I made 7figs online by ignoring this popular guru advice

Hey there, solopreneur!

I started making serious money online once I started ignoring most online business advice.

Niche down until it hurts. Build your audience for years before selling anything. Post at exactly 9am or the algorithm will bury you.

Everyone repeated the same gospel.

I tried following it at first. But it quickly felt wrong. So I started ignoring the parts that didn't fit and just ran my own experiments instead.

Turns out most "universal truths" in business are just one person's specific path dressed up as rigid law.

Here are 7 pieces of popular advice I completely ignored( and what I did instead that actually worked for me):

"Niche down until it hurts"

The only niche that works long-term?

One you don't wake up dreading to talk about.

Sure, you can force yourself into a profitable niche for a while. Make decent money even. But maintaining that act for years when it's not genuinely interesting is nearly impossible.

I pivoted from pure AI tutorials to personal essays, health optimization, controversial takes on Europe's startup scene. It lost me some followers for sure. But if I'd kept forcing AI-only content for another few years, I would've burned out completely and quit anyway.

Here's what I learned:

Growth without alignment is just a slower path to quitting

The real question isn't "what niche gets the most reach?" It's "what can I talk about for the next 5 years without hating my life?"

Niche down if it serves your actual interests. Don't niche down until it hurts YOU. That's what everyone misses.

“Build an audience first, then sell"

This advice is completely backwards.

If you spend years building on 100% free content, then suddenly start selling, you've already attracted an audience of freerollers.

More importantly:

you're missing out on incredible data.

As a smaller creator, every sale teaches you something.

What problems actually hurt?

What language resonates?

What objections keep coming up?

This intel is gold when you're trying to figure out what to build next.

I started selling after 2-3 months with The AI Solopreneur. In hindsight I could've started even earlier. Next time I build something, I'm monetizing pretty much immediately.

That's another trap: if you never monetize, you never know if anyone would actually pay for what you're building. You might spend months creating something worthless.

Three things happen when you sell early:

• You test real market demand (not hypothetical interest)

• You collect data on what your audience actually values (not what they say they value)

• You train your audience from the beginning that quality costs something

Building audience first only works at massive scale imo. For the rest of us, start selling early and learn faster.

"Post at optimal times / Algorithm hates inconsistency"

Everyone obsesses over posting schedules, especially at the beginning.

"Should I post at 9am or 11am?" "How many times per week?" "Will the algorithm punish me if I skip a day?"

Wrong questions entirely.

I've seen posts blow up at 3am on a Tuesday. I've seen perfectly-timed posts die with zero engagement. With interest-based algorithms, timing matters way less than you think.

The real questions you should be asking:

• How can I be as valuable as possible here?

• Am I grabbing attention in the most compelling way?

• Does this hook hit people emotionally?

• Would someone actually stop scrolling for this?

You could post one video a year. If it genuinely hooks people and delivers value, modern algorithms will find the audience for it. They're designed to surface good content regardless of when you post.

Beginners overindex on formulas and timing because they feel controllable. Quality and emotional resonance are scarier ,they're subjective, harder to measure.

But that's exactly what moves the needle.

"Location freedom should be #1 priority"

The digital nomad lifestyle looks incredible on Instagram. Different beach every week, laptop at sunset, "office with a view."

Look, it's not for everyone. And more importantly, it shouldn't be the first thing you optimize for.

Moving locations constantly adds a whole layer of complexity. Shit WiFi. Half your energy spent on basic logistics (where do I eat, work, sleep?). No ergonomic setup. Time zones messing with calls. Getting sick from new food.

When I was nomading in Thailand, I averaged MAYBE 2hours of actual deep work daily. Everything else got lost to friction.

If you're trying to get your business off the ground AND figure out the nomad life simultaneously, you're fighting two fires at once.

Both suffer.

Get the business stable first. Then layer in location independence if that's what you actually want

I realized, It’s way more important for me to have a consistent schedule and social circle.

Real freedom isn't working from anywhere.

It's having the choice to work the way YOU want.

"Never shut down a profitable revenue stream"

People thought I was insane for stopping The AI Solopreneur courses at peak revenue.

I was making a lot of money.

I was fucking miserable though.

Running this AI course business I wasn't aligned with anymore felt like dating someone you know isn't right long-term. Sure, it's "working" on paper. But you're wasting time you could spend finding the actual right fit.

A profitable business you hate is still a trap. It occupies your mental space, your time, your energy. All resources you need to build what you actually want.

Sometimes the best business decision is admitting you're done and moving on. Even if the numbers still look good. Especially if the numbers still look good, because that's when it's hardest to walk away.

I could've kept milking those courses for another year, maybe made another few hundred thousand. But I would've delayed figuring out what I actually want to build by that same year.

I’d chose short term pain for long-term gain every day of the week.

"Automate everything"

The productivity gurus will tell you to automate every possible task. Remove yourself from operations entirely.

But some tasks give you joy. Some work makes you feel accomplished. Some parts of the craft are why you started in the first place.

I used way more AI in my content creation at one point. I Could've automated even more.

But writing this newsletter manually? I actually enjoy it. The craft matters to me.

If you automate the parts you love, you'll end up running a business that feels hollow.

Some times hard work IS the reward.

Automate what drains you:

• The admin work nobody sees

• The repetitive tasks that feel like punishment

• The stuff that keeps you from the work you actually want to do

Keep what energizes you, even if it's "inefficient."

Not everything needs to be optimized. Sometimes the inefficiency is the whole point of doing it yourself.

"Never sell your time for money"

The leverage obsession has gotten out of hand.

Everyone's chasing scalable products and passive income. Services get dismissed as "just trading time for money." But that misses the entire point of why you'd do services in the first place.

The fastest way to understand your market is selling them services.

One-on-one time. Consulting. Workshops. Whatever gets you direct access to their actual problems.

You learn more from 10 paid consulting calls than from 1,000 survey responses. When someone's paying, they tell you what really hurts.

And that means you’ll find out if they'd actually spend money to fix.

Every product I've launched came from patterns I noticed doing services first:

• What language resonates (vs what I thought would work)

• What objections keep coming up

• What features matter (vs what I assumed)

Services are paid market research. Gather the intel first. Build the scalable product once you know what people actually need.

Leverage comes later. Sell your time first, learn everything you can.

Ole's Bookmarks

I’m reading this amazing book right on how to build a perfect “sellable” business.(click the image to go to amazon)

I'm running this experiment right now to rewire my brain. I’m 4 days in and the difference in clarity im already feeling is quiet scary. will keep everyone updated.

So ignore all business advice then?

Not quite.

There's not one way to win. There are a MILLION ways.

And success depends heavily on timing, circumstance, and your actual personality makeup.

That last part is what makes most guru advice so tricky to follow. If you're wired completely differently than them, their playbook might actively work against you.

Test advice yourself instead of assuming it applies. Run small experiments. See what actually works for your personality, your situation, your goals.

No matter what you chose to build, i’m fired up for you!

Ending with early morning hike vibes from cyprus:)

P.S. please let me know what you would love to learn more about, i always read the replies!