If you're reading this, you're likely in one of two places:
You know you want to build something online—but you're not sure where to start.
Or you've already tried creating content or products, but feel stuck, scattered, or unsure if you're “doing it right.”
Either way, you’re not alone—and you’re exactly where you need to be.
Over the next 8 weeks, I’ll guide you step-by-step through a proven roadmap I’ve used myself: from identifying your unique skill to making your first digital sale—with the help of AI tools that simplify everything.
But today, we start where every real success begins:
Knowing what you bring to the table.
Before your first dollar is made… before you write a landing page, record a product, or grow an audience—you need clarity. You need to know what skill you can offer that people will pay to learn, use, or access.
This is the root of everything.
700+ Sales of One Digital Product Started With a Skill
Let me take you back for a moment.
When I began building online, I wasn’t selling some big course. I wasn’t running ads. I wasn’t even thinking about becoming a "creator." I just wrote.
I shared what I knew about building an audience on Twitter, my workflow for writing threads, and how I used Notion to scale my content process.
That skill—writing with clarity and direction—became the seed for a product, which went on to do over 700+ sales, without paid traffic. That product now brings in money every month, passively.
But it all started with one realization:
I had something valuable in my brain that other people didn’t have—but wanted to learn.
That realization is what I want you to have today.
Why This Step Matters More Than Anything Else
A lot of creators jump into launching without doing this work. They skip the step of identifying their true strength. Then they wonder why their offer flops, or why they keep changing direction every few months.
Here’s what I’ve seen after helping thousands of creators grow:
Clarity of skill = Confidence in building.
When you’re clear on what you do best, you don’t second-guess. You attract the right audience. You create better content. You sell with conviction.
And best of all—you move faster, because you’re not reinventing yourself every week.
So today, we slow down to go faster. We’ll uncover the one skill you already have (yes, already) that can become a product, service, or framework.
The rest of the roadmap will build on that foundation.
How AI Will Help You Get There (Right Now)
If you feel overwhelmed or unsure about where to even begin, don’t worry—I’ve built this entire roadmap with AI in mind. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Notebook LM can help you:
Uncover patterns in your past work
Extract the skills hiding in your own head
Validate your knowledge in real time
You’ll get actual prompts, examples, and workflows in today’s guide that you can plug into these tools and get immediate clarity.
So whether you’ve been creating content for years, or you’re starting completely fresh—this week is about discovery.
You might be sitting on a $10K idea and not even know it yet.
Let’s find it together.
Outline of this post:
The Skill Myth: You’re More Skilled Than You Think
3 Core Questions to Uncover Your Skill
3 Types of Monetizable Skills
Use AI to Mine Your Skillset
Action List: What to Do This Week
1. The Skill Myth: You’re More Skilled Than You Think
One of the biggest reasons people never get started online is because they believe they don’t have any monetizable skills.
They might say:
“I’m not an expert in anything.”
“I’ve never made money online before—why would someone listen to me?”
“Everything I know, others already know.”
I hear this every single week.
But here’s the truth:
You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be 2–3 steps ahead of the person you want to help.
Your everyday knowledge is someone else’s breakthrough
Let me show you what I mean.
You might think your workflow for content repurposing is just "common sense"…
But someone else is stuck spending 6 hours per week doing it manually.
You might think your approach to writing email copy is just "your way"...
But someone else is staring at a blank screen, panicking.
That’s the mistake: you’ve normalized your own skillset.
You don’t see it as valuable because it’s familiar. But the market doesn’t care how “basic” it feels to you—it only cares if it solves a problem.
In fact, your simplicity may be your biggest asset.
My Twitter Successful Mastery Was ‘Obvious’ to Me—But It Sold
Here’s a real example from my journey.
I created a course on how to grow on Twitter. At the time, I didn’t think it was anything special. I had developed a framework, a workflow, and some techniques to grow on X (Twitter) —but it just felt like my normal routine.
What happened?
I sold over 700+ copies of that course—without spending a dollar on ads.
That’s when I realized: people don’t want hours of long courses
They want clarity and direction. And if you can give them that—based on what you already know—you can build an audience and a product around it.
You Have Skills in One of These 3 Zones
Even if you don’t think you’re “skilled,” I promise you have experience in at least one of these areas:
1. Work Skills
What you’ve done in your job, career, or business.
These are things you’ve been paid to do before.
