Hey friend 👋,

Two months ago, I launched a digital product called “Workspace that Works” (WTW). It was meant to be a lead magnet for this very newsletter, and maybe a secondary lead magnet for our paid offering, Brick, as well.

It’s a fairly comprehensive checklist of things you can change in your workspace with little to no $$$ investment that can vastly improve your performance. Because your work environment is a big factor in productivity.

Now, I have good news and I have bad news.

Let’s start with the bad:

WTW failed.

My July 5 TBL issue got an exceptional (for me) open rate of 70.2% (Maybe the name was good after all 😄) but only 3 link clicks (I get to thank you, the subscribers, for the hint, by the way!)

Afterwards, crickets. Here’s the WTW Notion page stats from last 28 days:

Not exactly up and to the right, huh?

In the end, to the best of my knowledge, I gained exactly ONE new subscriber from WTW which I spent a week building and another full week deploying.

Pathetic ROI, I know.

Good news: I know why it failed

There are probably a few reasons but the key problem is this:

WTW might be valuable on its own, but it doesn’t solve any of the problems this newsletter OR Brick solve.

It’s 100% about productivity (which has long taken a back seat on TBL).

So,

a: It doesn’t play well into the new TBL focus (calm entrepreneurship and lessons I learn from my business journey), and

b. It doesn’t help users discover any problems that Brick solves. Since Brick is designed to help makers and creators start new things as fast and as simple as possible, workspaces are an almost completely unrelated subject here.

Next question:

What problem should I solve then?

Remember the visual I posted in my previous issue? I called it the Brick path.

The Brick path

Brick, as it exists today, helps you break down your big bold idea into small and actionable steps that you can actually complete. This means it only solves the Start and, partially, the Don’t quit (right after the rubber hits the road) stages.

But that is only a tiny part of the journey from no idea to some kind of success (could be making money, shipping a product, or learning a new skill). The other three Stages are ripe for the taking.

So if I’m to create a lead magnet by the book, I should help our prospective users solve a problem that might lead them to realize the need for our paid product.

And if you look at the path above, the only logical place for us to start with is what I call Step Zero, Find an Idea.

It’s only natural if you think about it:

You can’t start anything unless you have an idea. And you don’t need Brick if there’s no goal to break down or a project to track.

Plus, clearly A LOT of people struggle with finding an idea. The most common complaints here are “I don’t know what I want”, “I don’t have a passion”, and “I haven’t found my niche”.

So a perfect lead magnet for Brick is one that helps you get ideas. Many of them. Damn good ones. So you get all inspired and need a no-BS tool to go build this new thing ASAP.

THAT’S when Brick is here to help you get started.

I hope thinking along these lines can help you find and solve the right problem for your customers.

Meanwhile, I’ll get to work on the new lead magnet and you’ll be the first to try it out and weigh in.