we HATE our #1 video.

this old project video of ours provides a little bit of false hope I want to talk to the maker who loves this video who has really enjoyed all of the make money woodworking content but you've struggled to get enough sales we believe in our court that every maker can make $100,000 in a year by selling we were so blessed to have a random video go so viral on our Channel but I am so upset about which video it was that's the nature of social media you don't get to choose as of this recording the number one video on our channel is this video at the time we were tired I mean we were working over 80 hours a week in the military but we really wanted and needed to get this video out because we had sold a couple of each item in the video we thought this would be a good topic so let's watch a little bit of the video hit the highlights and see what we were talking about pick it up ready No you're ruining this intro just saying today we're going to talk about five projects that we've learned sell really well for us so we got a question the other day on Instagram go follow us on Instagram if you haven't already but we got a question of somebody asking oh my gosh get the point do you make this and hopefully that'll spark an idea for you maybe you can use these as your go-to or gives you the confidence to get off the ground with your business 2 minutes took us 2 minutes to start listing these off okay so number one on our list of super common projects is a desk desks were probably the thing that we had sold the most of at that Point yeah so a little bit of backstory on that a lot of our friends at the time were in the military cuz we were in the military and some of them were going back to school to get different sorts of degrees or they were taking certain classes and they really wanted a nice desk to look good with the rest of their Decor in their new home so we s a lot of desks we sold a lot of desks okay number two piece of furniture that we do constantly is coffee tables everybody loves coffee tables most of what we see is somebody so pretty yeah we sold a lot of coffee tables too that was probably the number two thing that we built the most of yep we'd make them out of slabs we make them out of cookies we made one that was like an American flag we made one with six legs tons of coffee tables all right next up on the list are cutting boards you've seen us make a bunch of cutting boards on this channel and that's just because they sell really well and then cutting boards obviously we never stopped making those um plenty of demand the market is not saturated people have always wanted cutting boards from us oh my gosh so the last thing we're going to talk about about is kitchen tables this we had a lot of fun filming this video I forgot we really did this this was a fun we were so exhausted you know when you're so tired you get to the point where like everything's funny and you just like you're getting all weird that was this video for us we really wanted to get a video out but we were so exhausted it's kind of funny this kitchen table that I was crawling on uh we did we did a silent auction when we left North Dakota we did a silent auction on all the furniture in our house we just put pieces of paper on everything and uh we made quite a bit of money because all of our friends wanted the furniture that we were using too so that's a great money-making tip if you if you want one blanket ladds this one was an audible we hadn't sold a ton of these but we knew they were selling for a lot of other people and we needed to get to five and we only had four ideas again we were pressed for time but blanket ladders were kind of like a staple for The Farmhouse Vibe which so big a few years back and so that's why we included that one I don't know this is a good trip down memory lane I hadn't watched this video in a while but over the years watching this video do really well for us and watching other people do their version of the video and it doing really well for them was super encouraging but after a while we started to realize that for a specific type of person this video was actually doing more harm than good and that's why we really don't like this video anymore obviously it's not a bad video it's helped a lot of people and encouraged them to make the first $10,000 but when we first made this video we had only sold about $110,000 worth of stuff which is no small chunk of change but as we started to make more more and more money we realized that it was very misleading when we made this video we really didn't know what we were doing we were sort of making money on accident and that's the good news to make your first $10,000 you really only need a crazy idea and a lot of encouragement you get those two things right you can make $10,000 it doesn't matter what you sell which is why videos like this do really well because any idea will work to make you $10,000 if you're encouraged enough to try and that's what we're showing everyone now on our YouTube channel after turning our little garage hobby into a half a million dollar worth of business now we're making free content on YouTube to help you make your way to your first 10K and we've built the stud stack as a way to help you get there faster with videos resources and a community to help encourage you to your first $100,000 and Beyond but once we started making more money than we originally had when we first made this video we realized it was actually hurting some people who wanted to make more once you start to make more money maybe you want to quit your day job or pursue business on a higher scale the information in this video provides a little bit of false hope see once you make about $30,000 you start to get bored and confused if you're anything like us you're probably a pretty creative person and you've probably sold a few things here and there but no one thing has taken off and turned into your big seller but that's what everybody is looking for they're looking for the magic project that's going to sell itself automatically with no effort so you go to YouTube to see what's working for other people what's what are other people's big Sellers and you get a lot of really good ideas so you decide to Pivot to something else that you think will sell better so then you sell a few of those then sales start to slow down a bit then you come away from that thinking that the Market's saturated and that you missed your chance and that's why we hate this video for people that have made more than $10,000 selling their stuff the market is not not too saturated and you did not miss your