$40K /mo business idea with zero startup costs

Summary

Cody Schneider explains how to build a digital marketing business starting with YouTube tutorials on Google Ads. With just a laptop, you can create videos targeting niche industries, attract consulting clients, and eventually grow into an agency. The business model evolves from monetizing videos, newsletters, and affiliate links to offering consulting services and scaling into a full-fledged agency. Later, Cody suggests creating software to streamline processes and further increase profitability. He emphasizes the importance of distribution and media as a foundation for growth, guiding viewers through each step to success.

Takeaways

• 💻 This business can be started with just a laptop and has the potential to generate $43,000 per month.
• 📈 The core idea is to create YouTube tutorial videos about setting up Google Ads for specific industries like apartments, HVAC companies, etc.
• 🚀 Start by consulting on Google Ads management for various companies, then level up to building an agency and eventually a software tool for landing page optimization.
• 🎥 Posting one video per day for 90 days can help you reach $10,000 in monthly revenue, and $40,000 in six months with consistency.
• 💡 The business strategy focuses on creating distribution channels (YouTube, blogs) before having a product, solving the problem of customer acquisition early.
• 💰 Monetization methods include ad revenue from YouTube, email newsletters, affiliate marketing, and creating blog content to rank for specific keywords.
• 🛠️ Tools like SEMrush help identify Google Ads long-tail keywords, which are critical for targeting niche industries with high search intent.
• 🗣️ A call to action in the video description can lead viewers to subscribe to a newsletter, helping grow an audience and providing another revenue stream.
• 🔄 Evergreen content ensures that videos and blogs continue to drive traffic over time, creating long-term business opportunities.
• 🤖 Using AI writing tools like Draft Horse can help scale content creation, allowing for SEO-optimized blog articles to rank for thousands of keyword variations.

Q & A

What is the business model described in the video?

The business model revolves around creating YouTube tutorial videos on setting up Google Ads for different types of businesses, then consulting on Google Ads management, and eventually growing into a full-service agency and software company.

Why is this business considered easy to start?

The business is easy to start because all you need is a laptop to create YouTube videos and run Google Ads tutorials. No other major resources or upfront investments are required.

How does the video suggest you get clients?

Clients are obtained by producing YouTube tutorials on Google Ads. Businesses watching these tutorials may find the process too complicated and reach out to hire the creator for Google Ads management services.

What are the key monetization strategies mentioned?

The key monetization strategies include YouTube ad revenue, email newsletters, affiliate marketing with tools like Supermetrics, and monetizing blog content with tools like Google AdSense.

How can this business evolve over time?

The business can evolve by scaling up to an agency model where you manage more clients through a team. Later, you can build software that solves operational challenges, like a landing page builder, and sell it to other agencies.

What is the importance of keyword targeting in this business?

Targeting specific keywords, such as 'Google ads for XYZ businesses,' helps rank content on Google and YouTube, which increases visibility and helps attract an audience with a direct interest in Google Ads services.

How does the video suggest using SEMrush for keyword research?

SEMrush is used to identify long-tail keywords related to 'Google Ads for XYZ businesses,' helping you create content around high-intent searches that businesses often look up when they need help with Google Ads.

What role do email newsletters play in the business model?

Email newsletters allow for ongoing engagement with the audience. By including calls-to-action in the YouTube videos, the creator can grow a subscriber list and eventually monetize through advertising or sponsored content.

How does affiliate marketing fit into this strategy?

Affiliate marketing provides an additional revenue stream by promoting relevant tools and software, such as Supermetrics, that businesses can use to improve their Google Ads performance.

What is the ultimate goal of scaling the business into software development?

The ultimate goal is to build software that addresses inefficiencies in running Google Ads campaigns, such as automating landing page creation. This internal tool can then be sold to other agencies, leveraging the existing media and audience base.

Outlines

00:00

💼 Starting a YouTube-Based Google Ads Consulting Business

In this paragraph, the speaker introduces a business model that generates $43,000 per month. The business revolves around creating YouTube tutorial videos on Google Ads, particularly focused on different industries such as apartments and HVAC companies. As the business grows, it transitions from a service-based agency to a software company. The only initial requirement to start this business is a laptop, and the speaker shares a personal story of success with this model.

05:00

📧 Multiple Revenue Streams for Growth

The speaker explains how to monetize the YouTube business. Beyond ad revenue from YouTube videos, additional revenue streams include creating an email newsletter, promoting affiliate products, and blogging about Google Ads-related topics. Each of these avenues helps build a larger audience and increase earnings, while the YouTube content itself generates evergreen traffic through targeted SEO keywords.

