What is an Infopreneur?
An infopreneur is an entrepreneur who builds a business based on information products. Instead of selling items or services, they sell knowledge.
That’s a simple definition, but infopreneurship – as with any type of entrepreneurship –involves a good amount of research, time, and work to do right. But if you have knowledge you know other people can benefit from and are willing to put the work in, becoming an infopreneur can be both profitable and fulfilling.
How Becoming an Infopreneur Can Pay Off
Infopreneurship offers some key benefits in comparison to other types of entrepreneurship.
The overhead to get started is low.
When you’re selling a product, you have to purchase inventory. If your business requires an office or storefront, you have to pay rent every month, along with all the supplies and furniture needed to turn those spaces into a business.
An infopreneur doesn’t need to deal with any of those costs. To start an information business, you need a website, time to create information products, and marketing knowledge. You may want to hire some people to help make your information products look or sound good, like a graphic designer or editor, but that’s likely to be the most expensive part.
When the financial investment required to get started is low, it keeps your risk low and makes the path to profit faster.
Information products usually only need to be created once and can be sold over and over again.
Creating information products does take a lot of time and work, but once you’ve finished one, you can make money on it again and again – as many times as there are people who want to buy it. Service providers have to continually provide their services, and businesses that sell physical products have to repeatedly buy more inventory to sell. But if you create something that’s high quality and market it well (that’s the ongoing part), you can profit off the same information product for years to come.
You can work from anywhere.
When your work isn’t tied to any particular office or city, you can work anywhere that has internet. Information products can be created just as easily from a house in Idaho as from a coffee shop in Berlin. Some infopreneurs take advantage of the location independence by traveling all over the world to work, while others like the freedom of staying home and working in pajamas with a dog as their officemate.
Any place where you can stay productive is a place you can run an infopreneur business from.
Types Of Infopreneurs
In general, there are 7 types of infopreneurs. These are :
The Main Tools of the Infopreneur’s Trade
There’s not one right path to infopreneurship, but these are some of the most common tools, resources, and product types to consider.
An Infopreneur’s Products
You could share your knowledge on a street corner, but no one is likely to pay you for it. To sell your knowledge, you need to package it in a form that people will want to buy. For most infopreneurs, that means a mix of:
1. Podcasting
Once a fringe hobby, infopreneur podcasting has entered the mainstream, and some of the biggest infopreneurs have their own podcasts. They use their podcasts to build a brand around a subject matter or idea with regular discussions around those concepts.
They have guests on their podcasts to network with, and they make use of low-cost platforms like YouTube or iTunes to host these shows. They build an audience over time and eventually are able to advertise products to monetize the show.
2. Vlogging
Vlogs, or video logs, have become popular on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. These infopreneurs cultivate a brand using videos on a subject matter or idea, usually on subjects like travel, do-it-yourself, cooking, and toys — anything that lends itself well to video. Like podcasting, these vloggers gradually build an audience and may become influencers who can make money recommending products or hosting ads.
Some examples of successful vloggers include the Vagabrothers — two brothers who vlog their travel experiences — and Sawyer Hartman, who vlogs about his life experiences.
3. E-book author
If you have extensive knowledge that others would find helpful, putting it in e-book form is a solid idea for infopreneur success. Like regular authors, e-book authors write and publish books on a subject in which they have expertise, but they take advantage of digital marketing and publishing tools to produce the book at a very low cost, keeping their overhead low and profits high while building a loyal following online.
This requires time investment and the willingness to go in-depth on a subject — and it may require a lot of research. They may partner with traditional publishers sometimes, but their bread and butter is digital publishing.
4. Training videos
Sometimes, people just want to figure out how to do something. Perhaps they broke the plug to their treadmill and want to find out how to fix it, so they search YouTube for help and come across an infopreneur's video that takes them step-by-step through the process. If you're, say, an expert mechanic or carpenter, why not share that expertise with a series of clear instructional videos on YouTube?
Or you could become a technology infopreneur and help people figure out how to use the latest gadgets. If you build up enough of a library and gain a following, you could get a large enough audience to collect ad money — a nice side gig to your current profession if you don't want to become a full-time infopreneur.
5. Online courses
An online course is another infopreneur business that involves selling your knowledge to the world, although in this case, it's for those who are more serious about absorbing your knowledge about a subject.
If you're a mechanic who works on refurbishing old cars, you can provide an online course for others who want to get into this hobby and charge a fee for the education rather than go with the advertising model like other infopreneur ideas.
6. Webinars
If you want to interact directly with your audience, webinars are a great option to both share your expertise and start a conversation. This is great for building a brand, and you can make money either from advertising or from subscription fees, or both.