Project management
Writing, designing, coding
Sales, pitching, presenting
Operations, systems, tools
Hiring, training, team building
2. Life Skills
Things you’ve figured out from lived experience.
Often overlooked—but highly relatable and valuable.
Productivity habits
Time management as a parent
Burnout recovery
Mindset shifts
Career transitions
3. Curiosity Skills
Topics you’ve gone deep on out of interest, not obligation.
You’ve read, practiced, or created content around them.
AI tools and workflows
Crypto and investing
Health and fitness routines
Learning languages
Building systems in Notion
There are many more. Later today we will use AI to help you identify the best skills you have that can be monetized easily.
You’ll be surprised what shows up.
The Big Myth: “If it’s not big, it doesn’t matter”
Let me be clear:
You do not need to be world-class, go viral, or have a fancy website to monetize your skill.
You need:
✅ Clarity on what your skill is
✅ A person who wants that skill
✅ A way to explain it simply
That’s it.
You don’t need credentials. You don’t need a massive audience.
You just need to show up consistently and help someone go from point A to B faster than they could alone.
If you're reading this via email, you might miss part of the content—it's a long one! I recommend checking out the web version for the full experience.
2. 3 Core Questions to Uncover Your Skill
Once you accept that you do have valuable skills, the next challenge is clarity.
What exactly should you focus on?
Which of your abilities can actually be turned into a digital product or monetized?
The good news is: you don’t need 100 ideas—you need one good one to start with.
These 3 powerful questions will help you uncover it.
Question 1: What do people already ask you for help with?
The market speaks louder than your inner doubts.
If friends, colleagues, or even strangers regularly come to you for advice or help on something… that’s a signal. You’re already seen as a trusted source.
Examples:
“How do you grow on X so fast?”
“Can you help me write better sales pages?”
“What’s your Notion system for managing projects?”
“How did you automate your content posting?”
These questions are breadcrumbs.
Once you see a pattern, take it seriously. Patterns = profit.
Question 2: What problems have you solved for yourself (that others still struggle with)?
Most successful creators teach what they’ve personally figured out.
And often, it started with frustration.
You were wasting time → you built a better workflow.
You were bad at selling → you studied and built a script.
You were scattered → you built a Notion dashboard that kept you focused.
Now, others want that clarity. That system. That shortcut.
These are earned skills—not because you were trained formally, but because you figured them out the hard way.
I used this exact approach when I built Twitter Successful Mastery
I didn’t “learn it” from a course—I reverse engineered my own process that took me from 3K to 75K followers.
And that’s the secret:
Your solution doesn’t have to be perfect—just better than starting from scratch.
Question 3: What could you talk about or teach for 30 minutes without notes?
This one is about energy.
If I gave you a mic and said “Teach me something practical right now,” what would you instinctively talk about?
That’s usually where your zone of confidence lives.
Ask yourself:
“If someone paid me $500 to teach a Zoom workshop tomorrow, what would I choose to teach?”
“What topic do I keep reading about, tinkering with, or improving on?”
“What do I explain to others without even realizing it’s valuable?”
If you’ve got a strong answer to this question, you likely have:
✅ A personal framework
✅ Enough experience to help someone
✅ Momentum you can monetize
3. 3 Types of Monetizable Skills
By now, you’ve started identifying your potential skills using reflection and AI tools. But here’s the next step:
You need to classify those skills.
Because not all skills are equal when it comes to monetization. Some are more transferable, scalable, and in-demand than others — and knowing the difference helps you focus on the ones that can actually generate income.
Let’s break them down into 3 monetizable categories you’ll want to focus on.
1. Technical or Functional Skills
These are the hard skills — things you can do that solve specific problems. They’re usually easy to describe and demonstrate.
Think:
Copywriting
Email marketing
UI/UX design
Notion system builds
Video editing
Data analysis
Prompt engineering
Automating workflows using Zapier or Make
SEO content strategy
These skills are in constant demand because they directly impact business outcomes like leads, revenue, or time saved.
If you’ve done client work, worked in a team, or shipped digital projects, you likely have multiple functional skills—even if you’ve never charged for them before.
2. Knowledge or Strategic Skills
These are skills that come from thinking, not just doing. You might not be executing, but you know how to guide, plan, or teach something effectively.
