How to Launch a $65K+ Business This Week

A Step by Step Guide

Author

James Hansen
February 13, 2025 • Reading Time: 6 minutes

Here is one way to launch a $65k+ business this week. There are lots of ways to launch companies and startups. This is just one approach with an actionable example that you can copy.

1. Use the Problem, Skill, Solution, Idea, Framework.

Businesses solve problems. You should try to do the same. Think of problems you have already solved for yourself that other people probably have. Use previous experiences (if you don’t have any, think of topics you like or are knowledgable about) to identify businesses, pain points in those businesses, and look for opportunities where customers are underserved. Lots of problems fall in the health, wealth, or relationships bucket. People and businesses want those problems solved.

Ask yourself:

“What are problems I solve for other people or myself already”
“What problems do people who own businesses have that I could solve?”
“What am I good at?”
“What do I enjoy doing?”

Example

Problem → “Restaurants need more customers Monday through Friday”
Skill → “I am good at talking to people, I like writing, and I currently work at a restaurant”
Solution → "I will write a weekly newsletter that curates local restaurant deals Monday through Friday in my city”
The Business Idea → A weekly newsletter that curates the best deals (and how to get them) at the best restaurants in town. Once I have enough subscribers, I will monetize the newsletter with advertisements from other local businesses like dental offices, doctors offices, Lawyers, etc.

2. Validate The Idea

Before investing significant time and money, test your idea with a minimum viable product (MVP). This could be a simple prototype, a landing page with a pre-order option, or a limited product launch to gauge interest. Collect feedback and refine your offering based on real customer responses.

Here we are looking to validate that there is a real problem, and we can provide the solution.

We need to answer the questions:

Is there actually a problem? How do we know?
Does the market actually want our solution?
Does our solution solve the problem?
Are we making somebody a deal so good they would be stupid to say no?

Example:

  1. Email, cold call, or visit 100 local restaurants and ask what their biggest challenges are in running their business. Let the owner or manager know you work in the industry and are working on a project that could help. Record the top three responses. You already know from your job experience that #2 is an issue. Maybe they have a bigger problem you can solve. If you have connections, use them.

    Top 3 Problems

    1. Hiring competent employees

    2. Monday through Friday Customers

    3. Sourcing ingredients

  2. You pick #2 because that is what you are interested in and the idea you like the best.

  3. You call the restaurants that responded to your cold call, email, or initial visit and and schedule meetings with the owners to learn more about their problems. At the meeting, you pitch the solution to their problem - your newsletter - and ask if they would be interested in you advertising their restaurant and deals for free. Your solution or offer has to be so good they would be stupid to say no - or they will say no. See Alex Hormozi’s first book for more clarity.

  4. Each week, write your newsletter. All they have to do is let you know what specials/deals/happy hours/live music they run Monday through Friday. All at no cost to them. You now have contacts with several restaurant owners, permission to recommend them, and a problem you are helping them solve.

3. Launch

Quickly build your offer or service and launch it to the initial group of customers who you know have the problem. At first, you might consider offering your product or services for free in exchange for feedback or testimonials. This feedback will allow you to improve the service or product prior to marketing it mainstream. Once the product or service receives good reviews and is a great product, start monetizing and marketing.

Example

Build your newsletter on Beehiiv. Name it something catchy and local. Import the emails of the restaurants you talked with as the first subscribers. You can soft launch the newsletter to your friends and family through your socials. Make a post with a link stating that you started a newsletter with the best restaurant deals in town. This should get you started. Curate the best deals in town from the restaurants you interviewed (include live music, happy hours, etc), and write the first edition. Send.

4. Market your offer

A great product won’t sell itself. Leverage digital marketing strategies such as content marketing, social media advertising, SEO, and email campaigns. Networking, partnerships, and influencer collaborations can also drive visibility and sales.

Example

There are several ways to grow a newsletter. Begin with posting in free local groups, sending out flyers with QR codes, placing QR codes in the restaurants, and attending live events. You could also do a large giveaway on social media.

Example:

Giving away $500 to the “Local Restaurant everybody Likes”, all you have to do is subscribe and share with a friend.


New Subscribers: 10,000
Cost per Subscriber: $500/10,000 = $.05

5. Financials

It may take several editions to get enough subscribers to monetize via ads. However, you should reach out to all small businesses and let them know you have local audience that reads your emails every week. Let them know how many subscribers you have and how fast you are growing. Add them to the email list to they can get familiar with your newsletter. Once you are big enough, they may want to advertise with you. Here are the financials.

Example

Local newsletters can earn $50 per 1,000 subscribers per email sent via advertisements. For extra revenue, the newsletter could contain affiliate links, reviews of other restaurants, course offerings, a high ticket RSVP service, job postings for the restaurants, etc. This is also for one city. Once the newsletter is generating revenue, enter different markets with the same playbook.

Advertisements without affiliates or more cities
10,000 Subscribers : $500 X 52 weeks = $26,000
25,000 Subscribers: $1,250 X 52 weeks = $65,000

Congratulations, you now have a business doing $65,000 a year. You could do much better through growth and scaling, but this is a great start. $65,000 is a lot of money for most people.

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