Do This One Thing Before You Start Your Online Business
If you're dreaming about starting an online business someday — whether that's next month or next year — there's one thing I want you to do right now. It's free. It takes less than an hour. And it can set you up for success more than almost anything else on this list.
A few months ago, I started running a new program helping online business owners launch memberships. We're almost finished now, and it's been incredible to watch. But early on, one thing became really obvious. Some students had something the others didn't, and it made the entire launch process dramatically easier for them.
That thing? An email list.
Not a huge one. Not even necessarily an engaged one. Just an account with an email platform, a sign-up form live somewhere online, and a handful of subscribers. That was it. And every single student who had even that tiny foundation in place was leaps and bounds ahead of the ones who didn't.
So I added an emergency lesson to the first module of that program, telling everyone without a list to get one started immediately. And then it hit me — this is too important to keep just for my paid students.
So here's exactly how to get your email list started, step by step, this week.
1. Sign Up for Kit, and Start on the Free Plan
There are plenty of great email marketing platforms out there, but I personally use and love Kit, formerly known as ConvertKit. Head to kit.com and take a look at their pricing. They have a genuinely excellent free plan that covers up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, and most of their core features. Totally free.
If you haven't started your online business yet, this is exactly where to begin. Once you're up and running and bringing in revenue, you can upgrade to the Creator plan for $33 a month to unlock more advanced automations and sequences. But not yet. Start free, and only upgrade when you actually need to.
(If you want to support the channel while you're at it, there's an affiliate link in the description. Use it, shoot me an email to let me know, and I'll send you a little thank-you gift.)
2. Build Your First Landing Page
Once you're signed up and logged in, go to Grow, then Landing Pages and Forms. You'll have two options here: a form, which you embed on an existing website, or a landing page, which is a standalone page with nothing else required.
If you don't have a website yet, go with the landing page. Kit has a solid library of templates to start from. Pick one with a layout you like, then customize the text, the button color, and the fonts to match whatever branding you're imagining for someday. Don't worry about getting this perfect. Everything here is editable later.
3. Keep Your Form Simple
Two fields. First name and email address. Skip the last name field entirely. People are noticeably more likely to sign up when you're only asking for the bare minimum, and a first name and an email are really all you need to start.
For this first version of your page, just tell people what you plan to be writing about and invite them to join. Not many people will sign up yet, and that's fine. This isn't about volume right now. It's about having a place ready the second you start talking publicly about your business.
4. Create a Simple Free Resource
Next step, maybe next week: put together something small and genuinely useful for the audience you want to attract. A quick PDF. A short video. It doesn't need to be polished. It needs to be helpful.
Once it's ready, either update your existing landing page to feature it or create a second one specifically for this resource. Kit lets you build as many landing pages as you want, so don't overthink which one to use.
5. Set Up Your Incentive Email
This is the part that makes the whole thing run automatically. In your form settings, click Incentive, choose Download, and upload your file. If your resource is a video instead, just paste the link.
Make sure Send Incentive Email is checked, then edit the email itself. Change the subject line to reference what they signed up for. Tell them why you made the resource and how it's going to help them. Then change the button text from something generic like Confirm Your Subscription to something specific, like Download the Free Guide or Watch the Video Now.
That button rewrite matters more than it seems. It tells people exactly what they're getting, and it doubles as confirmation that they're a real person who genuinely wants to be there.
Sign off, save your changes, and you're done. From this point forward, every new subscriber gets that email automatically.
Why This Tiny Step Matters So Much
This whole setup takes maybe thirty minutes. But the students in my program who had already done it weren't ahead because they were smarter or more talented. They were ahead because they had somewhere to send people the moment momentum started building.
You don't need a perfect business idea to do this. You just need a place ready for when the idea shows up.
If you've been thinking about starting your own business and you're wondering how to actually make the leap, that's a bigger conversation for another day. But whether you're a month out or a year out, get your list started now. Future you will thank you.
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