15 Part Guide to Selling Your First Product (Even With 500-1000 Email Subscribers)

Today I'm answering the 15 most common questions founders, publishers, and creators have about selling their first product.

If you're creating and selling a product from scratch — or you've struggled to sell before, this will help.

1) "My audience is too small — I need more subscribers first"

You only need 1,000 subscribers from quality, organic sources to launch your first product.

Making meaningful money with a small audience is achievable:

• 1000 subscribers and 5% conversion rate to a $100 product = $5k in sales

• 1000 subscribers and 2% conversion rate to a $1,000 product = $20k in sales

My recommendation: Launch your first product after you have 1,000 email subscribers, and no later than 5k-10k subscribers.

But there's one caveat: Not all subscribers are equal. If you have 1000-5000 subscribers and 90% of them came from paid ads you’ll struggle to launch a product.

Organic subscribers convert to customers at a 5-10x higher rate (or more) than subscribers from paid sources.

Use platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and more to grow your list. Then when you have 1000+ subscribers from organic sources, launch.

2) "I don't know what product to create or sell"

How many phone calls have you had with people in your audience?

How many email or DM conversations have you had with followers and subscribers?

If the answer is less than 10 phone calls and 50 emails/DMs, I guarantee you have no idea what your audience wants to buy.

You have to talk with prospects.

You can't just theorize or copy other products. That can help, but you'll get the best insights from the people you want to sell to!

Here's some tactical advice on how to do this:

A) Offer 1on1 consulting to your readers.

A 45 min 1on1 call is ideal. 30 minutes is too short. 1 hour is too long. But with 45 mins, you can go over the scheduled time if needed.

Start at $100 for 45 minutes and add a booking link to your email signature. Increase the price by $100 every 5-10 bookings.

Recording calls with an AI note taker. I guarantee after a few calls, you’ll have 10X better idea of what product to create and sell.

B) Audience survey + research call.

Learn more about your audience by sharing a multiple-choice 10-20 question survey. Include 1-2 open-ended questions at the end of the survey, but make them optional.

• Incentivize responses by giving away a $100 gift card to 1 person that completes the survey randomly.

• Aim for 25-100 responses or more.

• Look for the most insightful answers to your open-ended questions.

• Reach out to those readers and set up a 15-minute research call to learn more about their problems and how you can help them.

These conversations will help you identify:

• The problems your audience has

• How you can solve them

• What they've tried before

• And more

After this, you need to identify what type of product can solve the problem.

There are ONLY 10 types of media products.

(1) Digital product, (2) events, (3) course, (4) live learning, (5) coaching, (6) mastermind or peer group, (7) subscriptions, (8) memberships, (9) tipping or support, or a (10) hybrid of these.

Most problems can be solved with:

• Live learning (cohort courses)

• Digital products

• Coaching

I recommend starting with one of these 3 and avoiding any type of recurring subscription product as your first offer.

3) "I don't know how to price my product"

There are price ranges that most media products fall into. Stick with them until you hit $100k+ in sales.

• Digital products - $29-$99

• Traditional courses — $499-$999

• Cohort-based courses — $999-$1999

• Coaching programs - $2500-$10,000 (one time for a 6-12 week program)

• Content subscriptions — $99-$199 per year (Note: I don't recommend any type of subscription as your first product)

It's normal to start at a low price and increase over time. I’ve doubled the prices my products over a 12-month period.

4) "The tech setup is overwhelming"

You don't need special software or tech skills to sell your first product.

Here's what I did for my first $100,000 launch:

• Sales page — Built on a simple beehiiv page that looked like a blog post. You can build pages with tools like Kit, Substack, or Carrd

• Check out page — Stripe payment link

• Thank you page — Another beehiiv page. I removed indexing so this page could not be found through Google search. I set up a redirect in Stripe so people were sent to this page after purchasing.

• Welcome email - Sent manually with Gmail (use BCC to send up to 100 emails at once)

• Content — Taught with live sessions on Zoom. I invited everyone to the events with Google Calendar. Then put the recordings on a Notion page.

That setup allowed me to spend <1 hour on tech.

If you need something more advanced, I recommend doing everything within two tools:

1. Your ESP (beehiiv, Kit, etc)

2. A membership or learning management platform (I like Circle).

5) "I don't have any testimonials or social proof"

You may not have product testimonials, but you can still get character testimonials.

Reach out to 25-50+ friends in your industry, clients, past employers, loyal readers, etc — and send them an email like this:

With this, you can get 5-10+ character testimonials before your launch to use on your landing page.

It's worth doing this. More testimonials result in more sales.

6) "I'm afraid of being too salesy or damaging my relationship with readers"

You should believe in your product so strongly that you know readers are worse off if they don't buy. Yet, I understand if you don’t have confidence in your first product.

What I do is give everyone a way to opt out.

At the bottom of each marketing email I add an sentence like this:

“Don’t want to hear about [PRODUCT]? Click here to opt out of emails about this.”

I set up a segment in my ESP with subscribers who click the opt-out link and exclude that segment from future marketing emails.

