'¥'*"'
Welcome, welcome, welcome to our second Master Call for Zero to Launch. I can't wait to tackle
some of these questions tonight. We have some really good ones. I will tell you, I have a ton of
energy today. I had a two-hour call scheduled for the middle of the afternoon and I'm very, very
anal about my call scheduling. So I have extremely detailed requirements for my phone calls.
It has to be clear who's calling whom. I have a specific format that I want in my calendar entry
that my assistant follows. If people are late by X minutes, I just don't do the call anymore.
I'm very specific, that's what let's me fill in so many calls and get so much stuff done every
day. So I get on the phone with one of my friends and he was suppose to interview me for his
podcast. So I'm sitting here, I have all my recording equipments set up, I have some notes,
and he goes, "Okay, so what are you interviewing me about?" I said, "What? Me? I thought
you were interviewing me not me interviewing you." And we realize that there was some
miscommunication, so he goes, "Hey, I'll interview you, no problem. Let's do it in a couple
of weeks." And I look at my calendar and it's completely clear untilgpm. So I'm not looking
around, and I have nothing to do this afternoon. What am going to do?
So I read a book, I watch some reality TV, I took a nap, then I woke up, and I looked at my clock.
I said, "I'm going back to sleep again." I went back to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. I said,
"This is the best day of my life." And now here I am talking with you.
So I want to start off with a question. I'm going to give a couple of recommendations again for
anyone who ask a question today: Have that question ready in front of you. Make sure that you
have your headset or microphone handy and make sure that if I call your name, you're ready to
go. I want to keep this thing moving because I want to answer a lot of questions.
Tonight's questions are outstanding. I actually have to tell you, I think they're better than last
week's, and that is exactly what I expect from you. Each week I want to see improvements in
the type of questions, the caliber of questions, and the depth of questions that you're asking.
That's what I'm here. If you have beginner questions, no problem, I'm going to tackle those for
you. But as we get more and more advanced, that's where these calls can really shine. And as
always, remember, you're going to have access to these calls for lifetime access. So if something
doesn't quite make sense or resonate right now, don't worry. You may come back and listen to it
I have told several of my friends who helped me with the Idea Mapping or with rather figuring
out what skills I'm good at.
l@f,iii
Okay, good. And what was their reaction when they heard that you were taking this online
course, Zero to Launch?
'9M'"i
They didn't seem very surprised. I sort ofgot the feeling that they were expecting me to do my
own thing, some online thing, and they weren't very surprised at all.
•MM"
Love it. Okay, good. Alright, I see you have a very long question here, but I want you to cut it
down and make it concise. Give it to us in two to three sentences.
Qii¥j
Sure. My problem is that I'm struggling with creating remarkable content because I think my
issue is that I have two target groups. As a reminder for everybody, I'm working on German
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language instruction for expat kids. So the people who would be using my product are little kids
between the ages of six and ten. The people who would be buying it are their parents.
1911;110j
Actually an eight-year old.
Eight-year old, okay. We know that parents, like a lot of the day, they just want to get through
the day and there's these times during the day where their kids screaming in the back of the
van and they're like, "!just need to get them to soccer practice so I can pass them off to the
coach." Right? I'm sure you've been there.
Gi!¥i
Yes.
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'¥'*"'
So this fun five-minute game really solves one of their problems. And remember, Ramit's
number one rule of marketing: nobody gives a damn about you. Your target market, to them
you are just a blip in their day. What you need to do is put yourself inside their world, the world
of a screaming child or being exhausted but still wanting to do the right thing and pass along
that heritage. And so what I did with these examples was everyone of them, "Here's what I
learn teaching five-year olds about language," "Here's how to order at the restaurant," these are
all outcome-based, they're not feature-based. In other words, I'm giving them something they
already want. They want their child to be able to order in German, or they want to play a fun
game with them. I'm not saying, "Here's how to conjugate verbs for your first grader." It's super
Hey David. How are you doing?
'·*1'·'
It's a beautiful day in California.
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'¥'*"'
Beautiful, beautiful. Where in California are you calling from?
•·t.S1'·•
Right now, Redwood City.
•MM"
Beautiful. Alright, David, so tell us what one surprise has been about joining the Zero to
Launch course?
