I’ve earned $16k+ selling Google Data Studio templates for 4 years.
It’s not a big business, but I learned 7 lessons along the way.
Along the way, I changed my payment provider, so I can’t verify the $16k amount, but something is visible there.
So, here are the lessons:
1/ We often think that the market is saturated and there is no space for new products.
In most cases, it’s false.
We underestimate how much better existing products and services can be. New chart, new custom metric, new unique blending: each of them can become a small innovation.
Some of my small innovations were:
Blending GSC + GA4 and creating custom metrics to forecast revenue from SEO;
Blending GSC + Google Ads to prioritize landing pages based on conversion data from ads.
2/ Great data visualization is born only at the intersection of 2 things
Domain knowledge and experiments with actual data visualization.
I didn’t finish any courses on how to visualize data properly; I just tried to answer the questions I had as a marketer.
Only the person with domain knowledge understands what a signal is and what is noise.
3/ Even obvious valuable things are adopted over a long time
GSC, GA4, and Google Ads data sources existed for a long time. Their dimensions and metrics are well known and used, but it took 5-7 years in total to build and distribute good enough reports based on them.
We often overestimate how much business wants innovations. Most of the innovations have expensive side effects, and business owners often don’t rush into big changes.
4/ “Oh man, there are so many free templates, why should I care”?
When people hear about Data Studio templates, some often think about them as a commodity.
My answer:
You overestimate the depth of penetration of these products;
You underestimate the number of unique valuable reports on the market;
You underestimate the difficulty of learning and integrating these templates for many businesses.
When you work with some reporting tool for a long time and become a professional at it, it seems to you that it is so easy to use, and that people can build it all themselves.
The truth is that some people will be able to, 5-10%, but the majority, even among this group of people, will understand that buying an existing template has a better ROI for their time.
5/ There are 2 only business models for the Google Data Studio templates business
Sell templates;
Use templates as free lead magnets for your agency or SaaS business.
Most businesses follow the 2nd way, because the first way is interesting only for indie hackers who consider a $5k/m business as something that is worth the effort.
I’ve chosen the 1st way because I feel it's different. I build better templates when I consider them as a separate product.
However, I always remember that if I can’t build a big business on that, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
6/ The biggest bottleneck of this business model is that unit economics doesn’t work in paid channels.
Most of my sales were from organic search, but the existing demand is not big.
7/ Considering there are many templates on the market and some of them are free, the biggest additional value I see in 3 things
Constantly educating people on how to use templates, what their limitations are, and so on, marketing is a huge part of the product here.
Improve the details like crazy: design, filters, chart title, video guides, etc.
Add a training or custom development service. This is the hardest. I helped with custom templates, but it’s not a scalable business; this is freelancing.
At the end, I consider this business as valuable training. I built all of these templates for myself at first, and I continue using them for my sites.
So, the 1st lesson of this business is that building for yourself is a good approach to start. Don’t hear marketers who say you aren’t your own audience.
Sometimes you aren’t, but often when you have real pain, this means that many people in your role and situation also feel this pain too, and solving something for yourself is often the most important step to launch a business.
I would be happy if you share whether you are currently using Data Studio and what your biggest pain point with it is.
P.S. All of my templates are paid, except these 3 (they are free).
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