The SideProject Book

Part 1 - Prologue: The Cold Email A CISO-course

It was actually right here I heard it for the first time:

A sub par hotel gym in Gran Canaria june of 2021. I dont know where i found it, but this was the first time i put on the podcast My first million (MFM)

Man i was blown away. Id been in public sector for a decade, never thinking about that you can create things and companies. These guys were brainstorming business ideas and i kept this on my ear the coming year. I was renovating our apartment and as i carried garbage for 4-5 hours at a time, i could blow through several episodes and enjoying every second of it!

Then a year later during the summer, a lady appeared on MFM i think, some marriage lady that had a business and a digital course or something. And I got really inspired. Of course I need to make a digital course. When its made, it can create value while sleeping! So awesome.

But what do I know? My expert subject is information security, but how would “infosec 101” be any different from the other stuff in the market. It didnt feel right. Then it struck me: I was a leader of information security in a company, and what did I get every week that was horrible? Cold emails. I couldnt believe how bad they were. Did they not want to succeed? I was unsure! They were missing completely, and they used crazy bad tactiques to get me to answer them (“Are you busy? Press 1 for “yes”, write 2 for “not at this time”) etc. What if I analyzed many emails and made a framework to help people successfully cold message CISOs? I thought this was a more unique knowledge I have, and i actually thought i could make a good product!

I had just read lean startup, and i think it says there that you have to test the hypothesis before building anything, so i made a simple form where i tried to say that if they signed up they HAD to commit to buying, idk if I said a price:

Then a year later during the summer, a lady appeared on MFM i think, some marriage lady that had a business and a digital course or something. And I got really inspired. Of course I need to make a digital course. When its made, it can create value while sleeping! So awesome.

But what do I know? My expert subject is information security, but how would “infosec 101” be any different from the other stuff in the market. It didnt feel right. Then it struck me: I was a leader of information security in a company, and what did I get every week that was horrible? Cold emails. I couldnt believe how bad they were. Did they not want to succeed? I was unsure! They were missing completely, and they used crazy bad tactiques to get me to answer them (“Are you busy? Press 1 for “yes”, write 2 for “not at this time”) etc. What if I analyzed many emails and made a framework to help people successfully cold message CISOs? I thought this was a more unique knowledge I have, and i actually thought i could make a good product!

I had just read lean startup, and i think it says there that you have to test the hypothesis before building anything, so i made a simple form where i tried to say that if they signed up they HAD to commit to buying, idk if I said a price:

Figure: “im thinking of making a course. What the hell do you think? For yourself or others? I need totally hones feedback. Link”

Lol! Its funny to look back at earlier work. How neutral is this? This sucks! And i even sent it to friends 😀 I think i sent like 10 messages like this. I got no reply from five friends (lol), but luckily i got 4 yes´es (just kidding, they said no directly). And i got two positive answers! But was it really positive? Now that I look back I see he just wanted to sell me something, and people didnt have to pay to sign up here, so it didnt cost him anything to say “this is interesting”:

Figure: “im thinking of making a course. What the hell do you think? For yourself or others? I need totally hones feedback. Link”

Lol! Its funny to look back at earlier work. How neutral is this? This sucks! And i even sent it to friends 😀 I think i sent like 10 messages like this. I got no reply from five friends (lol), but luckily i got 4 yes´es (just kidding, they said no directly). And i got two positive answers! But was it really positive? Now that I look back I see he just wanted to sell me something, and people didnt have to pay to sign up here, so it didnt cost him anything to say “this is interesting”:

Man of course he says this is interesting… he just wanted to close a sale! I was too blinded by my idea that i didnt even see it. I just now checked if he bought the course: I didnt tell him I made it! I just told him now, we will see if he buys. I also ran some ads, cause I figured out I couldnt trust people I know

I used 5 USD, had never tried google ads. Lol! Maybe the text was OK? Im not sure, i think its a bit interesting. I had 17 clicks but no filling of the form… I dont even know right now if this is promising or not, probably not.

But yeah, i was obviously too stoked about the idea to register that people werent stoked. If i also did some keyword research at this time I maybe would have seen how much “cold email CISO” was searched about…

In the lean startup or something it says you need 20% “yes” or “sales” before continuing with an idea, so when 2 out of ten were barely positive, i thought: LETS GO BABY!!

I was pretty stoked. at this time I was devouring every startup thing i could find. I found a digital course from antler and loved it! I even bought the linkedin diploma thing! Lol!

I used 5 USD, had never tried google ads. Lol! Maybe the text was OK? Im not sure, i think its a bit interesting. I had 17 clicks but no filling of the form… I dont even know right now if this is promising or not, probably not.

But yeah, i was obviously too stoked about the idea to register that people werent stoked. If i also did some keyword research at this time I maybe would have seen how much “cold email CISO” was searched about…

In the lean startup or something it says you need 20% “yes” or “sales” before continuing with an idea, so when 2 out of ten were barely positive, i thought: LETS GO BABY!!

I was pretty stoked. at this time I was devouring every startup thing i could find. I found a digital course from antler and loved it! I even bought the linkedin diploma thing! Lol!

I remember watching the videos on daddy leave, whenever my kid had naps in this thing (a must have thing, btw)

Anyway, the plan was clear. Spend two weeks building the script, record it, and publish on udemy or something. But then it hit me:

So my friend! Do you salute entrepreneurial hustle, and want to support the SideProject journey? Want to get access to the rest of the "Cold Email A CISO"-story and read how the SideProject community got started as a consequence of this course? The SideProject-story is still being written, so you will get lifetime access as its updated.

Currently this is a journey through investmentdialogue, creating a Slack-channel, physical meetups with 50+ people, how I met the main players that helped develop this, how we created an incubator, how we piloted innovation with big orgs, and how we got featured in news articles.

Buy access by buying my course here for 49 USD!! (Its the only stripe thing I have active as of now): Cold Email A CISO

Maybe the story about how a failed course made a community will make more than the course itself 😀

You want a physical copy of this book? If enough people want it ill make it! Send me an email to course.in.cold.emailing.ciso (at) gmail.com

So my friend! Do you salute entrepreneurial hustle, and want to support the SideProject journey? Want to get access to the rest of the "Cold Email A CISO"-story and read how the SideProject community got started as a consequence of this course? The SideProject-story is still being written, so you will get lifetime access as its updated.

Currently this is a journey through investmentdialogue, creating a Slack-channel, physical meetups with 50+ people, how I met the main players that helped develop this, how we created an incubator, how we piloted innovation with big orgs, and how we got featured in news articles.

Buy access by buying my course here for 49 USD!! (Its the only stripe thing I have active as of now): Cold Email A CISO

Maybe the story about how a failed course made a community will make more than the course itself 😀

You want a physical copy of this book? If enough people want it ill make it! Send me an email to course.in.cold.emailing.ciso (at) gmail.com

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