7) "I don't know how to write sales copy that converts"

Maybe you're decent at creating newsletters and social posts that add value…

But you don't have experience writing marketing emails and sales pages that sell.

My advice is simple:

• Learn: Read the best copywriting books: Breakthrough Advertising, The 16 Word Sales Letter, The Boron Letters, Great Leads, Expert Secrets 

• Steal: Create an email address exclusively for other newsletters and promotional emails. Learn and swipe from what you get.

• Practice: Create a sales page and send 5+ marketing emails based on what you learn.

8) “I don't know when or how often to promote"

Don’t try to sell your product 24/7.

Run 7-14 day promotional campaigns where you promote heavily.

Outside of these campaigns, don't promote at all. Only use a brief CTA at the bottom of your newsletters (see the example at end of my newsletter).

Here's an example of the 7-day campaign:

• Day 1 — Marketing email #1 (announce a special offer)

• Day 2 — Marketing email #2

• Day 3-4 — No emails

• Day 5 — Send your newsletter with a CTA at the top and bottom

• Day 6 — Marketing email #3

• Day 7 — Marketing email #4 (AM) and marketing email #5 (PM)

9) "I'm not seen as an expert or authority yet"

You don't need to be the world's foremost expert — you just need to know more than the person you're helping. Plus, have some measurable credibility to back it up.

Imagine this:

You're hiring a coach to help you get better at golf. Right now your skill level is at a 1-3 out of 10. A complete noob is a 1. Tiger Woods is a 10.

Would you only hire Tiger Woods to coach you?

No, you'd be happy with a coach that's a 4 or 5 out of 10. Someone who’s 2-3 steps ahead of you.

See, you have an advantage if you're NOT the world's foremost expert.

1. You remember the struggles — Experts forget what it's like to be a beginner. You still remember the pain points, confusion, and "aha moments."

2. Your language resonates — You speak their language because you were just there. No assumptions about what they "should" already know.

3. Your wins feel achievable — Someone at step 2 can better relate to someone at step 5 than someone at step 10. Your success feels reachable, not intimidating.

So, no, you don't need to be an expert.

You just need to have accomplished something others aspire to do, too.

Document your accomplishments. Then ask for character testimonials so you have proof to back up your credibility.

10) "What should I expect for my first launch?

$1k to $10k in sales a win.

Yet, some people have done $100k in sales with their first product.

Look at your conversion rate from a free subscriber to paid customer.

$999-$1999 price range product:

• <0.5% CVR - Bad

• 1% CVR - Good

• 2% CVR - Great

• 3% CVR - Incredible

$49-$199 price range product:

• <2% CVR - Bad

• 3% CVR - Good

• 4% CVR - Great

• 5% CVR - Incredible

11) "What if people ask for refunds?"

Have a clear refund policy to remove uncertainty for you and your customers.

Keep it simple and generous for your first product:

“100% money-back guarantee: If you're unsatisfied with the product in any way, email me within 30 days of your purchase, and we will refund 100% of your investment.”

12) "What's the minimum viable product I can start with?"

Your first product should be simpler and shorter than you think.

Use the short, narrow, small framework:

• Short: 2-12 hours to consume (or less)

• Narrow: Only solves one problem or delivers one outcome

• Small: Feature lite — Only 1-3 features (4 max)

13) "I've tried launching before and it flopped"

Did you follow all the best practices in this post?

Odds are:

• You did not

• And/or, your offer sucked. Your product had no clear value proposition and did not solve a tangible problem for your audience.

The most successful products deliver transformation not information or education.

14) "I don't know if my product idea is validated — what if nobody buys?"

Through your consulting calls, survey, sponsor results, and email/DM conversations — you’ll identify patterns in the problems your audience has.

As soon are you know the #1 problem and the type of product you'll create to solve it — start selling, not building.

Don’t waste weeks or months creating a product people may not buy.

Do a pre-sale! This is the only way to determine what your audience wants.

Surveys and interviews give you an idea of what they want. But buying behavior is always different!

People vote with their wallets.

Here’s how to run a successful pre-sale:

• Write a short email or sales page about the product.

• Allow people to pre-order for 50% off.

• Make a pre-order refundable and include a 30-day money-back guarantee after the product is live, so there’s no risk to buy.

• Tell your audience you will NOT create the product until you reach a certain number of pre-orders. Depending on your audience size, price, and goals, that number could be 10, 50, or 1000.

• Make it clear that you will refund everyone if you do not reach that pre-order number within a specific timeframe (no more than 10-20 days).

• After reaching the pre-order goal, close the cart and build the product.

• Deliver the product to pre-order customers, collect feedback and testimonials. Then, release it at the full price point.

15) “This didn't answer all my questions — I need more help?”

Then this is for you:

I created a masterclass on how to sell information products from scratch.

Watch it free on YouTube:

It's based on my experience generating $100M+ in sales for products like courses, coaching programs, memberships, events, and more.

Last thing

If you want 1on1 help with monetization so you can launch your first product successfully, scale your offer, and more.

Apply for coaching and advising with me here »