chance the truth is virtually any project will make you $100,000 we believe in our core that every maker can make $100,000 in a year by selling any project with the crazy idea a little bit of encouragement and some hard work to go from 10,000 to 100,000 really the only difference is some hard work you don't need a new idea you don't need a new project you don't need new tools and you don't really need all that many new skills you just need to double and triple down on what works and we see a lot of people fall into the Trap of these videos and they think that if they just pivot and switch to a brand new product it'll automatically start selling better and that's absolutely false if you have sold something once you can sell it a thousand times so today I'd like to give you the chance to take the next step I want to talk to the maker who loves this video who has really enjoyed all of the make money woodworking content but you've struggled to get enough sales if you're trying to make money and you're looking for that magic perfect project that's going to just sell itself on Etsy I want to get you to think about what problem you want to solve don't worry about what project you make I just want you to focus on what problem you want to help people solve with your business the the project comes later we'll figure that out in a minute but if you've made $10,000 you have helped a lot of people along the way so take a look I I pull out a sheet of paper I I'll wait get a piece of paper and I want you to write down some things that have made you money that you've enjoyed making I'll wait okay now that you've got your list of projects that you've enjoyed making I want you to write next to the project what problem did it solve for the customer yes I know that they enjoyed the quality I know that they wanted to support you as a small business owner but what problem did that project solve for someone so let's run through some examples to get your creativity flowing did you help new moms decorate their Nur Nursery with signs and Decor did you help restaurants Wow their guests with fancy serving platters did you help interior designers create beautiful spaces for families by building really large custom furniture pieces did you give tabletop Gamers a really beautiful and functional space to play their games on with a really nice table whatever it was that you've sold in the past whether you know it or not you helped someone solve a problem that they had with your project so we want to think first about the problem our business solves and then we can figure out what products we're going to offer to do that taking a look at your list now there should be one that stands out to you that you really enjoyed making that you really uh saw the customer's eyes light up when you delivered it to them and you know that it solved a genuine problem that they had that's the one that's going to be a Million dooll winner for you I promise you it can be to to go up a level you have to pick a staircase you can't always just build whatever the customer wants you can't stack enough success to get to the next level based on on Randomness as a legitimate business now you need to solve a problem for a lot of people at a profitable fair price solving that one problem with your projects will become your entire business sure you can definitely add more products later but if you're struggling to make money and get more sales it's probably because you haven't settled into one project that consistently makes you money we did this a while ago I'll give you our example so our business is called Samara table company we want to sell tables long-term but the problem that we solve for our customer is we want people to spend more quality time with their friends and their family and I will sell whatever I need to build in order to solve that problem and right now that looks like cutting boards and shuie Boards because that's how I can help the most people with our small little shop with just us and maybe one or two employees the best way we can serve the most amount of people at a profitable price is with small cutting and shuie boards that people use when they host events eventually when we get enough money to solve that problem with a $8,000 kitchen table then we'll start selling those but for now we're just doing what we need to to build our business big enough to tackle the next project we need to become experts at solving a problem really well with one set product and then take that product to as many people as we can then we can stockpile cash plan for the next product release and then stack our business on top of different products but until we make enough money we just got to stick with one thing this old project video of ours has five ideas that you could build an entire business around when I watch this video now I don't see a blanket ladder I see an opportunity for a farmhouse Decor business that happens to sell blanket ladders I don't see a ton of demand for single one-off kitchen tables I see an opportunity for a home staging manufacturer to help people make a beautiful kitchen area that'll help sell their home faster and I don't see yet another cutting board Etsy listing I see a restaurant supply company that that provides high-end cutting boards to chefs around the country so I hope we've given you the secret to unlock the next level if you've made $10,000 and you want to make more you want to be a serious business owner we need to solve a problem not sell a product you can sell any product to make $10,000 but if you want to go to the next level we've got to put in some hard work on just one or two things that actually solve a problem for somebody so hopefully now you can look at this old video of ours that was really popular and and see it in a little bit of a Different Light hopefully you can watch it and figure out how you could develop a really successful business solving a problem with one of these five project ideas if you love this video if you love the old video and you love this video you are going to love the four videos a week that we Post in the stud stack so jump in there it's cheaper than dog food and we'll share with you every lesson we can think of to help you grow your business faster we've got a community that will encourage you and we'll give you resources to help boost your business and get to where you want to be faster up next if it's been a while we'll show you that super popular video of ours hope you enjoy watching and we will catch you on the next one ask me how I do it I just to the to the ain't nothing it just I do it s to the sck to the