Happy Wednesday and New Year’s Eve!

And In case you forgot, I’m that guy (@thekoerneroffice on the socials) that you probably found in a short form video talking about random business ideas or from the podcast I did with Steven Bartlett on DOAC. Chris Koerner: Dad of 4, husband of 16 years and proud Texan. I’ve started 75+ business (3 worth over $10m) and give away all of my learnings for free in a once/week email. Bookmark this toolkit with 1,000+ free business plans!

Also- I'm building a private community called TKOwners for people who want to turn all these insights into real businesses. We have a slack channel where we drop insane AI tools and possibilities everyday. If you're serious about staying ahead of this AI revolution, check it out at tkowners.com. It's where the hundreds of action-takers hang out.

Before we get into today’s topic, a quick note:

2025 was an incredible, transformational year for me. This newsletter grew over 300% and so many doors were opened.

From the very bottom of my heart, thank you so much for following along and supporting me. The comments and feedback I get across all platforms are overwhelmingly positive, and remind me daily at how blessed I truly am.

I never in a million years imagined I’d be publishing content on the internet, but here I am. PLEASE go out there and take action based on something you learned from me. Remember: Get your dopamine from action, not from information.

Thank you! Now to our regularly scheduled programming…

A couple weeks ago, I sat down with Will Cannon. This guy has built two software companies doing millions per year. It might seem out of reach when you look at where he is now, but he bootstrapped everything. No investors. No rich parents. At one point he was showering in a bucket at his office because he couldn't afford rent AND office space.

Now he's killing it.

Will dropped tons of nuggets in this conversation up on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, if you want to dive further. It’s the perfect time to just do things.

Will runs Uplead, a B2B data company that helps salespeople find leads. He also built Signaturely, an e-signature tool with 1.9 million users. Both companies print money.

He didn't invent the idea. He copied the proven models and made them better.

After the 2008 crash, Will was broke. Four foreclosures. Car repossessed. He needed to find something that worked fast. So he went window shopping on BizBuySell, the website where people list businesses for sale. He found a company called ListGuy.com. They sold email lists by industry. Dentists. Realtors. Chiropractors. The business was doing $10,000 per month and they wanted $200,000 for it.

Will didn't have $200,000. But he didn't need it. He studied the model, figured out how it worked, and built his own version. Three months later he was doing $30,000 to $50,000 per month.

You don't need to invent anything. You just need to find something that already works and do your own version of it.

And here is how to do the same thing Will did:

Step 1: Go Window Shopping for Business Models

Go to BizBuySell.com right now. Click "Advanced Search." Set these filters:

Now browse. Click into listings that look interesting. Read their descriptions. Look at how they make money. Look at their customer acquisition.

You're not here to buy. You're here to learn.

Every business for sale is a free case study. Revenue numbers. Margins. Customer sources. All sitting there waiting for you to study.

Step 2: Find Products You Can Sell Infinitely

Will's model was simple. Buy a list of California realtors for $100. Sell it for $200. Then sell it again. And again. Forever.

Digital files have zero delivery cost. That's infinite inventory.

Buy once for $50 to $200. Package it nicely. Sell it 100 times on your own website.

This works beyond lists too. Think templates, swipe files, spreadsheets, Notion databases, prompt libraries. Anything you create once and deliver digitally forever.

There are different sites where you can find these lists or you could use a tool like Oxylabs to scrape the info you’re looking for.

Scraping it one of the best ways to find opportunities (It’s basically extracting large amounts of data from websites: listings, prices, contact info, whatever you need…)

I dropped a video a couple weeks ago where I used the Oxylabs AI Studio to scrape Craigslist for sale listings and arbitrage opportunities. You type what you want in plain English, hit scrape and download a spreadsheet. No code.

The video goes into how to use Craigslist to make money. To my surprise, it isn’t dead. Millions of people still use it and where there’s a marketplace with motivated sellers and fewer eyeballs, there’s money to be made. Watch my full breakdown here.

