How to start a business without risking a penny upfront
There's a way to know if your business idea will work without needing to spend money. And you can do it in record time.
Today’s email is thanks to a great suggestion by
who writes Make sure you subscribe and drop her a message to say thank you!She asked this in the Strategic Sunnah chat:
How can I start an online Islamic brand where I can solve Muslim women/teenagers problems by creating digital products?
The short answer: by identifying your audience and addressing their most pressing needs.
I talked about this in a recent email on how to start a blog for the benefit of the Ummah:
In that email I wrote the following:
Muslims are real people with real problems:
Money
Health
Relationships
These are the three main categories of problems people face. Where does your target audience fit?
I also explain how to (and why you should) narrow your target audience into as small a grouping as possible.
After reading the email you should have a good understand of the following points:
You must have a small but highly targeted audience.
Doing so will make communicating about your product or service much easier.
And your audience will be more likely to become your true fans.
Others who are similar to your audience will naturally be attracted to your product because…
They want to be like your target audience.
They are curious about your unique offering.
You then find your target audience’s most pressing and desperate needs.
This gives them the strongest reasons and urgency to take action.
You should be able to make a start from the advice in the email:
And if you need more help don’t hesitate to message me!
Why am I repeating this?
Because the #1 mistake people make when starting a new brand is they think of the products first… then try to force it onto an audience.
But does your product even address the needs of the people you’re trying to serve?
Imagine spending weeks if not months building something people don’t even want. Not to mention the money you’ll lose in the process.
By using the approach I’m suggesting you may not even have to spend a penny. And it will take the shortest amount of time to confirm whether people want to buy your product or not.
Because the first thing you do is understand your audience and what they want.
And THEN you build it.
Not the other way round.
Here’s a scenario to illustrate the point:
You decide to sell abayas. Because Muslim women wear abayas. So you’re solving one of their problems… right?
You spend hundreds of dollars buying the abayas from wholesale.
And weeks on building a website to sell them on.
And then silence.
No sales.
Because you simply thought of a product first. Then tried to force it onto your target audience.
This is what so many people do. And it’s why they fail before they even get started.
What you should do instead:
Having identified your target audience and their most pressing needs…
You create a product to offer what they’re craving for.
Needs first.
Product second.
An example with abayas:
Let’s say your target audience is young, professional Muslim women in Bangalore, India.
They work in office jobs that require a certain level of professional attire. And they are middle income earners wanting more quality options.
Their pressing needs are for a modest option to wear in the office that doesn’t make them look like princess jasmine. They want modest wear that is comfortable for their commute and the long days at the office. And the abayas they find in the stores don’t last more than a few months because of poor stitching.
The secret step to creating a winning product:
Instead of creating a product you think people need and then being surprised when you find out they don’t actually need it…
You first address their needs and then build a product they actually want.
But there is a step in the middle.
And getting this step right will make your product stand out from the rest by making it the most unique and effective solution your customers can buy:
Start marketing your solution before creating the product itself.
What does this mean?
Imagine you already have the perfect solution.
What would it look like? What would be the features?
How would you let your audience know the benefits of using your solution?
You see… most people create a product first without considering their target audience’s pressing needs.
Few research the pressing needs of their audience before creating the product.
But the most successful people address and articulate the solutions before even starting on a product.
This gives them the strategic advantage of validating their idea before committing time and money.
This is easy to understand with a blog.
Because you write persuasive and inspirational content to promote your ideas. The marketing is the product.
And I also gave the example of proposing for marriage.
You market yourself by becoming eligible. You do this with your job and reputation.
And what do you do if you don’t meet the eligibility?
You work on improving your income. You work on your fitness and building good character.
The marketing is what qualifies the product.
In other words you understand the benefits BEFORE you build the solution.
It tells you exactly what you should build BEFORE you build it.
Writing without understanding the benefit—boring and irrelevant blog.
Writing for the benefit—interesting and relevant blog.
Proposing without anything to offer—rejection.
Proposing after improving yourself—acceptance.
But for some reason in the case of building products we don’t apply the same principles.
Here’s what I would do for creating a solution for modest wear in the office:
I would open my notebook and literally write out sales copy for a product that doesn’t yet exist but addresses all the pressing needs of my target audience…
AND showcases all the benefits of buying the product.
I would do this by listing the pains and needs of the target audience…
And the benefits of a hypothetical product that solves them all.
A lot of modest wear today looks too much like Arabian cosplay.
This product uses clean minimalist designs and dark colours suitable for the office.
Modest wear often has poor stitching that comes loose after a few wears.
This product uses double stitched seams usually found in tailoring.
The commutes are long and hot and I have to sit in the office for several hours.
This product uses premium breathable fabrics that are built to last.
I would continue in this manner—thinking of as many problems and solutions as I can.
And then I would sell a product that provides ALL of the above.
Because I just articulated precisely what my audience desperately needs…
Why would I sell anything else?
Of course you can’t assume what your target audience wants.
You must ask them first!
This exposes two challenges:
You don’t have a way to reach potential customers.
You can’t be 100% sure they will buy it.
But you’re subscribed to Strategic Sunnah—where the problem is the solution!
This is actually a huge opportunity.
Remember I said I would show you how to know what product to create without losing money and in the fastest time?
And remember just a few sentences before I said “And then I would sell a product that provides ALL of the above.”?
Emphasis on the word “sell”.
Because this is how you do it:
You literally sell the product before even building it.
And before the haram police break their keyboards in a rush to comment…
No—I’m not saying sell a fake product.
But I am saying build the sales end of your brand before building the product itself.
This is the practical application of what you’ve read so far.
It means building simple sales pages with a buy button… BUT NOT TAKING ANY MONEY.
