Welcome to Your Path to Freedom (Part 1 of 7): The Refreshing Truth About Making Money Online And How To Create Real Time Freedom Online

Your Path to Freedom (Part 1 of 7): The Refreshing Truth About Making Money Online And How To Create Real Time Freedom Online

I’m about to take you on a journey—a 7 stage journey that everyone is telling me I shouldn’t take you on. This entire series is for the dreamers that want the big pie in the sky of running a real online business that has 7 figure potential.

For the first time ever, I’m going to be sharing EXACTLY how I’ve been able to run multiple 7 figure businesses online for the past 15 years while 99% of other people online fail.

I plan on holding ABSOLUTELY nothing back, I have no course to sell you, and yet I feel like I will disappoint many of you during this series for one big reason.

What I’m going to share isn’t a gimmick, it’s not a “trick”, it’s not a “hack”, it’s not a random Faceless youtube channel that leads people to an offer that pays $1.00/ lead. I feel like giving you the REAL truth is going to push some of you away… and I don’t want that. But I realize that big dreams are reserved for those willing to dream big and that isn’t everyone so I have to live with that.

The ENTIRE REASON I’m doing this is because I wish someone had done this for me… because I’ve been possessed by an idea that I can’t shake, and because I believe it will genuinely be the best thing I can do to help people like you succeed.

I’ve been running my online businesses for 15 years and in 2023 my wife and I decided to take a MASSIVE leap and sell our house and travel the world with our young kids before it’s too late and they need to be in one place for socialization purposes.

We sold our house, invested our money, and hopped on a plane to Portugal where we spent 3 months in Sintra (I wouldn’t recommend spending that much time there in the winter by the way). After that we spent time in Dubai, staying at a 5 star hotel which was other worldly. Then we hopped to another 5 star hotel in Singapore that had a 3500 sq ft kids play area. Then we hopped on another plane to Bali for a few months, then we were off to Tokyo (which was the most amazing city ever), and ending in Kauai Hawaii for almost a month.

It was a life changing trip for me and everyone in my little family unit. For me, it left a BIG impression on me of how grateful I am for what I have built. I have the ability to sell digital products online and make enough money to pay for first class tickets around the world, staying in 5 star hotels, eating at Michelin star restaurants, with my kids getting to experience the world, all while my business pays for it all. My business regularly made $100,000 a month in profit while I was in all the wrong time zones, couldn’t connect with people, and barely got on my computer. Granted, my business definitely didn’t expand and didn’t become some $30m/ year mega corporation.

But I ran it all with 2 employees and we generated over $5,000,000 in that calendar year.

No requesting time off to enjoy the hikes, no faking sick days and hoping my boss doesn’t know, no begging a boss for “a few extra days” before heading home. The entire time we were traveling, all I could think about was how blessed I was and how I didn’t want to take that experience for granted. Somewhere during that trip I had a direction change of what I wanted to do. I no longer wanted to teach side hustles and “make some extra money doing little tasks”.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that’s great for a LOT of people and I still run ads to that program and make sales every single day to it. But it’s not where my passion is.

My passion shifted when I realized how blessed I was to be able to live such an incredibly adventurous year with very minimal stress. I am now driven to help other people achieve that. Real LIFE DEFINING success that changes every aspect of someones life. Obviously, that won’t be for everyone.

A lot of people are a bit afraid of that level of success and like to think smaller, which is totally fine and understandable considering we are taught to be realistic and think within the rules all of our lives. This series, and our big mission at PaidCreators just isn’t for those people. It’s for the people who want to write their own terms and people who want to skip the side hustles and work their way to a life on their terms.

Heck, you may be reading this now and maybe you’re a “I like thinking safe and small” thinker now… but by the end that might change, in which case, you’re VERY welcome here!

In order to achieve that, it’s my belief, that you have to do something that MOST people will instinctively think they can’t do.

You have to create a product and sell it. Look around. The people who have taken REAL control over their time are product owners… not affiliates… not side hustlers who make some posts on social media every now and again… It’s the people who say “why not me” and create something of their own and work tirelessly to tell people about it.

I’ve been able to build 7 different products to over 7 Figures in Revenue.. I’ve won sales awards for it… been recognized on podcasts and big news articles for what I’ve done.

The good news here is, it’s easier than you think. The entire point of this ongoing series will be to share exactly how to accomplish this.

But before we dive into the mechanics, let me start with this: I’m not a writer. I’m a marketer who has something that I really want to share, in a format that people can go back to in the future. My intention isn’t to land on the New York Times bestseller list (but man, would that be dope)—this is about giving you a system that works. Something real, tested, and refined over 15 years of online entrepreneurship, but that I never ACTUALLY got right until last year.

My goal for this series is to help you realize two things:

First - that creating a 6 or 7 figure a year business is a real thing.

