the simplest online business model i've ever tried

I have tried a lot of online business models.

Freelance writing. Dropshipping. Print-on-demand. Affiliate-only sites. Social media management. Reselling. A brief and deeply unpleasant period trying to do all of them at once.

Some of these made money. Most required more ongoing complexity than I was willing to sustain. And one — selling digital products — turned out to be the simplest model I've ever tried.

I want to break down why, because "selling digital products" sounds vague, and I think the simplicity gets undersold.

Why Most Business Models Are More Complex Than They Appear

Freelancing sounds simple: offer a skill, get paid. But then you have client communication, project scoping, revision cycles, chasing invoices, and the constant hunt for new clients. It's a job, not a business.

Dropshipping sounds passive: list products, collect orders, the supplier ships. But then you have customer service for shipping delays, returns, supplier inventory issues, ad spend that has to scale perfectly, and margins that erode constantly.

Print-on-demand has a similar problem. You're dependent on a supplier's quality, shipping timelines, and pricing — none of which you control.

These models work. People make good money with them. But they're not simple. They have dependencies, ongoing moving pieces, and complexity that scales with your revenue.

Why Digital Products Are Different

When I sell a digital product, here's what happens:

1. Someone finds my product (through search, a pin, a recommendation, a blog post)
2. They click to the product page
3. They read the description and decide to buy
4. They pay
5. The file delivers to their email automatically
6. I see a notification

That's it. I'm not involved in steps 1–5 in real time. The platform handles the transaction. The file delivers itself.

The product I made last year still sells this year. I haven't touched it since I published it. The work was done once; the income continues.

The Business Model in Plain Terms

Here's how I describe it to people:

• Create a file that solves a specific problem (PDF, template, guide, spreadsheet)
• List it on a platform that handles payment and delivery
• Create content (blog posts, Pinterest pins, etc.) that helps people find it
• Repeat for each new product

There's no inventory. No physical goods. No supplier relationships. No customer service for shipping problems (because there's no shipping). No recurring client work.

The only ongoing effort is creating new products and new content. That's the business.

The Platform Makes the Difference

The platform you use determines how much friction exists in that process.

I use MadeThis for my store. It handles everything on the back end: checkout, payment processing, file delivery, basic analytics. The AI co-founder built into the platform has helped me think through product ideas and write descriptions that actually convert.

What I don't have to manage because of the platform:

• Manual payment collection
• Emailing files to buyers
• Handling refund logistics
• Building a checkout system from scratch

All of that is handled. My job is to create products people want and put content out that helps them find it.

What "Simple" Actually Means in Practice

Simple doesn't mean it happens overnight. My first month I made $140. That's not financial independence.

What it means is that the model doesn't have ongoing complexity that scales with revenue. The more products I create and the more content I publish, the more the income grows — without a proportional increase in time or effort.

My current business runs on roughly 5–8 hours a week of actual work. Most of that is writing new content and occasional product creation. The income from products I've already built continues regardless of how much I work in any given week.

That's what simple looks like in practice.

Practical Takeaway

If you're evaluating online business models and want the one with the fewest moving parts, digital products is it.

One-time creation. Automated delivery. No inventory. No ongoing client work. Traffic from search compounds over time.

Start with one product. Solve one problem. Get it live on a platform like MadeThis. Then build from there.

See what I've built at /products, or read about how I set up my business at /copilot.