Make money by uncovering secret stories

GM. This is Work "After" Work, the newsletter that finds hidden gems so good even Sherlock Holmes would be surprised.

It’s Taco Tuesday. Let’s boogie:

• 📖  Priceless stories

• 😂 Meme of the day

Question – run an online store or want to? Let me let you in on a little secret. The customers who claim they "never got it" and then get their money back... while keeping your product will cost you 10 good orders.

Yeah, it's called a chargeback. And it's basically legalized theft that costs you the product AND a $25-50 fee on top of it.

Here's the thing: If you're running an e-comm store, you can't possibly review every suspicious order (especially at 2am when you're sleeping).

That's where a company like Chargeflow Prevent comes in. Ever heard of AI? kidding They use it to automatically flag sketchy orders before they become chargebacks. Think of it like having a bouncer for your online store who never sleeps.

They:

• Stop 90% of chargebacks before they happen

• Work with Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe

• Save you hours of manual order reviews

• And protect your profits from fraud

Sound interesting? Check out Chargeflow Prevent here and see how it works.

PRICELESS STORIES

If you know elderly folks, you know they have a story for everything!

My grandma visited last weekend, and as usual, she had a story from her youth that I’d never heard. I sometimes wonder if she's making them up - do grandmas lie? Please say no!

But after, I did some digging and found there are 703M elderly folks worldwide who probably have similar stories they want to pass down to their grandchildren

Is there a service for this?

Turns out, there is. It’s a company called Storyworth. They send weekly questions to your loved ones' emails to uncover long-buried memories.

What was a time you got in big trouble as a kid?

How was your upbringing and do you wish you were raised differently?

Think about all the stories you don’t know about your grandparents. What they did when they were teens. How they had fun. Why they got in trouble. These are all super interesting stories you’ve probably never heard before.

At year’s end, Storywoth sends your loved one a beautiful personalized storybook filled with all the prompts they answered, which can be passed down to future generations.

This TikTok explains it well.

Imagine reading this book as a bedtime story to your kids – how freaking cute!

I might just score some solid points this year with this as my Mother’s Day gift!

Here’s why I’m writing about it: People love thoughtful and symbolic gifts. Lemme hit you with two stats:

• 62% of people want to receive heartfelt and personalized gifts

• 50% of customers are actively searching for custom gifts to make their loved ones happy

Put these two together and you’ve got a business on your hands.

Last month Storyworth had 1.37M visitors to their site. I can’t find their revenue but with traffic like that, it’s gotta be in the millions.

Why is this an opportunity you should consider?

I’ve got two good reasons:

1. The market is huge. In the US alone, there are over 55M elderly folks whose loved ones struggle to come up with gift ideas

2. Older folks love telling their stories. It’s a way to show they were young and remind people of it

But you don’t have to limit your target audience to only older folks. This idea can work with kids so parents can keep it for oldtime sake. Or it can be as a gift for Valentine’s Day, an Anniversary, or Christmas.

And since it’s an emotional gift that focuses on bringing families together, you can count on return clients if you deliver an exceptional service.

If you don't believe me, check out this survey: 58% of participants said they would tell others about a personal and unique gift. Talk about free promo!

But my favorite aspect of the business is how big it could grow through subscription revenue.

Storyworth charges $99 for an annual subscription, which includes:

• Weekly story prompts emailed to your loved ones that you can customize

• A hardcover black and white book sent every year with the prompt replies

And of course, they charge for multiple books.

Now here’s the kicker: Companies like Storyworth that provide the same service at an equal or lower price point are hard to find.

You can differentiate yourself by offering the same features at a lower price… Or by taking a different vertical, like podcasting your family’s history. Something Artifact, a startup, is doing and secured $5M in funding.

But Storyworth isn’t perfect. They still get complaints. Here’s one about receiving repetitive question prompts.

You definitely want to avoid this. So, instead of Storyworth's 300 weekly prompts, make yours 500 or more.

Create some great questions: 

• "What was your favorite trip as a kid?"

• "Do you have any regrets in your life?"

• "What’s one memory that keeps you awake at night?"

You get the idea.

Here’s how I’d get started:

1. Build a website

Even though you’ll be sending these thought-provoking questions via email, you need a place where customers can buy your service.

You can find freelancers on sites like Upwork or Fiverr to help you create a simple design or use a service like Gumroad (they take 15%).

Or roll up your sleeves and use ChatGPT, it’s extremely good at coding.

2. Design your book cover

With AI, you don’t even need basic design skills to create beautiful book hardcovers. Just tell Midjourney or DALLE-3 what you want for little to no cost.

3. Fire up the printing press

Don’t forget you’ll have to print hard copies of these books and ship them to your customers. Check out Lulu’s printing services; they have a pricing calculator on their site to help you estimate the cost.

For a 50-page hardcover, it’s $10 - $15.

4. Calling all customers 🗣️

I looked through Storyworth's social media accounts to see where you should focus your marketing efforts.

Want to take a guess at where they’re the busiest? Instagram! And of course, Facebook comes next.

They have over 100 active ads running.. this is how you know they’re crushing it.

Run IG and Facebook ads since that's clearly where most of your potential customers hang out, but don't overlook TikTok.

Storyworth does very little TikTok and somehow #storyworth has 3.1M views! That's incredible for a company with only 2k TikTok followers and little content.

But it confirms that people of all ages appreciate this gift, so get to work and find those customers for your business 👊

MEME OF THE DAY

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That's a wrap ladies & gents!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.