🎙 The simple lesson i learned from a millionaire

Assalāmu ‘alaykum and Good Evening

Welcome to the Freshly Grounded newsletter, you know that feeling when you hit all green lights on your way home? We're even smoother.

Here’s what’s on the menu today:

• The simple lesson i learned from a millionaire that stuck with me to this day

• Closing down the merch store 😞

• Update regarding our members-only community (spoiler: we’ve killed the application forms)

🚨 The Business Lesson from a Millionaire:

Many years ago when I first started my e-commerce business (izaha), I ended up meeting the head of an ecom giant through my brother, Omar. Said giant (whose ecom biz was turning over £20M/ year) kinda took me under his wing.

One day over a karak chai in east London (glamourous, i know) he told me something that stayed with me forever. This was pre-FG.

He said that they pay over £20k/month to an agency whose job is to predict fashions and report it back to them.

Imagine paying over 20k/month for a dude to tell you what he thinks is gonna be the next big thing!

At that point it clicked to me that this was relevant not just for the fashion industry but any industry. Very often … it pays to be first.

If you have a good nose for what’s about to be the new trend, and jump on that train early, you get a head start.

It’s how we became the #1 podcast on Apple in our category in our first week. When we launched the only podcasts in the UK were bbc sport etc. There wasn’t huge competition.

So now the question arises, how do you predict the next big thing without paying some serious doe?

Well personally I think you have to have somewhat of a nose for sniffing it (I know I need to stop using the nose analogy, work with me for a sec) but there’s tools you can use to enhance your digital sense of smell.

You know when you’re trying perfumes and then the guy at the store makes you sniff coffee beans to boost your sense of smell?

I’m that guy now.

And here are your virtual coffee beans (tools to help you predict trends) y’welcome:

1. Exploding Topics: An invaluable tool for surfacing rapidly growing topics before they go mainstream, providing early insight into trends that could shape your business landscape.

2. Google Trends: Harness the power of Google's vast search data to detect spikes in interest for specific search terms, helping you anticipate market shifts.

3. Ahrefs: Leverage this comprehensive SEO toolkit to uncover trending keywords and high-performing content in your niche, informing your strategic planning.

4. Twitter: Monitor real-time conversations and trending hashtags to catch wind of emerging phenomena, influencing factors, and sentiment in your industry.

5. Morning Brew Newsletter: A daily digest delivering market-moving business news and analysis, offering early signals of economic trends that could impact your enterprise.

6. Numlock News Newsletter: An engaging resource for insightful, data-driven stories, providing a fresh lens to identify patterns and trends in various industries.

7. Chartr Newsletter: Weekly updates with visually compelling data-driven content that can illuminate trending economic and cultural shifts relevant to your business.

thanks to Kaya for opening my eyes to some of these too.

😢 We’re Closing Down our Merch Store

wanna grab the merch? it’s available until sunday 👇

Recently we launched our merch store selling some of the most fire 🔥 garms in podcasting. You guys loved it.

we were using a new system for this merch store, hence it not being on the usual shop.freshlygrounded.com.

By using this US company, it basically allowed us to hand over a huge part of the process to them, making it easier for us to manage the store and you guys getting your orders.

but you know what? i didn’t love the system. With orders being shipped from the US and our main audience being in the UK, it meant international fees for you guys, longer delivery times etc.

Im also not huge on having different online stores with different URLs, it makes sense for us to manage and sell everything in one place over at shop.freshlygrounded.com

so for that reason, we’ll be closing down the merch store. I’m going to keep it open until this sunday incase you wanna grab the merch, and then close it off, in shā’ Allāh.

I aim to eventually sell the merch over on our own store but that’s gonna take some time. It requires a bunch of investment, inventory and processes.

But, we’ll get there, in shā’ Allāh.

Meme of the Week

☕️ The Black Coffee Briefings:

Bullet-point rundown of news, updates, and caffeinated contemplations:

• We’ve scrapped the application form for our paid community, now anyone can get instant access by signing up here.

• Bath and Body works made $400 million in mens sales last year, and they’re now trying to increase that in 2023 through marketing beard oils, face creams and more. I haven’t used beard oil in years (can you tell?) and i feel just fine. Despite my personal preference, it highlights the growing trend towards men's grooming and self-care. What do you guys think about that?

• I’ll be in London next weekend to give a presentation about affordably buying property in the UAE with riba-free installments. Come join me it’s free entry

Join the Freshly Grounded Members-Only Community

Apply to join the members-only discord community of ambitious, like-minded & high calibre Muslims. Here’s some of the key deets:

• Membership is £7/ month (around $9)

• Each member is vetted for approval to ensure they bring value to the community.

• The community is segregated with brothers-only and sisters-only channels.

• Also get access to a weekly drop-in with Faisal on zoom

And there's the skinny. Till we cross paths again, stay slick and keep your coffee strong.

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