7. Coaching
This is a more personal method of infopreneurship that involves having one client who pays a premium for your expertise. An example of this is a consultant in the business world or a personal trainer who helps someone get in shape. With coaching, you still need to have a marketing plan in order to attract these high-dollar clients, although you may be able to rely on networking alone if you're connected enough.
Most successful infopreneurs offer some of their information products for free as a way to promote the business and build trust, then charge for the products that go more into depth or provide extra value in some way.
An Infopreneur’s Toolkit
There are a few things every infopreneur will need to succeed, and a handful of other resources and products worth considering to make your infopreneur business work.
The necessities:
Infopreneurship is one of the fastest ways to reach a massive number of people on the Internet with your expertise. To start, you have to choose how you’ll provide valuable free information. Next, you need to build a loyal audience and plan how you’ll eventually charge people for access to premium content. Being an infopreneur can be super rewarding — take a look at some of the perks:
1) You Contribute Real Value to People’s Lives
No matter your area of expertise, chances are that you’re ultimately helping others. This is a win-win situation because you’re earning extra cash while enjoying the gratification of helping someone improve in an area of their life.
2) You Have More Flexibility Working for Yourself
Infopreneurship can be the perfect side hustle. You can do it as a part-time gig as you work a full-time job, go to grad school, or juggle parenting responsibilities. This flexibility and the low stakes of infopreneurship give you a chance to achieve work-life balance. It’s empowering to be an infopreneur because you’re using your knowledge to produce wealth and ensure your own economic security.
3) You Don’t Experience as Much Pressure as Other Entrepreneurs
Selling information online requires a small initial investment and it usually starts as a solo venture. Traditional entrepreneurship typically involves hiring at least an assistant, and there is a ton of pressure when it comes to selling time-based services or physical products. Meanwhile, a resourceful infopreneur can just outsource tasks as necessary.
4) You Can Strategically Streamline Your Workload
You will have to make the effort to do the work upfront to create your information products, set everything up, and market them, but once it is done, you can enjoy the benefits without having to keep up with tedious tasks. This provides a sense of freedom and allows for creativity in your work.
5) You Control How You Scale the Business
If you know your numbers, you can usually scale your business quickly as an infopreneur. Once you fully understand your target market, how to reach them, and how to present your material in a way that they like, you’re ready to scale. We’re living in the peak attention economy and information age, so the demand for your knowledge already exists.
4 characteristics of infopreneurs
Not everyone is cut out to be an infopreneur. In general, you should possess the following four characteristics before embarking on this sort of career.
1. An outgoing personality
Introverts will struggle with becoming an infopreneur, because an essential part of this lifestyle is to be outgoing and open with people. You must expose your personality and your ideas, and partnering with other experts and infopreneurs is necessary. You must explore new ideas and concepts and be receptive to new forms of technology as well.
And if you’re afraid of failure or of being wrong, this may not be the career for you.
2. A curious mindset
Anyone in the knowledge business must have an innate curiosity about the world, particularly in their subject. Infopreneurs must be interested in all aspects of their subject area and be willing to adapt to new information.
They should live their lives constantly seeking and exploring, and be driven to use that curiosity to inspire their audience. An infopreneur enjoys being challenged and they have a questioning mind that is seeking the truth at all times.
3. An adventurous spirit
Infopreneurs, like all entrepreneurs, must be willing to accept risk as part of their profession. They should be comfortable with questioning the status quo and be willing to embrace controversial ideas. They commonly challenge authority and are willing to risk public failure. However, they learn from mistakes quickly and use those experiences to continue to build their infopreneur brand.
4. A drive to succeed
Infopreneurship is a subset of entrepreneurship, so you will need the fire that all successful entrepreneurs have to succeed. You must be able to self-motivate because no one else is going to push you. You should have a burning desire to become an expert and to help others with their problems.
An infopreneur is an entrepreneur who builds a business based on information products. Instead of selling items or services, they sell knowledge.
That’s a simple definition, but infopreneurship – as with any type of entrepreneurship –involves a good amount of research, time, and work to do right. But if you have knowledge you know other people can benefit from and are willing to put the work in, becoming an infopreneur can be both profitable and fulfilling.
How Becoming an Infopreneur Can Pay Off
Infopreneurship offers some key benefits in comparison to other types of entrepreneurship.
The overhead to get started is low.
When you’re selling a product, you have to purchase inventory. If your business requires an office or storefront, you have to pay rent every month, along with all the supplies and furniture needed to turn those spaces into a business.
An infopreneur doesn’t need to deal with any of those costs. To start an information business, you need a website, time to create information products, and marketing knowledge. You may want to hire some people to help make your information products look or sound good, like a graphic designer or editor, but that’s likely to be the most expensive part.
