Highways To Scale Up: Curated Checklists - CM #21

Checklist curation, monetized. Curated business ideas and real-world-examples. New interesting tools for curators. Database Catalog of CM 2024.

Hello, the sun is back and shining.

After lots of bad weather, a wonderful sunshine has finally returned to the island.

There still very few tourists compared to the last three years, but there is definitely a little extra trickle of them finally popping in.

In the meanwhile, my body has suddenly asked me to be put on total pause for a few days.

I have given in to its need to rest, cure itself and recover and to let me go for a short time into the painful depths of my journey, needs and aspirations.

Suffering is a good thing. It helps me grow.

Too bad, modern society has been trying in many ways to eliminate this immensely valuable human experience, teaching us that when it comes to pain or suffering it’s always best to delegate to *others* the resolution of such matters.

Fine when it’s a broken bone or a tooth needing replacement.

Not good when it something less tangible and which runs deeper into your soul.

I beg to differ and - while I am not advocating suffering for the sake of it, I welcome it, each time it knocks at my door, as a friendly advisor ready to teach me new things and to open my eyes to what I have been looking away from.

Scars are trophies.

Stops are rejuvenating charging stations.

Running always, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure all the time, leads me to forget the true path I’ve decided to be on.

I am now out of this plunge and I see some beautiful new lights raising on the horizon.

I hope you’re keeping your eyes and heart open as well, because, more than ever before, being able to rapidly adapt and change is the name of the game.

“It’s useless to wait.

When you change nothing fundamental in your life, nothing is going to change.”

Robin Good

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Business Ideas That Create Value

As you probably know by now, one of my personal obsessions is the curated organization of publicly accessible information resources.

Its benefits, on the side of the curator, can range from increased visibility, to improved authority and reputation.

On the user side there is one key benefit and it is so big that it can’t be overrated: finding what one is looking for in an ocean of information while being guided from a trusted guide.

For this very reason, I have spent a good part of the last 12 months researching and assembling the Curation Monetized Database Catalog 2024 which is just about to be released in the next few days.

The catalog contains 100 real-world examples of online projects that monetize by organizing existing information and the insights and opportunities that emerge from looking at this uniquely interesting data set.

Its purpose is to guide and assist those interested in finding approaches, ideas and business models that could be applied to their own brand building, content production and monetization strategies.

The Curation Monetized *Database Catalog* 2024

Premium database of 100 real-world examples of curation monetized businesses containing:

• 100+ Real Businesses that make a profit
  by curating and organizing existing info

• Business model(s) used

• Publishing/payment platforms used

• Direct contacts

+

• Top Curated Business Models and Opportunities

• Top Key Trends in Curation Monetized

Pricing:

• 100% free for Curation Monetized Premium subscribers.

• $49 for free subscribers - limited time (next 30 days / until Aug.25th).

• $99 for everyone else.

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N.B.: For a few extra days, until I publicly release the Catalog, you can still reserve a special early-bird discounted copy ($39) of it by simply leaving your name and email here.

For everyone else interested, you don’t need to do anything, as I will alert you all as soon as it becomes publicly available for purchase.

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Curation Monetized #21

In this issue:

• Curated Checklists

• Curation Monetized Business Ideas (1)

• Real-World Examples of Curation Monetized (1)

• Interesting New Tools for Curators (10+)

for Premium subscribers only:

• ♛ Checklists Examples and Tools

• ♛ Curation Monetized Business Ideas (2)

• ♛ Real-World Examples of Curation Monetized (2)
  

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Highways To Scale Up: Curated Checklists

What Are We Talking About?

Checklists offer an alternative and little used path to organize and curate existing information.

To begin with, please put aside the image of grocery lists, stuff you need to do, things you have to remember or tasks you want to carry out before the week is over.

Those are not the type of checklists I am talking about.

The checklists I am referring to are more like the ones that airplane pilots go through before taking off, but for more earthly, business-related endeavours.

They are properly called workflow checklists, processes or SOPs (standard operating procedures).

