it's a course, outline the course.

2. Dump everything you know in the notion document (doesn’t need to be in order)

3. Start refining and structuring it

Of course, this mainly applies to educational products. If you are building tools or SAAS, the process will vary. But you still need to outline your product, customer journey and the process.‍

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3 - The Optimization Phase

During this phase, you'll need to focus on improving and refining your product to make it even more valuable to your target audience.

This involves analyzing user feedback, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing changes to address any issues or pain points.

This allows you to provide a better user experience and increase customer satisfaction.‍

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Okay.. Now What?

What used to be paid in the past is now given free.

The only way you can achieve monetization through products is to put focus on giving value.

It’s like a paradox where value is the objective and not monetization but monetization will occur as a by-product of the value given.

What is value?

Value in and in itself is subjective. Some people find educational items valuable, some find entertainment valuable.

So, there isn’t one big answer on what is considered valuable. Rather, you should look at your target audience and see what they find valuable and fulfill that.

“The sales of our products clealy demonstrate their value to businesses and to individuals” - James L Barksdale

Curate. Create. Iterate.

If you ever have any questions, regarding your brand, business, e.t.c → Reply back to us and we’ll help you.

Liked what you read? Share The DZ Letter with your friends to help spread the value.

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Have a wonderful rest of your day and see you in the next letter, my friends.

Cheers,

Arjun, DisplayZen

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Whenever you're ready, Here's 2 Ways I Can Help You ↓

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1 - If you want to scale your products with user-centric product design and strategy:‍

Work With Me - This is a qualifying form that will help us see if you're a good fit for our services

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2 - A new product is in the works. To make the best product for you, I need more feedback from you:‍

Join My Product Waitlist - Get instant access to the same system I used to build my brand strategy + an exclusive offer when it launches