When the financial investment required to get started is low, it keeps your risk low and makes the path to profit faster.
Information products usually only need to be created once and can be sold over and over again.
Creating information products does take a lot of time and work, but once you’ve finished one, you can make money on it again and again – as many times as there are people who want to buy it. Service providers have to continually provide their services, and businesses that sell physical products have to repeatedly buy more inventory to sell. But if you create something that’s high quality and market it well (that’s the ongoing part), you can profit off the same information product for years to come.
You can work from anywhere.
When your work isn’t tied to any particular office or city, you can work anywhere that has internet. Information products can be created just as easily from a house in Idaho as from a coffee shop in Berlin. Some infopreneurs take advantage of the location independence by traveling all over the world to work, while others like the freedom of staying home and working in pajamas with a dog as their officemate.
Any place where you can stay productive is a place you can run an infopreneur business from.
Types Of Infopreneurs
In general, there are 7 types of infopreneurs. These are :
- Course Creators: These infopreneurs create full-fledged courses and sell it either on their own websites or through online marketplaces like Udemy.
- Authors: These types of infopreneurs put down their expertise, experience, and insight in a book or an e-book and make money by selling those.
- Niche Bloggers: Usually, bloggers don’t sell anything. They share their thoughts, expertise, experience, and insight on a publically available platform and make money either through advertisements or by partnering with brands they advocate.
- Niche Podcasters: Niche podcasters are similar to bloggers, the only difference being the platform. Podcasters share their information in the form of audio.
- Niche Vloggers: Vloggers are bloggers who share their information in the form of videos.
- Speakers: A speaker is an expert in his own field who influences others through his speech. His business model includes charging money to speak in an event.
- Coaches: Coaches are people who help others to unlock their personal potentials. They provide their services both online and offline.
- Consultants: A consultant is an expert who gives sells his professional advice to businesses and individuals.
- Thought Leaders: A thought leader is a niche expert who people look up to when it comes to making decisions related to that niche. They operate through many channels which even include social media.
The Main Tools of the Infopreneur’s Trade
There’s not one right path to infopreneurship, but these are some of the most common tools, resources, and product types to consider.
An Infopreneur’s Products
You could share your knowledge on a street corner, but no one is likely to pay you for it. To sell your knowledge, you need to package it in a form that people will want to buy. For most infopreneurs, that means a mix of:
1. Podcasting
Once a fringe hobby, infopreneur podcasting has entered the mainstream, and some of the biggest infopreneurs have their own podcasts. They use their podcasts to build a brand around a subject matter or idea with regular discussions around those concepts.
They have guests on their podcasts to network with, and they make use of low-cost platforms like YouTube or iTunes to host these shows. They build an audience over time and eventually are able to advertise products to monetize the show.
2. Vlogging
Vlogs, or video logs, have become popular on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. These infopreneurs cultivate a brand using videos on a subject matter or idea, usually on subjects like travel, do-it-yourself, cooking, and toys — anything that lends itself well to video. Like podcasting, these vloggers gradually build an audience and may become influencers who can make money recommending products or hosting ads.
Some examples of successful vloggers include the Vagabrothers — two brothers who vlog their travel experiences — and Sawyer Hartman, who vlogs about his life experiences.
3. E-book author
If you have extensive knowledge that others would find helpful, putting it in e-book form is a solid idea for infopreneur success. Like regular authors, e-book authors write and publish books on a subject in which they have expertise, but they take advantage of digital marketing and publishing tools to produce the book at a very low cost, keeping their overhead low and profits high while building a loyal following online.
This requires time investment and the willingness to go in-depth on a subject — and it may require a lot of research. They may partner with traditional publishers sometimes, but their bread and butter is digital publishing.
4. Training videos
Sometimes, people just want to figure out how to do something. Perhaps they broke the plug to their treadmill and want to find out how to fix it, so they search YouTube for help and come across an infopreneur's video that takes them step-by-step through the process. If you're, say, an expert mechanic or carpenter, why not share that expertise with a series of clear instructional videos on YouTube?
Or you could become a technology infopreneur and help people figure out how to use the latest gadgets. If you build up enough of a library and gain a following, you could get a large enough audience to collect ad money — a nice side gig to your current profession if you don't want to become a full-time infopreneur.
5. Online courses
An online course is another infopreneur business that involves selling your knowledge to the world, although in this case, it's for those who are more serious about absorbing your knowledge about a subject.
If you're a mechanic who works on refurbishing old cars, you can provide an online course for others who want to get into this hobby and charge a fee for the education rather than go with the advertising model like other infopreneur ideas.
6. Webinars
If you want to interact directly with your audience, webinars are a great option to both share your expertise and start a conversation. This is great for building a brand, and you can make money either from advertising or from subscription fees, or both.