The key characterising traits of these checklists, are:

• They are useful to carry out specific tasks that require several steps

• The tasks they support are critical tasks (it does matter if they’re properly carried out or not)

• Some of the steps in the task-list could be easily forgotten, overlooked or misplaced

• Some of the individual steps may require specific tech know-how or remembering detailed sequences, formulas or numbers

• The steps to be carried out need to be executed in a very specific order

• The steps are written in a way that also if there’s a last minute substitute carrying them out, they can be easily understood and executed

• The steps may need to be either periodically or systematically updated and revised to reflect changes and improvements in the technology and the process to be executed.

Why Curated?

When talking about checklists, the word curation comes into play, because the opportunity I see is this: the curator selectively gathers, from teachers, experts, books and experiments in a specific sector, the key actions required to achieve a certain result/state.

You’re not just inventing out of the blue the steps to be made.

You pick, select and sequence - from your experience and from trusted others - the steps and the details to pay attention to that you deem to be most relevant for successfully achieving the designated results / state.

Key Benefits

The main benefit of curated workflow checklists, procedures or SOPs is that they ensure the repeated quality execution of critical complex tasks by different people, over time.

That is what businesses and startups look for when they want to start growing.

A way to scale.

And whether or not that scaling takes places through human beings or AI, there’s always the need to first map out the process, so that others can replicate it and improve on it.

That’s the angle from which I am looking at checklists.

For all these reasons checklists appear to be an invaluable asset in projects and situations with:

• people who do not have extensive knowledge of a critical task

• beginners, novices, people carrying out the task for the first time

• critical tasks with many sub-steps

• large turnover

• desire to grow and scale

• complex tasks that need to be run only from time to time (say once or twice a year) and where one risks of forgetting or overlooking important details

• tasks that are frequently updated or modified.

Problem / Application

So, how do checklists become potential curated assets that could command a monetary value to be accessed?

It’s simple.

Look at your field of expertise, or at the audience/market you are serving.

Which are the critical tasks that need to be carried out which are quite complex, lengthy and need to be executed with good attention to details?

In my field, I could list many.

Here’s a few that come to mind:

• Updating your personal website annually (nobody does this, but it is indeed critical and it does contain many little tasks that are often overlooked or underestimated)

• Publishing an eBook on Amazon KDP

• Analyzing a competitor website

• Running a live webinar

• Create and publish an ad for Facebook

For each of these task there’s a long list of tasks to be carried out, and many of those small tasks do require attention to details that, if overlooked, can ruin or significantly handicap the final results.

How do you overcome this problem in a replicable and scalable way?

If you typically carry out those tasks, which you have learned and mastered over a long time, what happens when you want to take a break, have a pause or scale up so that you can produce more?

Opportunity

The opportunity I see lies in curating professional checklists in your field of expertise.

You make some basic ones available for free, so that people can appreciate their value and your skills, and you make some advanced ones that you sell for a price or give for free to your premium subscribers.

Checklists can also be easily connected to complementary tools and resources (websites, guides, courses, tutorials) which may be helpful for novices carrying out a critical task for the first time.

Also such relevant complementary links to useful resources can be further monetized through affiliate commissions.

.

In the *Premium Section* of this issue, you will find some interesting tools to curate checklists and a 5 real-world examples of monetized checklists.

Curation Monetized Business Ideas (1)

In this section, I share monetizable business ideas that leverage curation to create value. *Find more monetizable curated ideas in the *Premium Section*.

1) City X Now

Description:
General information snapshot of specific city. Pulls together the most up-to-date and relevant information for major cities (in a certain region, state or area) in one well-organized dashboard-looking page, including:

• Local temperature and time

• Weather forecast

• Live webcam feeds

• Maps

• Key events

• Breaking news

• Short list of top local news sites

• Short list of top local radios/podcasts

• Traffic news

• Public and private transportation

• General info about population, density,

• etc.

Key Problems Solved:
Providing instant info-picture of a city for either:
* People from the city who are far away from it
* People about to or considering to visit the city

Monetization Options:

• Sponsorship

• Advertising

• Events (sponsored)

Real-World Examples

• None.
  Closest examples:

• Time and Date (has only weather and other basic info)

• Google News (limited to breaking news)

• Nomadlist

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Find two more curated business ideas in the *Premium Section* of this issue

Curation Monetized Real-World Examples (1)

Library of Successful Stories from Indie Entrepreneurs

eBiz Facts
Newsletter containing stories of successful indie projects and their strategies, tactics, unique discoveries and lessons learned.