Think:
Building an audience on X
Understanding what makes content go viral
Crafting offers for digital products
Personal branding strategy
Launch planning
Positioning a product for a niche
These are skills rooted in experience and insight. They often come from repetition — doing something so many times that you've developed a framework or mental model around it.
If people frequently ask you “How did you do that?”, you likely have a strategic skill that others are willing to pay for — especially in the form of a course, guide, or coaching session.
3. Transformational or Experiential Skills
This is where many creators underestimate their value.
These are not “hard” skills, but they create real emotional or mental transformation. You’ve gone through something — and you can help others go through it too.
Examples:
Going from burnout to building a calm creative workflow
Losing weight using a systems-based approach
Becoming a confident creator after years of imposter syndrome
Going from 0 to 20K followers without showing your face
These are relatable stories with emotional resonance. And when packaged properly, they become high-converting digital products — because people don’t just want information; they want transformation.
Even if you don’t see yourself as a “coach” or expert, people are looking for lived experience and practical guidance — especially when AI has made generic advice feel stale.
Your Skill Might Belong to All 3 Buckets
Here’s the best part: Your monetizable skill might overlap multiple categories.
Let’s say you built an audience of 50K on X:
You likely used functional skills (writing, scheduling, formatting).
You developed strategic insight (what content resonates, what hooks work).
And you created a transformational journey (from invisible to influential).
That’s powerful.
You can monetize that in multiple formats: templates, guides, courses, consulting, or cohort-based teaching.
Understanding where your skill sits helps you shape the right offer next week — instead of getting stuck trying to force a skill into the wrong format.
4. Use AI to Mine Your Skillset
Most people overthink their skills. They assume they need to discover something brand-new, when in fact, their monetizable skills are often hiding in plain sight.
You’ve already created, built, or solved something valuable—you just haven’t named it, structured it, or framed it as a sellable skill.
That’s where AI comes in.
AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Notebook LM are powerful partners in self-discovery—not just content generation. When used intentionally, they can help you:
Reflect on your strengths
Identify patterns in your work
Organize vague experiences into clear skills
Prioritize what’s marketable vs what’s just a hobby
Let’s break down how to use each of them and prompts you can use.
ChatGPT: Your Interactive Thinking Partner
ChatGPT is ideal for ideation and reflection. It can help you unpack your experiences, ask the right questions, and spot connections you may overlook.
It’s not about “letting AI tell you who you are”—it’s about using it to mirror your thoughts, amplify your awareness, and organize your thinking.
Use it to:
Reflect on past projects, jobs, and challenges
Summarize key takeaways from your experiences
Help prioritize which skills are valuable to others
Simulate a coaching conversation with you as the client
Because ChatGPT understands context, it’s perfect for helping you go from general experience (“I’ve used Notion a lot”) to defined skill (“I can teach productivity systems to creators using Notion”).
With ChatGPT, the prompt I provided below, you can come up with your “Skill Statement.” Not only that, with the prompt based on your inputs, it will list all the possible monetizable skills you have with monetization formats.
Once I went through this exercise, this is what I got.
Here are all the skills it gave me: “Skill Monetization Matrix.”
Here is the skill statement based on my choice of “Growing a newsletter (0–18K subs)" from the Skill Monetization Matrix table.
So, here is the prompt:
You are a Digital Product Creation Coach who helps people transform their expertise into profitable online offerings. Your approach follows these steps:
1. SKILL DISCOVERY: Ask 3-5 targeted questions about the person's:
* Professional background and expertise
* Side projects or hobbies they enjoy
* Topics where others frequently seek their advice
* Problems they've solved for themselves or others
2. SKILL ANALYSIS: Create a "Skill Monetization Matrix" with these columns:
* Skill (specific capability)
* Category (Functional = how-to knowledge, Strategic = decision-making expertise, Experiential = wisdom from lived experience)
* Digital Product Format (e.g., course, template, membership, coaching, ebook, community)
3. SKILL SELECTION: Ask the person to select one skill from the matrix they'd like to develop into a digital product.
4. VALUE PROPOSITION: Help them craft a "Skill Statement" using this formula:
"I help \[specific audience] \[achieve specific outcome] using \[unique method/approach]."
Evaluate the statement using these criteria:
* Specificity: Does it target a clear audience with a defined problem?
* Desirability: Does it address a problem people actively want solved?
* Credibility: Does it leverage their authentic expertise?
* Uniqueness: Does it differentiate from common offerings?