Second - that YOU can actually do it, regardless of your hang ups or previous failures.

I’ll accomplish that (hopefully) by showing you exactly how I have done it 7 different times with brand new offers. I’ll do that by giving you an inside glimpse as to who I am and what I did to accomplish that, and you’ll see I’m not special. I do work hard, I do focus, I do prioritize… but I’m wildly disorganized, very busy in my day to day (partially because I’m disorganized maybe?), and I am not a social media guru with a massive following.

If I can do this, anyone can… I really believe that and I’ll do my best in this series to prove it! Now… let’s get started!

If you know ANYONE that may want to be a part of this, OR you just like getting free stuff… there’s a link below you can share that will get you 2 different free gifts from us if you get just 5 people to join our Newsletter to check out the future releases of this series!

The Truth About My “Successful” Business

For years, I ran a software company that paid me well. Over $40,000 a month, to be exact. I had the beautiful house, the family, the “DREAM LIFE”. But here’s what most people don’t know—I was miserable. I mean, genuinely unhappy every day between the working hours, and sometimes long into the nights. I was grinding every day in a business I didn’t love, managing developers that were taking advantage of my lack of knowledge, handling marketing that was getting more and more difficult by the day, creating sales system I knew nothing about, and everything in between. I had created a job (that I hated)for myself, not the freedom I had promised myself with this business.

It wasn’t until I walked into my house one afternoon, utterly exhausted and mentally checked out, that I admitted to my wife: I need to do something else. To be honest, it was an incredibly defeating moment because I was having to admit to my wife, who depends on me to be steadfast and guide our family, that I couldn’t do that anymore (at least, that’s how it felt). I had spent years building something I thought would be fulfilling, only to realize it was draining me. So, with her support, I made a drastic decision:

I had to sell the company.

That’s where this new journey started. And it’s the reason I’m writing to you now.

The Turning Point

When I sold that company, I was left with a blank slate—and more importantly, a clear understanding of what I did not want to be doing. Realize, when you sell a company you are selling all of the assets and IP which meant my email list, my products, my staff… everything. It was actually REALLY refreshing if I’m being honest. But… I was still left with the “what do I do now” moment.

I knew I couldn’t go back to just creating something for the sake of money. It had to be something I loved, something I was good at, and something that would genuinely help people.

So, what was I good at?

Marketing. Specifically, creating marketing systems that get attention, build trust, and convert strangers into loyal customers. I’ve done it for years, even when I wasn’t paying attention to how powerful it was, and when I actually started to “hate” the company I was promoting. But now, I wanted to use this skill differently.

I spent months refining a new approach, something that didn’t require endless sales calls, webinars, or complicated funnels. I wanted the revenue, without the headaches of massive overhead and the long drawn out sales processes. What I ended up creating, I now call the PaidMasterclass system, a method to quickly build, launch, and sell a digital product that delivers real value without all the complexity… while still having the big upside of 7 figures.

(Sidebar, this goes without saying. I’m not saying you’ll make 7 figures. I really hope you do… but legally I can’t tell you that this can make you anything. It’s just a reflection of what I’ve done. Whew… legal stuff)

To be honest, MAKING PRODUCTS is easy once you realize a couple key elements I’ll teach you in this series. So in your mind, I want you to note that the product just doesn’t matter and won’t be an obstacle to your success. Don’t overthink that part.

Building a members area, filling it with training modules, and coming up with a curriculum is INSANELY easy… especially with the help of ChatGPT these days. It’s everything AROUND the product that is difficult when you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re going to give you a CLEAR roadmap in this series.

Why You Need Your Own Product

Now, here’s why you need to pay attention to this: Owning your product is the ultimate control over your business destiny. This is the MAIN thesis of this series and the one major “domino” that needs to fall for you in order to really sustain big results online.

When you sell your own product, you aren’t tied to someone else’s rules, commission structures, or limitations. You create the value, you set the terms, and you scale it on your own terms. Obviously you are also keeping 100% of the revenue for the product, 100% of any upsells, and most importantly.. you hold 100% of the new buyers attention (which may be the single most valuable thing we get in this format). Whether you’re selling knowledge, expertise, or a service that solves a problem, the leverage is entirely in your hands.

15 years ago this is exactly how I started.

I was a 24 year old kid working for a CPA network called “The Offeratti” where I got to learn the two sides of the digital marketing coin. I got to work with offer creators who built membership products and training programs, and I got to work with affiliates who would promote those products to their email newsletters.

After about 2 years of watching these product creators make LITERAL MILLIONS teaching people simple online businesses I had the revelation that would change everything for me.

“These guys aren’t smarter or better at any of this than I could be… the ONLY thing separating me from their level of success is their willingness to put out an offer”.