7. Coaching
This is a more personal method of infopreneurship that involves having one client who pays a premium for your expertise. An example of this is a consultant in the business world or a personal trainer who helps someone get in shape. With coaching, you still need to have a marketing plan in order to attract these high-dollar clients, although you may be able to rely on networking alone if you're connected enough.
Most successful infopreneurs offer some of their information products for free as a way to promote the business and build trust, then charge for the products that go more into depth or provide extra value in some way.
An Infopreneur’s Toolkit
There are a few things every infopreneur will need to succeed, and a handful of other resources and products worth considering to make your infopreneur business work.
The necessities:
- Website – First and foremost, you need a space online where your business will live. Your website will be the cornerstone of your infopreneur business so make sure it’s well designed, you invest in reliable web hosting, and that the style and domain name reflect your brand.
- Blog – A blog is an important tool to demonstrate knowledge to potential customers and build trust in your infopreneur brand. It’s also an invaluable tool for building your email list.
- Email marketing software – That email list only matters if you have a means to contact your followers and keep the relationship going. For that, you need an email software like Constant Contact to keep your lists organized, create emails that look good, and track the success of each email you send.
- Distribution platforms like Amazon for ebooks, Udemy for courses, YouTube for videos, and iTunes for podcasts.
- Products to help you produce higher quality information products, such as good microphones for recording podcasts or editing software for videos.
- Resources needed to learn and do marketing for your business like SEO, PPC, and social media.
- The services and products most businesses need, like a computer and accounting software.
Infopreneurship is one of the fastest ways to reach a massive number of people on the Internet with your expertise. To start, you have to choose how you’ll provide valuable free information. Next, you need to build a loyal audience and plan how you’ll eventually charge people for access to premium content. Being an infopreneur can be super rewarding — take a look at some of the perks:
1) You Contribute Real Value to People’s Lives
No matter your area of expertise, chances are that you’re ultimately helping others. This is a win-win situation because you’re earning extra cash while enjoying the gratification of helping someone improve in an area of their life.
2) You Have More Flexibility Working for Yourself
Infopreneurship can be the perfect side hustle. You can do it as a part-time gig as you work a full-time job, go to grad school, or juggle parenting responsibilities. This flexibility and the low stakes of infopreneurship give you a chance to achieve work-life balance. It’s empowering to be an infopreneur because you’re using your knowledge to produce wealth and ensure your own economic security.
3) You Don’t Experience as Much Pressure as Other Entrepreneurs
Selling information online requires a small initial investment and it usually starts as a solo venture. Traditional entrepreneurship typically involves hiring at least an assistant, and there is a ton of pressure when it comes to selling time-based services or physical products. Meanwhile, a resourceful infopreneur can just outsource tasks as necessary.
4) You Can Strategically Streamline Your Workload
You will have to make the effort to do the work upfront to create your information products, set everything up, and market them, but once it is done, you can enjoy the benefits without having to keep up with tedious tasks. This provides a sense of freedom and allows for creativity in your work.
5) You Control How You Scale the Business
If you know your numbers, you can usually scale your business quickly as an infopreneur. Once you fully understand your target market, how to reach them, and how to present your material in a way that they like, you’re ready to scale. We’re living in the peak attention economy and information age, so the demand for your knowledge already exists.
4 characteristics of infopreneurs
Not everyone is cut out to be an infopreneur. In general, you should possess the following four characteristics before embarking on this sort of career.
1. An outgoing personality
Introverts will struggle with becoming an infopreneur, because an essential part of this lifestyle is to be outgoing and open with people. You must expose your personality and your ideas, and partnering with other experts and infopreneurs is necessary. You must explore new ideas and concepts and be receptive to new forms of technology as well.
And if you’re afraid of failure or of being wrong, this may not be the career for you.
2. A curious mindset
Anyone in the knowledge business must have an innate curiosity about the world, particularly in their subject. Infopreneurs must be interested in all aspects of their subject area and be willing to adapt to new information.
They should live their lives constantly seeking and exploring, and be driven to use that curiosity to inspire their audience. An infopreneur enjoys being challenged and they have a questioning mind that is seeking the truth at all times.
3. An adventurous spirit
Infopreneurs, like all entrepreneurs, must be willing to accept risk as part of their profession. They should be comfortable with questioning the status quo and be willing to embrace controversial ideas. They commonly challenge authority and are willing to risk public failure. However, they learn from mistakes quickly and use those experiences to continue to build their infopreneur brand.
4. A drive to succeed
Infopreneurship is a subset of entrepreneurship, so you will need the fire that all successful entrepreneurs have to succeed. You must be able to self-motivate because no one else is going to push you. You should have a burning desire to become an expert and to help others with their problems.
