If you want to change the world and get rich doing it, a good place to start is to take a look at some of the people who have managed it already.
One of the best examples of that is Matt Mullenweg. Mullenweg is the creator of WordPress, which in turn is a tool that you use to build websites. The great thing about WordPress is how easy it is, as well as how flexible it is. It ultimately lets you create things that you just wouldn’t be able to create on your own.
WordPress now powers 25% of the internet and makes money by taking a commission when a web developer sells a theme or a plugin built using the service. This business model along with the huge success of the platform ensures that Matt is fairly well taken care of in terms of finances…
But is this something you can replicate?
Productizing Services
The idea behind WordPress was remarkably simple: Matt was looking to put himself out of work. What he did here was to productize a service, meaning that he would replace the web design service he provided with a tool that cold do it for him.
This is how a huge number of SAS businesses are born. SAS is ‘Software As Service’ and it basically means that you’ve written a piece of software – often B2B – that will provide an important service to the end user.
Another example of this might be a fitness app that trains the user. This has taken a service usually provided by an individual (a personal trainer) and turned it into an app that can be run on the phone
Why SAS?
The advantage of SAS is the convenience that it offers the user as well as the scalability it offers you. Imagine trying to build 25% of the world’s websites – the amount of man hours and admin it would take would be extraordinary. But with a piece of software that builds websites? It becomes possible. And the profit you can get from that becomes possible.
So now it’s time to ask yourself: can you turn the service you provide into a product? Could a program do what you do for a living? Make sure you invent it before someone else does!