I never considered myself an “offer maker” before that. I was just a kid who paid $150,000 to get a college degree in hopes that I could be a manager somewhere and never had ANY actual plan for what I wanted. I knew nothing about life and how money works…

So that experience was eye opening for me because it leveled the playing field for me. It taught me that the tech was super easy to learn (even 15 years ago, when it was 10x harder than it is now), and the products didn’t have to be some rocket like invention.

I took that idea, and $750 of my own money, and hired a developer to make a Wordpress plugin that made opt in pages for people. This was before all of the website builders we have now, so it was a cool idea.

My first ever launch made me $65,000 in profit, which at the time was a “failed launch” to most peoples standards, but for me it was the spark that lit everything for me.

It’s worth noting, I did NOT launch the above product alone… I had a partner! We will talk about finding/ choosing/ selecting partners in next weeks edition because I truthfully believe partnering is one of the best ways to grow QUICKLY… but there is a science to it which I’ll share.

Funny story, we actually, for a brief moment were more popular than Wimbledon, Greece, Google Apps, and Weird Al Yankovic (this was in 2011, Weird Al was on a heater at that time) in the search engines. We couldn’t get past Lady Gaga though… which makes sense.

None of this could have happened without the absolute SHELL SHOCKING realization that I could create something of my own. If you get nothing else out of this series, which you absolutely will, I hope you take that with you.

I’ll describe this more in later editions… but if you are a level 3 gardener and you can keep your kitchen herbs alive… you can build an audience teaching 1s how to become a 3. As you do that, you’ll likely elevate your level from 3-5 and now you can help 3’s become 5s and the cycle continues.

My first product was an email marketing product, and at the time I would say I was a 3 on the scale of 1-10 at email marketing. I was new to the space, but I knew the basics… so I focused on helping 1s get to a level 3.

That will be the foundation we work with from here that hopefully opens the door in your brain to what is possible. Start thinking about the areas of your life where you consider yourself a 3-4. This can be a hobby, interest, job, you name it. Are you a REALLY good accountant? We can work with that Are you the best pickleball player in your league… we can make that into money.

What’s Next?

In this series, I’ll be sharing the exact six-stage process I’ve used to build multiple seven-figure products. From figuring out what to sell, to who you’re selling to, to creating your automated sales process, and scaling it with paid media. This isn’t theory—it’s practical, actionable advice from someone who’s been there.

The 6 Stages are:

1. Creating The Product. You need to know where to look for ideas, and I’ve found 5 different places you can look for product ideas in your own life based on where other peoples BIG ideas and big business ideas come from. This will be next weeks edition.

2. Creating Your Avatar. Once you have an idea, you need to study the people you’ll sell to and outline who may be your ideal prospect so we’ll go through some exercises for making that happen.

3. Building Out Your Automated Pitch Process. If you want real online freedom, you need to leverage systems and automations to work while you’re not around. The internet is a BEAUTIFUL place that allows us to build mini marketing robots that allow us to market our products 24/7 through automated pitch processes.

4. Getting Your First 500 Sales. When you are starting you will take a COMPLETELY different marketing approach than when you are already somewhat successful. I will NOT suggest that you run ads to get your first clients, even though I love ads. That’s an approach you should use once you have money coming in. I’ll teach you what to do to get your first 500 customers, and then we will progress.

5. Making Changes. The first version of your offer and product will not be your best. Sorry. But now that you have some people coming in, we’ll take a cruise through that data we now have and figure out what we need to do to make the offer more solid for when we get more sales velocity.

6. Scaling With Ads. This is my favorite part! Once you have a proven offer, some sales coming in to help you ensure your systems are working and everything isn’t broken (most of it will be when you first do this), it’s time to put our money up and give Zuckerberg some cash in exchange for attention.

That exact foundation is what allowed me to live a TOTALLY FREE year after being a slave to my own company for the 8 years prior. That is the exact framework I will be covering throughout this series.

The funny part is, while I won’t tell ANYONE that you’ll “Get rich quick”… I do want to remind you that in August of 2022 I sold my previous company, which allowed and forced me to start from scratch. In January of 2023 we did $340,000 in sales. So… yeah… it doesn’t have to take a long time to do this.

This first newsletter is just the “holy crap, this is real” moment. In the next issue, we’ll dive into Stage One: Figuring Out What You’re Going to Sell—a critical step that sets the foundation for everything else.

I’m excited to share this journey with you. Speaking of sharing, if you think this MIGHT be worth telling others about, check below and grab your link. We’d LOVE for you to make a quick post on Facebook about this, let’s spread the word and change some lives!

The only homework you have now is to make sure my emails are hitting your inbox, whitelist my name, and keep an eye out for the weekly updates!

By the end of this series, you’ll have all the tools and knowledge you need to create your own digital product, build a business you love, and design the life you want. At least, I hope so…

I’ll see you next week!

Travis Stephenson
Founder of PaidMasterclass