A Transformation of Passion for Strategy into a Revolutionary Approach to Productivity

In an era where self-improvement is often treated as a solo quest, Godis, a biologist and avid strategy gamer, has redefined the landscape with his innovative venture, Gosdee. Blending his scientific background and passion for strategy, Godis offers a fresh perspective on productivity. Gosdee focuses on the environment-first approach, likening life to a grand strategy game where success is determined by strategic interactions with one's surroundings rather than merely honing individual traits. This paradigm shift challenges the prevalent individual-first methodologies and aims to create a more comprehensive and adaptable framework for personal and professional growth.

Godis's journey from concept to creation was sparked by a tweet from Thomas Frank, which highlighted the potential of Notion templates. Recognizing a gap in the chaotic world of self-improvement, he saw an opportunity to apply strategic principles akin to historical warfare, where organized tactics trumped brute force. Starting with zero funding and armed only with his strategic acumen, Godis built Gosdee by leveraging free resources, building a supportive online community, and prioritizing data-driven decisions. His story underscores the importance of strategic positioning, adaptability, and data analysis in the modern entrepreneurial landscape, offering valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how it led you to where you are now?

Genuine curiosity got me here.

I am a biologist and strategy gamer. These polarizing interests form the foundation of Gosdee, where productivity meets strategy.

What inspired you to start your business?

Humans are not the only determinants of what happens to their lives. It is both human autonomy and the influential factors around us dictate who we are going to be. We would definitely not be the same people we are today if any of these non-negotiable factors are ever different: our parents, economy, community, culture, genetics, etc. But at the same time, through individual action, we can fight against the pull of our external environment.

So let the rest of the productivity world guide you in the individual-first approach: they train your discipline, focus, and courage. Gosdee is here to help you with the environment-first approach: strategy, positioning, and decision-making.

While the rest of the productivity world treats life as an RPG where the only controllable element available is your character, Gosdee is the approach towards life as a grand strategy game where you can ally and interact with everything the world has to offer to position them in your favor.

I'm inspired to create the missing piece to make the world of self-improvement complete.

How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I was looking for a way to make my ideas come to life.

I was scrolling on X and saw Thomas Frank's tweet on his Ultimate Brain Notion template. I then realized over time how many different types of Notion templates there are as I continued my search on X. It seemed that there was a Notion creator for just about anything. This made me realize that Notion is the perfect medium for my ideas. 

Were there any particular market trends or gaps you noticed that influenced your decision to start this business?

It's not a market trend per se, but a historical trend instead. Warfare had always existed since the dawn of time. In the beginning, it was just two tribes clashing in a chaotic melee. Then, civilizations started discovering that organizing troops and planning things out properly resulted in more wins with less resources lost. From the brute force mindset and the desire to avoid the death toll and high resource leakage, strategy was born.

What was then is the same as it is now. The self-improvement world is in its chaotic era as in a melee. Knowing that humanity has proven time and time again that strategy and thinking is a better form of fighting in the war of life, I'm certain more and more people will continue to gravitate towards this approach sooner or later as the intellectualization of self-improvement continues to rise, especially through the works of modern authors and creators like Robert Greene, Mark Manson, among others. What brings in results is what brings in consumers. I'm riding this long-term trend.

What were the initial steps you took to launch your business?

When I first started, I really had zero clue what to do. With limited information, I relied on learning through tweets and lead magnets by other creators on how to start a business on X.

It was through this method that I found out that to start as a business, you need a community to support you, massive thumbnail CTR potential, and the products themselves. So I got to work and accomplished these. Launching a business is simply a game of logistics. Actual strategizing comes later, so you need to act only with the mindset of completing a checklist in the initial steps. No need to complicate things.

How did you fund your Digital Business initially?

I started with zero funding. I took full advantage of the "making a business is free here are the top tools" type of posts on X and used all the free trials of everything to the fullest. When I started earning cash, I then funneled everything back to my business. 