10:01

🏢 Scaling the Business into an Agency

As demand increases, the speaker suggests scaling by transitioning the business into an agency. This involves hiring Google Ads experts to manage the growing client base, which allows the business owner to focus on sales and client management. The speaker introduces Talent Fiber, a global talent recruitment service, to help find employees. Basic financial projections are given, showing how managing 40 clients with 8 employees can yield significant profits, placing the owner in the top 1% of income earners in the U.S.

Keywords

💡YouTube tutorial videos

YouTube tutorial videos are educational or instructional videos that teach viewers how to do something step by step. In the context of this video, the focus is on creating tutorials for setting up Google Ads for various businesses, such as apartments or HVAC companies. These videos help the creator build a brand and distribution, while also generating revenue through ad views, affiliate marketing, and client outreach.

💡Google Ads

Google Ads is an online advertising platform where businesses pay to display ads to users who are searching for specific keywords. In the video, the business idea revolves around creating tutorial content that teaches businesses how to set up Google Ads campaigns for specific industries (like electricians or apartment rentals), which can then lead to consulting opportunities and agency development.

💡Consulting

Consulting refers to offering expert advice to businesses in a specific field. In this case, after creating YouTube tutorials on how to set up Google Ads, the content creator can offer consulting services to businesses that need help managing their ads. This adds another revenue stream, where businesses pay for personalized advice and campaign management.

💡Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where a person earns a commission by promoting other companies' products. In this video, the creator discusses promoting tools like Supermetrics, a tool for managing ad data, within the tutorials. By signing up for affiliate programs, the creator can earn commissions when viewers purchase products through the affiliate links.

💡SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is the process of optimizing content to rank higher in search engine results. In the video, the creator talks about using SEO to rank blog posts and YouTube videos for keywords like 'Google Ads for electricians,' which helps drive traffic to their content. This not only builds an audience but also creates opportunities for monetization through ads, newsletters, and affiliate links.

💡Recurring revenue

Recurring revenue is income that is received regularly, typically from ongoing services. In the video, the creator suggests offering Google Ads management services on a monthly basis, where clients pay a recurring fee (e.g., $2,000 per month) for campaign management. This creates a stable and predictable income stream, which can be scaled as the business grows.

💡Landing pages

Landing pages are standalone web pages designed for a specific marketing campaign, often used to capture leads or drive conversions. In this video, the creator explains the importance of building landing pages for Google Ads campaigns, and later discusses the potential for developing a software solution that automates the creation of landing pages optimized for conversions.

💡Agency

An agency is a business that provides services to other businesses, typically in areas like marketing, advertising, or consulting. The video describes a growth path from creating YouTube tutorials to offering consulting services and eventually scaling into an agency model. In an agency, the creator would hire additional staff to manage multiple clients, allowing the business to grow beyond just the creator’s own time and effort.

💡Evergreen content

Evergreen content is content that remains relevant and continues to attract viewers over time, unlike time-sensitive material. The video emphasizes that creating tutorials on setting up Google Ads is considered evergreen because people will continue to search for these types of videos long into the future, creating a sustainable flow of views and potential clients.

💡Scaling

Scaling refers to growing a business by increasing its capacity to handle more clients or produce more revenue without a proportional increase in costs. In this video, scaling is a key concept as the creator explains how to transition from creating YouTube content and consulting to running a full agency, and eventually developing software that can be sold to others, allowing the business to grow significantly.

Highlights

Starting a business with just a laptop is possible by creating YouTube tutorial videos on Google Ads for specific industries.

This business can scale to $43,000 a month with consistent effort and proper execution.

Focus on tutorial-style videos targeting high search intent keywords like 'Google Ads for apartments' or 'Google Ads for electricians.'

Consulting on Google Ads management is the next step after building a YouTube channel and attracting an audience.

Monetizing YouTube videos can generate revenue through Google ad revenue, affiliate marketing, and creating an email newsletter.

Building distribution before having a product solves a common business problem—finding customers.

Step-by-step tutorials on Google Ads setup can convert viewers into clients, as many would prefer hiring experts over managing ads themselves.

You can start consulting clients on Google Ads and charge $2,000 per month for managing their campaigns.

Growing a newsletter from your YouTube audience can generate additional revenue by selling advertising space.

Using tools like SEMrush and Draft Horse AI can help scale your content creation and improve SEO rankings.

As your content grows, you may face more clients than you can manage, prompting the need to build an agency.

Building a landing page software using AI can increase efficiency and eventually lead to developing your own software product.

Hiring talent through global platforms like Talent Fiber can help scale your agency while managing multiple clients efficiently.

Agencies can generate wealth by leveraging other people's time and scaling to manage more clients.