The Oxylabs AI Studio tool is completely free to use. If you want more advanced scraping (works with Amazon, eBay, Zillow, you name it), you can get credits that are super affordable. Use code TKOpod for 20% off.

Step 3: Validate Before You Build Anything

Most people build first, then pray for customers. Will did the opposite.

Before building his software Uplead, he sent cold emails to potential buyers. When people said yes, then he built. First year did one million in revenue.

Here's how to validate your idea in one week:

First, build a simple landing page. Describe what you're selling. Add an email signup or "join waitlist" button.

Second, find 200 potential customers. Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Search by job title and industry.

Third, send something like this cold email:
"Hey [Name], I'm building [one sentence description of your product] for [their industry].
Would you pay $X/month for something that [main benefit]?
Either way, I'd love your honest take. Just reply yes or no."

If 10% or more say yes, you have something. Build it. If crickets, try a different angle or different audience.

Don’t spend time building something nobody wants.

Last time you had an unknown number calling you? It wasn’t random.

The BBC literally caught scam call center workers on hidden cameras as they laughed at the people they were tricking. One worker was on camera bragging about making $250k from victims. Crazy. And the disturbing truth is those scammers don’t pick phone numbers at random. They buy your data from brokers.

And once your data is out there, it’s not just calls. It’s phishing, impersonation, identity theft.

That’s where Incogni comes in: They delete your info from the web, monitor and follow up automatically, and continue to erase data as new risks appear. Try Incogni here and get 55% off your subscription with code CHRIS55.

Step 4: Mine Bad Reviews to Find Your Angle

Will built his business Signaturely to compete with DocuSign because he found an opening hiding in plain sight. DocuSign was too complex. Too hard to use.

So Will built the opposite. "Stupidly simple signatures." No fancy features. Just upload, send, sign. Today he has 1.9 million users.

Here's the exact process:

Go to G2.com, basically a review site for software companies. Search for the market leader in whatever space you're targeting. Click on their profile. Go to reviews. Filter by one-star and two-star only.

Read 30 to 50 bad reviews. Copy and paste the complaints into a document. Look for patterns. What do people hate most?

Your angle is hiding in your competitor's bad reviews.

Step 5: Give Away Software, Monetize the Services

This is the most advanced play Will shared.

Build a CRM for a specific niche. You know I would suggest using HighLevel for this. Cost is $97 to $497 per month for unlimited client accounts. You could even give the CRM away completely free to end users. But require them to use your credit card processing.

Here's the math on a dentist doing $100,000 per month in transactions:

They're already paying 3% in credit card fees somewhere. You white-label a processor through companies like Stripe Connect, PayFac-as-a-Service providers like Finix, or Stax Connect. You take 0.5% to 1% of every transaction.

That's $500 to $1,000 per month from one client. Way more than a $97 software subscription.

The software is the hook. The payment processing is the money.

Pick a niche: dentists, chiropractors, barbershops, gyms, daycares. Build their "free" all-in-one tool. Monetize the services wrapped around it.

Your Action Plan This Week

-Monday: Spend one hour on BizBuySell using the filters above. Screenshot three business models worth copying.

-Tuesday: Go to G2.com. Pick one software category. Read 30 bad reviews. Write down the top three complaints.

-Wednesday: Build a landing page using a siple vibe coding app like Claude Code (or here on beehiiv!) describing a solution to those complaints.

-Thursday and Friday: Send 50 cold emails using the template above.

By Sunday you'll know if your idea has legs. No code written. No money wasted. Just validation.

The barrier to entry has never been lower. (But don't confuse a lower barrier with it being easy.) Start with $10,000 per month as your target. That's life-changing for most people.

Now go do the work.

And again- our full conversation is up on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts if you want to dig deeper.

That's the playbook. You can just do things. Go do them.

Have a great week.. and year!

Chris

P.S. I share deep dives on business ideas and complete playbooks three times a week on YouTube and every podcast platform.