Did you face any challenges or obstacles during the early stages, and how did you overcome them?

The single greatest challenge you will face is the leftover belief system you have from traditional schooling. In my first time in the business world, it felt so counterintuitive that the values I adhered to and gave me success in the academic field were the same things that would ultimately sabotage my success in the business domain.

I overcame them by strictly following these rules:

• Do not reinvent the wheel. Genius is paraded in school, but in 99% of scenarios, not here. This is (a bit sad to say) a realm of positioning a lot more than it is a realm of substance. Phenomenal positioning with average quality very often outsells average positioning with phenomenal quality.

• Drop your perfectionism. You're not being graded here. There's no point in being perfect since it would always sacrifice your speed and energy.

• Entrepreneurship is a game of resource economy, not consistency. Unlike in school, where your win condition is your consistency to persevere and study harder than anyone else, the way to business excellence is your ability to only keep the correct resources alive and make situational sacrifices. Time, cash, quality, alliances, attention, follower growth, trust  —  these are just a few of the many types of resources you have. Consistency of these isn't as important as economizing them. Sometimes, you need to sacrifice time to gain more follower growth speed. Sometimes, you need to sacrifice follower growth speed to gain more time. 

• Create your own externalized reward system. In school, you have a built-in immediate reward system in the form of grades for excellent work. That doesn't exist here until after weeks or months of work.

What strategies did you use to grow your business?

It's a bit of a meta-strategy, but this is one of the most important ones of all:

Act differently in the face of perfect and imperfect information. In perfect information (i.e., all relevant elements are known), prioritize speed. You already know the steps.

Play it fast despite all the mistakes you make. Play with the intent of profit. For example, I'm pretty familiar with the Gumroad algorithm. So all I do is just spam the same strategy over and over again.

In the more common imperfect information (i.e. not everything is known, you don't know how to execute a plan correctly, there are too many unknown variables), prioritize experimentation. Play it slow in the short-term to go faster in the long run. Focus on minimizing mistakes instead of maximizing income.

How did you acquire your first customers?

On X! I just posted consistently and people eventually found me.

Keep this in mind: X will group you into a sub-category based on your tweets and the type of posts you engage with. X will then show your posts to the feed of people based on what your sub-category is. So keep posting on the same topic over and over again and engage with people from the same space.

What have been some of the biggest challenges you've faced as an entrepreneur?

The biggest challenge I have as an entrepreneur is the seasonality of my products. I'm in the self-improvement niche. Self-improvement becomes forgotten after the Christmas season, so the traffic loss can be a bit of a problem.

What lessons have you learned from these challenges?

I learned to take data seriously.

I don't get to say what gets to be true or not. I can't directly control customer minds. As an entrepreneur, all I can do is be the correct listener for the facts that analytics tell me.

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out as an entrepreneur?

Data is everything. 

One of the biggest traps of entrepreneurs who are just starting out is being forced to box with shadows (which happens 90% of the time). This is the "I have no clue what I'm doing but it feels like I should work on this part of the business and so I will". This is a trap. Never move without intention. It will be very tempting to make decisions based on hunches, what's trendy, or what your favorite creator said in a new tweet. Learning how to collect data from Gumroad Analytics, Q&As, your Senja reviews, user behavior on your site, cross comparison with similar creators is key. 

Not acting based on data is synonymous to taking an exam, receiving your scores, but never knowing which items you got right or wrong. You will "feel something is wrong" with your sales, but never know what just happened. 

What are some common misconceptions about starting a business that you'd like to address?

Starting a business is not easy.

Keep this in mind: every single YouTuber and creator is incentivized to sell the idea that making money online is easy. It's either they're trying to build authority online, looking for new customers for their course, or just riding the narrative of escaping the 9-5 for more attention. Regardless, they benefit from repeating the message. It's a positive feedback loop of having new customers and views, which incentivizes them further to make more similar content. It's a trap you can dodge by having problem-solving instead of a cash-grabbing intent in starting a business.