Building software for your agency solves inefficiencies and creates a scalable product that can be sold to other agencies.

Transcripts

this business can make $43,000 a month

and it takes nothing to get started let

me show you so I get asked this question

all the time I want to start a company

but I don't know where to begin and in

this video I'm going to talk through

that whole process I'm going to give you

a play byplay on how you can build this

company out and what's great about this

businesses all you need to get started

is a laptop there's no other

requirements and as this business starts

to make money you can cash flow the

growth of this company into higher

scales of income hi I'm Cody Schneider I

have 15 plus years of digital marketing

experience and the business you're going

to start today is going to be YouTube

tutorial videos on how to set up Google

ads for different types of businesses so

for example Google ads for apartments

Google abs for hbac companies Etc then

what you're going to do is start

Consulting on Google ads management for

these types of companies and then from

there you're going to level up into

building an agency continuing to do the

service business so a productz service

agency and then from there you're going

to build a software that helps you run

this agency specifically a landing page

software that uses AI to create

conversion rate optimization increases

this business is a great business to

start because the only thing that you

need is a laptop but it can evolve into

a business at any scale that you want

and the question I get asked all the

time is how quickly can I do this it

just really depends on the resources

that you have available specifically the

time resources if you sit down and you

make a video a day doing these tutorial

Style videos for the next 90 days I

guarantee you you will get to 10K a

month in revenue and if you do that for

the next 6 months you will 100% be able

to get to 40,000 000 a month and there's

going to be a ton of people that say

this is impossible and there's no way

that this can happen I've done this

personally this is how I built one of my

first companies was this exact process

while it's easy to start this business

it's hard to execute on it and that's

the challenge that you're going to have

to overcome yourself another reason that

this is a great business to start is

because you're building distribution

before you even have a product and this

solves the problem that a lot of

companies have in the beginning they

don't have a way to get customers in the

door for whatever the product or service

that they're selling so by starting with

distribution we're solving that problem

and by doing it in this way where we

create YouTube content we can actually

make money off of the distribution that

we're building and what you're doing is

you're cultivating this audience that

has a problem that you can sell a

service to later on so the first thing

that you're going to do is you're going

to go find all of the Google ads for XYZ

keywords and let me show you what I mean

by that so what I'm going to do here is

we're going to go to a website called

semrush and and what I've done is I've

isolated the keyword Google ads 4 and

then I'm doing phrase match and so what

this is showing is all of these long

tail keywords related to Google ads for

XYZ and what I mean by that is Google

ads for apartments Google ads for boat

rentals Google ads for electricians and

all of these keyword phrases have a

really high search intent if you are

looking at these or if somebody is

searching these what they're trying to

do is identify how do I run these Google

ads for my business so this is another

business that you're going to be

servicing with this business that we're

going to be building today before we

dive into how to actually build this

content out and what that process looks

like what I'm going to do is just show

you why why this is really effective as

a way to get in front of people so if I

go and I search Google ads for concrete

codings this is a extremely competitive

keyword phrase look at the average CPC

there at $4 so really pricey that means

the cost per click to get somebody to go

to your website or to a landing page

from that traffic would cost you $4 for

every click that you did what is coming

up on page one for this the first things

are YouTube videos and so by making

YouTube videos that are targeting these

keyword phrases you're going to be able

to rank on Google and also rank on

YouTube for those keywords when people

do those searches so again we can go we

can look at this and you can see this

exact same here and why we're focusing

on these keywords is because we know

that people are searching for these we

know that there's companies out there

like electricians like epoxy flooring

companies that are all trying to find

the answer to how do I run Google ads

for this specific type of business to

make that video what you're going to do

is do a step-by-step tutorial showing

them how to set up their entire

campaigns what keywords to bid on what

how do you structure the ads how do you

build the landing pages out Etc and this

tutorial is going to end up being super

long it's going to be probably 10

minutes and they're going to go through

this process and they're going to

realize oh this is an absolute headache

I don't want to do this can I just hire

this person before we get to that let's

talk about how you can monetize this

part of this business at this stage so

that it can cash flow and fund the next

phase or growth of your company all

right so there's a bunch of different

ways that you can monetize this one of

the first ones is you're going to

actually make ad Revenue off of the

videos that you're create so Google will

pay you for the views that you get on

these videos because they're selling

advertising then they do an ad rev share

with you now because we're doing digital

marketing type videos we're going to get

a really high payout for the views that

we get on the platform there's certain

categories on YouTube that make more

money for example Finance anything

related to digital marketing anything

that has a high CPM or a high CPC those

are the types of channels that are very

monetizable from a revenue standpoint so

first off so reiterate you're going to