Build the pages like you normally would to genuinely sell your product. But don’t add any payment options.
Just make the “buy now” or “add to cart” button go to another page where you say your product is currently not in stock but you’ll send them a special link with a discount as soon as it’s available if they leave their email.
Why this works:
You articulate all the benefits of your solution to your potential customers in a real-world sales page without needing to spend time and money actually creating a product yet.
Every click of the buy button is a “yes” from your potential customers telling you it’s a product they actually want. This validates your idea with the strongest signal there is: purchasing.
You get valuable feedback on your sales copy and page design without needing to have a product yet.
You grow an email list of potential customers. You can keep them warm by sending occasional emails and you can even ask them to share the link to get even more discounts—a referral program before even having a product.
If nobody buys… you know this product won’t work. You can get feedback on why they didn’t buy and then improve your product idea. Or you can start from scratch. Either way you didn’t risk money or waste your time building a product nobody wants.
When you have enough emails you’ll know without a doubt it’s time to create your product.
You can now spend time and money creating the product knowing it won’t be wasted—people actually want it!
You can write out your hypothetical product’s benefits in an hour or two.
And you can make a sales page and the email collecting page in no more than a day.
Here’s what it might look like for a new type of abaya:
The only real challenge is getting photos of your product. But this depends on the type of product you want to sell.
In the case of an abaya you will probably need to create a sample and then take photos of it. Or you can find something that is as close to your product idea as possible instead.
Better yet… with fashion it’s always a good idea to showcase lifestyle. You can simply have a sales page with lifestyle photos and great writing about a new and exclusive product.
Keep an air of mystery about it. Get creative!
If you’re selling supplements show photos of your target demographic doing some physical activities. Make mock-ups of supplement packaging on Canva.
It works the same if you’re selling a service like an online course.
You don’t have to literally show the course materials. Just people from your target audience in the job they want or doing the thing you will teach.
Show the benefits of using the product.
Happy people.
Stress free people.
And for digital products this is a no brainer.
People buy digital products for the benefits—not for how the product looks.
And depending on your product you can also simply make some mock-ups of E-book covers or thumbnails of your digital course using Canva.
So… market your product NOW to validate your idea.
This solves the second of the two challenges.
You don’t have a way to reach potential customers.
You can’t be 100% sure they will buy it.
And the way this method solves the first challenge is by giving you a compelling reason to become an effective marketer.
There’s no sugar-coating it.
If you want to be successful you must talk to hundreds of people every single week.
I recommend 100 people a day as a target to aim for.
This means talking to your contacts.
And creating social media pages if you haven’t already done so.
Make your profile pages attractive for your target audience and include links to your sales page.
Post enough relevant content to make your profile look reasonably active.
And then start commenting on related posts as well as messaging your potential audience.
Message me if you want me to show you how to do this:
Your interactions will soon begin to send relevant people to your sales page. And even if this is slow you’ll gain valuable insights into what your target audience wants!
Just have conversations with your target audience. Build relationships. And you’ll find the perfect products to sell.
If you care about Muslim women then this should be an enjoyable process. We should take a genuine interest in our target audiences if we want to be able to serve them.
Getting to know them tells you their pressing needs. And it gives you exposure to potential customers.
So the two problems—and solutions—go hand in hand.
You don’t have a way to reach potential customers.You can’t be 100% sure they will buy it.
BONUS TIP: Instead of spending money on building a product why not use the money for ads to greatly boost the number of visits to your sales page?
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How to apply this to digital products for Muslim women:
Identify a focused target audience. Narrow down as far as you can go.
Age
Location
Occupation
Preferences
Education
Marital status
What they currently purchase
Add as many details as you can
Build a brand broadly aimed at your target audience.
Open social media accounts or use your existing accounts if they can be modified to fit your audience.
Post enough relevant content to fill up your social media pages.
Ask your audience about the challenges they face.
Comment on 100 posts a day and/or message 100 users.
Ask your contacts.
Email or call Muslim women’s magazines, groups, etc.
Create a hypothetical product.
Write down all the problems you hear about.
Write the benefits of a hypothetical product that solves each problem.
Write down some draft marketing copy to promote the hypothetical product.
Create a simple sales flow.
Create a sales page using a free tool like Carrd.
Use your research to showcase the benefits of the product.
Use a free tool like Canva to create images for your sales page.
Add a button and label it with something like “buy now” or “add to cart”.
Create a page to collect emails.
“Oh no! It looks like we’re out of stock! Please enter your email to be the first to know when it’s next available… and as a special thank you for your patience we’ll give you 80% off—no questions asked!”
Include a simple form to enter their email.
Edit the “buy now” button on your sales page to navigate to your email collecting page.
Add the link to your sales page on all your social media profiles.
Message all the hundreds of people you’ve been speaking with about your new product.
Continue promoting every day.
Once you’re confident that enough people want it—BUILD YOUR PRODUCT!
Build new sales pages with payment functions using a tool like Shopify.
Re-engage all the people who showed interest by sending them an email with a discount.
Offer further discounts if they refer a friend.
Message all the people you spoke to AGAIN to let them know your product is available.
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This was a very brief guide on how to start a business selling digital products—without risking a penny upfront.
There is so much more detail we can go into. Like what to say to the people you contact. And how to build sales pages.
Do you have a business idea you’ve always wanted to do?
Need detailed step-by-step guidance on precisely what to do?
I can help you:
Set a clear goal with realistic deadlines—to build your business faster and with less risk.
Map out a precise plan with every single step—so you can cut out unnecessary work and save weeks of pain.
Stay on track to launch your business in record time.
Just send the word “BUILD” in the comments or message me directly:
Want me to critique your business idea? Leave a reply!
this is so incredibly helpful. jazakallah Khair again. I will be applying this in sha Allah