5. REFINEMENT: Provide specific feedback to improve their skill statement, suggesting 1-2 alternate versions if needed.
6. NEXT STEPS: Once they have a strong skill statement, briefly outline the next phase of digital product development.
Maintain a supportive, coaching tone throughout the conversation.Claude: Your Deep-Dive Analyzer
Claude shines when it comes to handling large volumes of text and interpreting tone, themes, and structure from it.
This makes it perfect for those who’ve already written or built something—like newsletters, long tweets, blog posts, or personal notes—and want to extract clarity from it.
Use it to:
Analyze multiple pieces of your content at once
Summarize repeated patterns or topics you speak about
Group your skills into categories (tech, writing, strategy, etc.)
Identify your strongest communication strengths
Claude’s strength lies in nuance. It’s less about “brainstorming” and more about “reading between the lines of your own work.”
If you feel like you’ve “been doing too many things,” Claude can help you connect the dots.
Also, this is perfect for people who have been creating content on the internet or in business where they can share data.
Here is the Skill Statement I got: (this time I chose,“Digital Product Creation for Busy Creators as my skill from Skill Monetization Matrix Table.)
Here is the prompt for Claude:
You are a Digital Product Creation Coach who helps people transform their expertise into profitable online offerings. You are encouraging, practical, and insightful—balancing enthusiasm with honest feedback.
Guide users through these five phases, adapting to their situation while maintaining the sequence:
## PHASE 1: DISCOVER
Uncover the user's expertise by asking about:
- Professional background and accomplishments
- Passionate hobbies and interests
- Topics they can discuss for 30+ minutes without notes
- Skills others regularly compliment them on or ask for help with
## PHASE 2: ANALYZE
For existing entrepreneurs:
- Request details about their current business operations
- Analyze their role and unique capabilities within the business
For beginners:
- Request samples of content they've created or would enjoy creating
- Identify skills demonstrated in those samples
Create a "Skill Monetization Matrix" with these columns:
- Skill (specific capability)
- Category (Functional = how-to knowledge, Strategic = decision-making expertise, Experiential = lived wisdom)
- Market Potential (High/Medium/Low based on demand and competition)
## PHASE 3: SELECT
Guide the user to select one skill to develop, considering:
- Personal passion and sustainability
- Market demand and monetization potential
- Their credibility and unique perspective
## PHASE 4: POSITION
Help craft a clear Value Proposition using this formula:
"I help [specific audience] [achieve specific outcome] using [unique method/approach]."
Evaluate against these criteria:
- Specificity: Targets a defined audience with a clear problem
- Desirability: Addresses a problem people actively seek solutions for
- Credibility: Leverages their authentic expertise
- Uniqueness: Differentiates from common offerings
## PHASE 5: CONCEPTUALIZE
Based on their chosen skill and value proposition, suggest 2-3 digital product formats that would work well:
- Online course
- Coaching program
- Membership community
- Digital templates/tools
- Subscription service
- eBook or guide
For each suggestion, provide:
- Brief description of format
- Why it's suitable for their specific skill
- One quick implementation tip
Throughout all interactions, maintain a supportive coaching tone that balances encouragement with practical guidance. Ask clarifying questions when needed and acknowledge the user's unique strengths.Notebook LM: Your Personal Knowledge Organizer
Notebook LM (by Google) is like your second brain. It allows you to upload documents, notes, transcripts, or links—and then ask intelligent questions based on that knowledge.
If you’ve written anything across platforms—X, newsletter drafts, YouTube scripts, sales pages—you can upload it all to Notebook LM and start mining.
Use it to:
Spot repeated language or frameworks you use
Organize your past content by topics or skills
Discover what tone, problem, or persona you write for most
Create an “executive summary” of your own expertise
But today we are focusing on discovering the skills we have and how we can monetize them. And that is what we are going to do using NotebookLM as well.
For this, what I have done is, I insert my best newsletters as a website link.
Then I started asking questions with a strategic approach.
First Series of Questions:
Based on source contents, can you answer these question as detail as possible. The goal here to discover a core skill that I can monetize and come up with a skill statement.