make money off of the YouTube video the

next thing that you can go and do is you

can create an email newsletter that

you're going to send these tutorials out

to people or any of the learnings that

you identify related to Google ads and

how you can grow that newsletter is by

adding a call to action within the video

to go subscribe at the link in the

description just like this go subscribe

at the link in the description to my

newsletter to get more growth marketing

content just like this so you're growing

this email newsletter and as you get to

size and because all these people have

an interest in digital marketing you can

go and sell advertising space and make

money off of that email newsletter so

you're making money off the videos

you're making money off the newsletter

and then the next thing that you're

going to layer on is affiliate so

there's tons of companies that have

affiliate programs that are related to

Google ads a great example of this is a

company called super metric super metric

helps you get data in and out of Google

ads into other places it also does it

for Facebook ads it does it for all

these other AD channels that you could

be doing advertising on but they have an

affiliate program and so you can promote

super metrics within your videos but you

could probably reach out to them as well

and get them to sponsor the videos that

you're doing now this is just one

example you could do this with tons of

different companies so you're having

that affiliate Revenue coming in for

multiple different companies that you're

working with all right and so the next

thing that you're going to do is go and

create a blog about all these keywords

as well so you're making the YouTube

video and then you're also making the

blogs include those blog links within

the videos but the reason that you're

doing this is you're going to try to

rank for these keywords as time goes on

and then embed the videos within those

pages as well and what this does again

is make another Revenue source for you

it just creates more top of funnel to

get people introduced to your brand so

you'll write these pieces of content as

you can see I actually have a Blog

that's ranking for this exact one super

simple just walking through the

step-by-step process but what's

happening right below this you can see

it's the YouTube videos here and then on

this blog you can then go to AdSense

which is a way to monetize this blog's

traffic now the question I always get

asked is how do I write these articles

at scale there's 4,000 different

variations of these keywords draft horse

AI is an AI writer that'll write

hundreds of SEO optimized articles in

minutes that you can publish directly to

your website so all you have to do is

just take those Target keywords drop it

into something like draft horse and it's

going to create that first version of

your written content so as these start

to rank then you come back and you

refresh those focusing on dwell time and

that's how you can make good pieces of

content using air written content okay

so you're monetizing your channel you're

making some money off of this and as you

do these tutorials what you're going to

see is that people are going to start

reaching out to you asking for your help

to set up these campaigns and this is

how you get your first clients this is

how you get your first customers what I

would suggest doing is within all of the

description of your videos include a

link to a form for people to submit to

reach out to you a great Free Solution

is tally forms you can go and sign up

for free and use that now why are these

people reaching out to you a couple

things that are happening first they

landed on your video they watched it so

they trust that you know what you're

doing second they don't want to do this

themselves they want to pay somebody to

manage this and so that they can focus

on their business and use you as a

contractor basically and then third why

this is great for you is this can be a

recurring Revenue Stream So let break

down the numbers on this how much money

can you make and how quickly can you get

to this so again if you post a video a

day for the next 90 days I guarantee you

can get to 10km doing this there's zero

doubts in my mind the reason for that is

because you can go and get five clients

within that next 90 days and for each of

those five clients you can charge them

$2,000 a month it could be less it could

be more it depends on what you can

convince people to pay you but at 10

grand a month you're replacing your

income at that point if you have a

corporate job or some other thing that

you're doing for your daily work so you

manage these clients is its own thing

what I would suggest doing is have a

weekly meeting you're going to have a

dashboard that you're showing all the

data and information related to the

Google ads that you're doing reporting

on and then do daily follow-ups with

them talking through hey this is what we

accomplished this is what we're seeing

this is what we're doing the reason that

most clients turn from an agency is

because the lack of communication that

is the biggest factor and again all the

tools you need to do all this are free

you can use what's called Google looker

studio for all the reporting it's just a

way to do data visualizations and then

you can use something like Google tag

manager to do all the Data Tracking the

actual leads that are coming in and all

of these videos learning all of this you

can just find it on YouTube all of it is

free and accessible a great one for this

is analytics Mania he has tutorials

about everything that we've talked about

today and then the last thing that

you'll need is something like unbounce

which allows you to build landing pages

that are specific to the ads you're

running for your clients we're going to

come back to this in a later part of the

video when we talk about building a

software that helps you build landing

pages all right so you got your first

clients you're doing 10K a month you're

making Revenue off of the videos the

email newsletter and and also the

Affiliates and your blogs you got

probably a great little company maybe

you're doing 15 to 20 grand a month but

you're going to start seeing as you

build more and more of these videos out

because these videos are evergreen