•·h1'·•
Probably the most surprising thing to me so far has been the way that you can turn an idea
from a bad one to a good one just by shifting the position. As I was going to the Idea Mapping
exercise, there were number of ideas I had. When I realize I was having trouble fitting them
into a quadrant, it was probably because, for some people would [be the] best, for other people
would be bad.
'MM 11
could create the most amazing content in the world, and college kids are not in that mindset,
they don't have any money and even if they did, they don't have expenses in the same way a
person in the real world does. So the market responded rationally and there were very few great
sites focused on young people.
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So I come along, I'm this cocky college kid, I start writing for young people because I am a
young person. Now I did it because number one, I felt like I had something that the world
needed to hear, two, I had no intention of turning this into a business. If that were a business,
that would have been the worst business on earth because not only did I not make money, I
actually lost money for years and years. So as I got older, the things that I learned writing for
college students actually turn out to be incredibly beneficial. So I learned about hopes, fears,
and dreams. My audience aged with me and as I became older, more experienced, wiser, and
some would argue, much better looking (actually everyone would argue that). I realize that the
insights I have learned as 20, 21, 22 year-old were incredibly valuable, however, I don't speak at
colleges. Why? Because they don't really care. I don't target college kids anymore or even recent
college grads. They don't have the ability or willingness to pay.
So there's a nuance answer here which says from a business perspective. I don't really help
college kids. However, the fact that I started out back then and took the time to really mind and
understand that market, that turned out to be incredibly useful to me. Now I could only afford
to do that because I wasn't treating it like a business. It was basically just a hobby. Now you're
in the program Zero to Launch because I think you want to start a business. Am I reading that
right or are you open to just doing a hobby? Which one do you want?
i·iMI·i
Yeah man, we're in it to win it.
just lecturing to you, I'm living it right now, doing the same things you're doing, finding ideas,
testing them and in some cases, saying, "Okay, this isn't the right idea. I'm going to put it aside
for now."
Alright. Let me go on to our next person, Jenna D. Jenna D., give me one second here. Jenna,
are you there?
fl@@i
I'm here.
i;h.t,jli
Hey Jenna, how are you doing?
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IH*t.i
Good Ramit. How are you?
i@f,iii
I'm doing great. Where are you calling from tonight?
fi@@i
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
•MM+
Beautiful. Alright, so share with us one insight, one surprise from Zero to Launch so far.
Is this for real? What? I can't relate at all. I don't understand at all. Okay, I actually know this
market very well and I know exactly what you're talking about. Let's go back and forth a little
bit, tell me some of the actual language that they use to express their "lack of confidence."
"Mid·'
Sure: "I know I have the skills, and I'm pushing myself out there right now. But it's taking a
lot to keep those self-doubts and fears away in order to allow me to keep moving forward." "I'm
terrified and messing up, not knowing the answers to questions, being boring." "How can I
advise people when I still have work to do to get my own stuff together? Or if I'm wrong about
this? What if I don't know enough? What if I make a fool of myself?" These are kind of the
things that they're saying.
•MM"
Great. Did you have that in a research document in front of you?
+I@M'
I did. I have a bunch of quotes that I've taken from consultations that I've had, conversations
that I've had.
Excellent. I'm very impressed. I just want to put this out to everyone listening. What J enna just
did is extraordinary and that's exactly the level of excellence that I expect from everyone of you.
I asked her to give me the language, and she didn't miss a beat. She went right into it, and best
of all, she didn't just make it up, she read it. And that is incredibly important to stay close to the
research. We have extensive positioning documents as I outlined in Zero to Launch. And as we
get further and further down the product development process, we tend to do the thing that all
humans do. We tend to concoct these stories in our head, and sometimes I'll say stuff like, "Oh,
these people don't want that. What they really want is this." And I'm pretty good at doing this.
I've been doing it a long time. I have to go back, look at the positioning documents, which have
[email protected],jii
Awesome. Okay. So if that's the case, you want to find out if these players are B players who
could be made into A players, or are they just D players who are using the codewords of
"confidence" to cover up their lack of motivation or their ineptitude, or incompetence, or just
their ignorance when it comes to business.
So we want to do that and there's one simple way to do that. We're going to ask them to pay. I
want you to offer your services for $X and then observe how they respond. Do you think you
could craft a small custom service, maybe even a four-part coaching call that would help them
overcome their confidence barriers?
fl@d-1
Yeah, absolutely.