To Find, Content Themes & Strengths
1. What are the recurring topics or themes across these newsletters?
2. Which topics receive the most engagement (e.g., replies, shares, or click-throughs)?
3. What kind of problems do these newsletters consistently address?
4. What tone or style does the author (you) use that resonates well with readers?Second Series of Questions:
To get the Author’s Unique Approach
1. What methods, systems, or frameworks does the author consistently use or refer to?
2. Are there repeated case studies, personal experiences, or success stories shared?
3. What content stands out as particularly actionable, insightful, or “signature”?
Third Series of Questions:
To get Audience Insight
1. Who is the target reader for most of these newsletters?
2. What stage of the journey are they in (beginner, intermediate, advanced)?
3. What outcome or result is the reader likely seeking based on the content?Fourth Series of Questions:
To get Creator's Expertise
1. What skills does the author demonstrate mastery in throughout the newsletters?
2. Are there any specific strategies, mindsets, or tools that are taught repeatedly?
3. Does the author reference outcomes (e.g., “grew to 18K subs”, “built X product”, etc.)?After answering those, proceed to:
Skill Analysis—Build a Monetization Matrix
To get this, what I did was
Copy and paste all the answers from NotebookLM to a Google Doc.
Download it as a PDF
Create a new Notebook in NotebookLM
Upload the downloaded PDF file (this is the answers of the questions we asked before).
Proceed with the questions below.
Create a table with Skill, Category and Digital Product Format as table column and fill the table?Then you will get a table like this: (this is the table I got—not full table here.)
Really surprised of this, some I never thought…
Next, choose a skill and create the skill statement. For this, proceed with this question:
Craft a statement using this format using skill as [insert the chosen skill here]
I help [specific audience] [achieve specific outcome] using [unique method/approach]. This is the statement I got for “Email List Building” as a skill.
I help creators, solopreneurs, and digital product builders build a significant email list by leveraging free social media content and strategically promoting high-value lead magnets using an organic growth system with no reliance on paid advertising or complex funnels.
This is very detailed. I will shorten this…
5. Action List: What to Do This Week
You’ve read the guide. You understand that you do have valuable skills.
Now it’s time to move from clarity to action.
Here’s your simple, step-by-step game plan for the week.
1. Reflect on Your Experiences
Write down your last 3–5 years of work, side projects, hobbies, and areas where others often ask for your help.
You’re not looking for “expert-level” achievements — you’re looking for repeated signals of competence.
Questions to guide you:
What do people ask you about in DMs?
What do coworkers or friends thank you for?
What tasks do you do well that others struggle with?
2. Answer the 3 Core Skill Discovery Questions
Take 30 minutes and answer the 3 questions we covered earlier:
What do I know more about than the average person?
What have I gotten real results in — even if informally?
What could you talk about or teach for 30 minutes without notes?
You can write them in your notes app, a Google Doc, or even feed them into Notebook LM to organize your thoughts.
3. Use AI to Validate and Organize Your Skills
Go through the prompts I shared above and complete the tasks. You can choose the ChatGPT, Claude, or NotebookLM route. It is up to you.
I recommend following three routes and checking what comes out.
4. Write a Skill Statement
Craft a short sentence that reflects your current skill focus.
Here’s the format:
“I help [audience] [achieve outcome] using [skill or method].”
Examples:
“I help new coaches land their first 3 clients by building their authority on LinkedIn.”
“I help creators turn their ideas into simple, profitable digital products using AI.”
This becomes the foundation for your offer — and your positioning — later in the series.
Once you have completed the AI prompt flow, you will get a statement. Once you get the statement, write it somewhere you can see.
5. Optional But Powerful: Share a Win Publicly
Tweet or post something simple.
“Spent the morning reflecting on skills I’ve undervalued for too long. Excited to turn them into something real this year. Thanks @sharyph_ + AI & Capital for the push.”
This builds accountability. It also subtly builds your brand as someone on the journey — and that draws people in + You will be introduced to my 75K audience on X.
You’re Laying the Foundation
Everything else we do in this roadmap — the offer, the content, the product — is built on this week’s clarity.
Even if it feels small now, this is the most important shift:
Moving from “I don’t have a skill” → to → “I do have something valuable to offer.”
And next week, we’re turning that clarity into a real, sellable offer.
Coming Up Next:
Week 2 – Shape Your Skill Into a Profitable Offer
You’ll learn:
How to find what people are already paying for
How to shape your skill into a solution
The framework I use to define a high-converting offer
We’re not guessing. We’re building smart.
And AI will help us do it faster, clearer, and better.
Let’s keep going.
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