content and what that means is that new

people are constantly going to be

searching for these keywords it's going

to live on inde definitely into the

future but you're going to get more

volume than you yourself can handle

alone and so at this point you get to

make the decision do I want to make an

agency agencies are harder to manage but

you can make more money and agencies are

actually how you build wealth it's

because you're not selling your time

anymore you're selling others people's

time and you're taking a rake on top of

that time so to build this agency you're

going to need to go find Google ads

experts and then your job turns into

sales and managing clients and maybe you

hire some account managers as well to

interface with clients and do that

communication and one of the best ways

to find that Global Talent is through

this company called Talent fiber they're

basically a Global Talent Head Hunter

you give them a job description and

they're going to go find you all the

employee leads that you need why they

can find you the best talent is because

they offer the benefits that the best

talent is looking for in those countries

so as an example they have a campus in

Manila they offer health benefits the

equivalent of a 401k to Philippine

employees and that allows them to go

find and hire the best talent so now

let's break down the unit economics of

how this can function say you have 40

clients and each person that's on your

team they can manage five clients so

we'll do 40 divided by 5 that means that

you need eight people to be able to

manage those 40 clients effectively and

I'm doing really simple numbers of this

but I'm just trying to get you to think

about how to structure this company so

now you need those eight employ employes

and let's say that on average those

employees cost $2,000 a month that's

their salary so that means that you're

going to put out $166,000 a month to pay

their salary now if you have 40 clients

and you're charging them $2,000 a month

to manage their ads for them that's

$80,000 a month of Topline Revenue that

you'll be making so when we think about

the margin here you're going to be

making $64,000 a month after you pay

your employees and there's of course

going to be other things from an expense

standpoint whether it's software Etc but

again I'm doing a simplified version of

this to just show the idea now let's

expand this out so you're making $64,000

a month and over a 12-month period

That's

$768,000 a year and that $700,000 a year

that puts you in the top 1% of income

earners in the USA you're managing your

agency you're making great money but

managing clients is a constant Battle of

working with people's emotions so what

you're going to move into is building

software and so as you run this agency

you're going to identify all these

problems with your efficiencies how do I

build these campaigns out faster how do

I do reporting better Etc and maybe what

what you identify is that you absolutely

despise unbs and so what you're going to

go do is go build a piece of software

that helps you build landing pages

faster for your clients and this

internal tool that you build initially

for yourself you can then take that

brand it out and then go sell it to

other people that run Google ads that

are in your industry what's great is

that you already have immediate

distribution to sell the software

because you have this YouTube channel

you have this email newsletter you have

this blog that you're getting traffic to

there's a couple components of this how

would I build this side software and

then how would I also do the actual

distribution for it so let's walk

through that to build the software

initially what you go do is use an

agency like HTML Burger I've used them

for years tell them I sent you what

they're really good at is doing zero to

one builds so why this works more

effectively than just going and hiring a

single engineer is because when you have

a team to that initial build they have

all these different people that have

certain expertise that they can bring in

and so this allows you to get a product

out faster it's also just very uncommon

to find an engineer that can build a

whole piece of software themselves so

once you've built this piece of software

then you're going to start promoting it

you're going to promote it across your

YouTube You're Going to promote it

across your newsletter you're going to

promote it across your blog but another

thing you can do is also do programmatic

SEO for all these keywords related to

the software an example of this would be

HVAC landing page advertorial landing

page mortgage landing page what you

would go and do is on your website you

would make blog posts or landing pages

that show examples of what these

different types of landing pages could

look like and because you also know

Google ads you can run Google ads to all

of these landing pages just like you do

for your clients to get signups now

you're getting clients you're getting

customer feedback so now you're getting

people to sign up for the software

they're starting to use it you're

getting customer feedback and at this

point you're going to go and hire an

engineer to work full-time on the

product for improvement so this is where

you go back to toal fiber again they're

going to help you source that person

that's going to work full-time on this

and that's it that's this whole game

that's how you can go from I created a

media company to I'm doing consulting to

I own an agency to I built software and

anybody can do this this is totally

repeatable you don't need anything to

get started in the next 24 hours I

challenge you to publish a video based

on one of these keywords that's in the

description below and I guarantee that

if you commit to this over the next year

you're going to be able to accomplish

building this company at least getting

to one of those stages in the business

the last thing I'm going to leave you

with is this is the new way to build

wealth it's building media first and

then bolting on some type of businesses

through that own media that you have and

thanks for watching the video if you

have questions comment below also go

follow me Cody Schneider on Twitter and

go and follow me on LinkedIn and if

you're not subscribed to this channel go

subscribe now for more content like this