Info products are underrated
jasonleow • 4 Oct 2023 •
Info products are a seriously underrated idea for indie hackers I feel.
It doesn’t always have to be SaaS ideas, you know…
My favourite sort of info products is info directories ala Nomadlist style. I’ve made 10 so far! Some profitable, some for social good, some still live, some closed:
Live:
gogranthunt.com
ketolistsingapore.com
bit.ly/dabaodash
visualaid.sg
safedistancing.sg
coffice-city.com
Closed:
publicdesignvault.com
publicdesignjobs.com
publicdesignforum.com
Never launched:
publicdesignfaqs.com
The best part about info product is how surprisingly passive it is. Sure, nothing is ever 100% passive, not even millions sitting in a bank. But comparatively amongst different types of products—ebooks, info directories, digital downloads, courses, SaaS—info products are one of the most passive product types any indie hacker can get. Once completed and launched, I typically spend only days out of a whole month doing anything for it. If I want to push it more and marketing it, yes I would have to spend more. But it’s an option not an obligation.
There’s a lot more benefits too. Like what @dvassallo said here:
Want a side project? Consider creating a portfolio of small educational info products:
- no long-term obligations
- topics of personal interest
- high intensity work (vs long slog)
- work on your own terms
- one-off sales
- no employees
- low overheads
- low risk & decent upside
Personally, what I enjoy most for info products is the first point - no long term obligations. You sell once, they receive it, that’s it, that’s all. No worry about maintenance. No concerns about customer support. No need to bring a laptop along on your vacation because of possible server crash.
It’s the commitment phobic of the product types - if you like being commitment phobic. ;)
Or even lower commitment – simply convert your popular long blog posts to short ebooks:
$0.99 is the new free. Instead of writing a super-long blog post. Consider packaging it as a short book. And sell it on Amazon. You’ll only make $0.35 per sale. But $0.35 > $0.00. And you’ll have a business card on steroids. – @AuthorOnTheSide
I love this idea by Hassan. It’s such a low barrier to trying info products. It’s just a long blog post that you charge 99¢ for reading! And who knows, you might even open up new distribution channels by being on Amazon!
So… let’s go. Info products.
Comments
I’m in!
@drodol Haha yes, glad you caught it. I often use tweets as a springboard for a post. Sometimes it’s the other way - a post becomes a shorter tweet. Occasionally it’s both!
Yes! You already have something done, so it’s a low barrier to launch. Let’s go!
@therealbrandonwilson Awaiting yours!
Hi Jason! I read a short tweet you made recently about this topic, and was glad to find you posted here about it at length.
I fully support the idea heavily. In fact, I have to unfinished products that fit into this category (the fact they are unfinished is untapped content for a blog post or two 😉)
The idea of having a directory site and to monetise it with ads is easy and low maintenance. Criteria I think my projects need to have.