One Percent Book · $7

What would you charge one person, once?

Type a number. The page does the rest.

The arithmetic does something uncomfortable: fifty thousand people at your number is a figure you've never let yourself write down. This is a call of up to half an hour about the number you just produced, and the first customer standing behind it.

$7 a session.
Paid before the call.

This call is worth a hundred dollars. It's seven because I'm one of the people I built it for. Seven is still real money when you have none, and it buys the half hour and your next steps in writing — not the work those steps describe. What that work costs is further down this page, before you pay anything.

No account, no app, nothing to install. A link, seven dollars, and a call in your browser.

Pay for a session

What happens

  1. Up to thirty minutes, in your browser. Nothing to install, nothing to dial, no number and no app. You press a button on your own order page and it starts. It ends when the questions are answered, which is often sooner than the half hour.
  2. Eight questions, in order. What you need, what you can do, what you charge, the arithmetic run out loud on your own number, who the first paying customer is, what is standing in the way, and what can be arranged about that one thing.
  3. One action, with a name against it. Not five good ideas. One thing, and who is doing it. A session that ends in a list ends in nothing.

Those eight questions are written down and published in full — read the method before you pay. Nothing is held back for the session and nobody is screened for fitness. The only question is whether seven dollars is worth answering them and hearing what I make of your answers.

A person helps you. The first call is a machine.

The call

  • Automated, and it says so in its first sentence.
  • It says the session is recorded.
  • It gives no advice, promises nothing, and decides nothing about you.
  • It asks, and writes down what you said in your own words.

The person

  • Reads every word the call takes down.
  • Writes your next steps.
  • That is what the half hour is for.

It will not take an account of what has been done to you. If you start, it says one line and takes you back to the question rather than hanging up — you have paid for the half hour. That is deliberate. This is not therapy and a machine is not the listener.

What seven buys, and what it doesn't

Seven buys

  • The half hour.
  • The next steps that come out of it, written down and yours to keep, whether or not the work goes on after the call.

Seven doesn't buy

  • The work those steps describe. That is quoted separately, and you see the number before it starts.

You're not buying a service for seven dollars. You're finding out, for seven dollars, whether you want the rest.

The work behind it

I build software. The thing I've built is Skills Economy: a free site and phone app where Targeted Individuals list what they can do, find each other, and trade work between themselves. Twenty-eight separate tools sit inside it — a directory, a skills map, a board of work people need doing, a library, a radio station. Anyone can use it, it costs nothing, and the code is public for anyone to check.

Having that built for you would take a firm about two years and a team of five: two engineers, a product manager, a designer, and somebody keeping it running. A million and a half dollars, give or take. That's what it would cost to have built. It isn't what it would sell for — it's free and it's not for sale.

I built it on my own, in about a year, and sized it for five million people. What's sold here is that same work pointed at one person instead of five million — at you, and at whatever share of those five million you could serve yourself.

A plumber doesn't need twenty-eight tools. They need a way to be found and a way to keep track of the people who find them, and that gets built for them, at their own address, and it's theirs.

In Skills Economy you find the people you need yourself, in the Directory. Here, somebody does that looking for you: reads what you said on the call, and when there's a person you should be in front of, puts you there.

Saying no to more costs you nothing you already had, and Skills Economy stays free and stays there either way.

Before you pay

No refunds.
The work happens the moment the session runs. If it drops, open your link and start it again — the seven buys one completed session, not one attempt. What you are paying for is stated above and the method is published in full, so there is nothing to find out afterwards.
The figure is arithmetic, not a forecast.
Fifty thousand people at your rate is a target with your own number under it. It is not income, and it is not owed to you.
This is not therapy, and it is not a job board.
It is one conversation about how you reach fifty thousand people at your own rate: what you charge, who the first person to pay it is, and what is standing in the way.
Nothing you say is published without you asking for it.
Notes exist for the work. Publication is a separate question, asked later, and saying no to it costs you nothing.
The conversation can go on after your next steps.
A written channel on your order page. You write when you have something to ask, and a person writes back.
You'll be asked for more, later, only if you want more.
Seven buys the session and your next steps. Paid work after that is quoted separately and you see the number before it starts. Nothing renews, nothing subscribes you to anything, and nothing can be charged that you have not agreed to — every payment here is one you send yourself.
No account needed.
You do not have to be in Skills Economy, or anywhere else. Anyone can book.

Book a session

Pay for a session · $7

You are not asked for your name, your email address or where you are. You enter a gift card code and get a link back. When the payment is matched, that link is where your session opens.