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Okay. So following that principle as outlined by Paul Graham that I allude to in Zero to Launch.
He said, "Do things that don't scale." I'd like to see you offer this to five or ten people and I'd
like to see if they take you up on it. Let's have a little role play, I love role-playing. Oh God, I
can already tell you that my audio team is going to cut that less sense and turn it to something
perverted... which is fun, let them. Alright, we're going to role-play right now and let's see, do
you want to be you or do you want to be the non-confident client?
fi@@i
I'll be the non-confident client.
IH*t.i
It sounds good but I'm just wondering, can you guarantee me? I'm thinking, okay, so maybe my
confidence is going to be boosted, but will that actually help me get more clients?
i@§iii
Great question. Well I can tell you that no one can guarantee you more clients, and if they say
they can, you should take a skeptical eye and listen to them. But no one can guarantee that.
What you can do this is invest in yourself, and you can find all the areas that are holding you
back, and you can systematically work through them one by one.
Remember, you mentioned to me last week, I asked you what was the number one thing holding
you back from growing your business, and you said it was confidence. So again, if you're
interested, this is almost like you're number one barrier is confidence. Here's literally the
course called The Confidence Cure. And as I said, it's $197 dollars. Again, I'm not pressuring
you, but I just want to know if this is something that will be interesting and would you like to
sign up?
IH*t.i
Yeah. I think I'd be interested.
Okay. Let's pause right there. So first of all, great job. How did that feel to you?
fi@@i
It felt good. I think that gives me some food for thought in how I can position it, and make it so
that it's valuable but it's not like this huge program.
i@§iii
Good, good. Yes, you can keep it simple. You can do things that don't scale. I think a couple of
go back with literally the magic solution to their problems and then they're going to say, "Oh, I
don't have time." What is that tell you?
11@@1
Yeah. It tells me that they're not serious.
i;h@li
They're not serious. They're D students. So you are kind of trying to find out if these are serious
people or not. Now I would say confidence is important to a lot of people but I also think a lot of
people use that as an excuse for many other things. And I think you and I are probably on the
same page just from the way you worded your question. I've worked with certain people that
express like they said, "Oh, confidence is my problem," but they couldn't even show to a call on
time. You know what I mean?
That's not the A client orB plus client that I want to work with. So find out, and then go from
there. Also I want to give you one final strategy, I want you to file this away. You could give away
material on confidence for free. Then you could sell the business and marketing material as a
product.
Keep that in mind because I don't really write about confidence very much for my market
even though a lot of what I do teaches them to be confident. But my market doesn't wake up
in the morning and say, "Oh, I lack confidence." They don't look at themselves in the mirror
and say that. What do they say? They say other things. And that's what I target, but you could
if you want to target this market. You could talk about confidence and then you could give the
business strategies and we're back in this, the paid stuff. Does that help?
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Alright.
l@§iii
Alright. Where are you calling from?
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+{.]+
Wadsworth, Ohio.
i@f,iii
Beautiful. Alright, tell us one surprising insight you've had from this ZTL program?
wt.1+
I guess the main surprising insight was that I have a lot of brick wall that I'm trying to get
through. Confidence-wise or otherwise that this program actually seems to be helping me pick
those down some.
•MM"
Love it, love it. Can you give us a specific example?
+{.]+
Oh, well right now, just promotion. I think a horrible time without promotion. I shake
uncontrollably while I push the button to post something to Reddit.
28
So you see how I gave you t h at specific example, Dream Job versu s personal finance? Don't just
come up and say, "Oh, I'm deciding between two different markets," or, "Shall I go broad or
niche?" You've already lost people. You need to give some level of detail, not too much, but some
level of detail to pull people into your story. So keep that in mind for the future questions.
Okay, we're going to go to an advance question here from Marc. Marc, are you there? Marc?
i$t.#i
Yes.
i;hfuiii
How are you doing Marc?
'M';M
Can you hear me? Yes.
i;MMI
Yeah, I can hear you just fine. Alright, so Marc is a member of Zero to Launch, also a member of
RBT, Ramit's Brain Trust. Marc, we just saw each other a couple of days ago here in New York.
It was a pleasure to see you as always.
i$t.#i
Likewise.
i;hfuiii
One of the sharpest dressed gentlemen in the entire I Will Teach You To Be Rich community.
Got to complement you on that. Alright, so Marc, share with us one insight, one surprising
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