Niche
Problem it solves: Finding business ideas, learning from other entrepreneurs.
Audience: Indie entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, startup founders, indie creators.

Tech
N/A

Business
Business Model: Sponsorship, Affiliate Commissions.
Price: $500 one-time sponsorship
Sold via: N/A

Author(s)
Niall Doherty

Curator’s Job: Researching interesting startups and new indie business stories while extracting key strategies, tactics and lessons learned. Reviewing existing marketing and money-making training guides and courses.

Key Insights and Opportunities:
Insights:
Newsletter has over 23K subscribers. Well written with interesting and truly valuable content and insights. Stories are sourced from other indie websites, blogs and newsletters.

Opportunities:
Replicate in other industry / sector. Localize.

.

Find two more real-world examples of monetized curation in the *Premium section* of this issue

Interesting New Tools for Curators (11)

• Notebook LM
  AI from Google Labs allows you to input multiple PDFs, Web URLs, copy/paste texts that you can later interrogate, summarize or use to extract key relevant information. Excellent for providing an intelligent interface to your written/published work, as well as to anyone’s published content you want to interrogate as a whole.
  100% free.

  .

• GetFocal
  Similar to NotebookLM, this AI allows you upload documents and URLs to be analyzed, summarized, interrogated for insights and data analysis. Explains and summarises complex documents, papers and research. Generates thorough, well-cited summaries, key points, and literature reviews.
  7-day free trial. (Pro from $9/mo)

  

  .

• Web Highlights
  Similar to Glasp, this app allows you to highlight and save text from PDFs and web pages. Take notes along your saved captures and assign tags to categorize your clippings. Share your notes. Export. Chrome extension.
  100% free

  

.

• DeBriefs.AI
  AI-assistant creates your topic-specific briefing by capturing all sides of a story/topic. It keeps up with the latest insights, data, perspectives and context while using the sources you specify. Periodic scheduled briefs.
  Free to try.

  .

• ListKit
  HTML template for creating and publishing business directories. HTML, CSS, JavaScript boilerplate that requires minimal maintenance.
  $47/one-time
  .

• Directory Starters
  Catalog of all the directory software, templates and plugins available to create and publish a commercial business directory. (Created with ListKit).
  100% free
  .

• Rolli Information Tracer
  Huge searchable catalog of journalist, experts and academics on just about any topic useful for finding thought leaders to comment or being interviewed on specific topics. It has added recently a new functionality which allows you to “see” how a news story has made its way through social media to become viral. A must-have tool for information researchers and news curators. More info.
  Free to use.

  

  .

• Listium
  Web app to create detailed collections of items, resources. Ideal for books, movies, articles and many other content types.
  Free version (allows unlimited public lists) - Pro from $3/mo
  .

• Benable

  Create and share recommendation lists and earn (optionally) through automated affiliated links. How it works: Add keywords / paste link to something you recommend. Benable auto-scans the web and gathers all the available info about your product: photos, links, social, reviews, etc.. You confirm / edit the info and add your own viewpoint. If the products you recommend have an affiliate program you are automatically eligible for getting a commission for every sale (without needing to register as an affiliate for each one). You keep 100% of the commissions earned.
  100% free
  .

• Newsblocks
  Chrome extension allows you to save articles and news as “blocks”. These blocks can be later transformed into fully-fledged newsletters using AI-driven content generation. Finally you can copy and paste the newsletter into popular email newsletter services like Mailchimp, Substack, or Beehiv.
  7-day free trial
  .

• Five Directory Template
  Innovative directory template for Framer. Allows you to curate recommendations from multiple creators in a specific field. Interesting and valuable new approach leveraging collaborative curation from invited experts.
  $59 one-time
  .

• Flezr Directory Builder
  Build directories, catalogs and commercial listings website from Google Sheet / Supabase data. Integrates search, filters, analytics. Support customer chat apps.
  Free version. Pro starts at $29/mo.
  .

• Build the Keyword

  Simplifies keyword research for non-experts. a) Validate your curated niche business ideas by submitting keywords and instantly seeing competition level and real demand. b) Access a curated and pre-vetted pool of high-potential niche business ideas for which there is very little competition and good demand.
  From $79 one-time payment.

Disclaimer: Some of the links to the tools I recommend may be affiliate links. They provide me with a small compensation when someone makes a purchase after clicking them. I also stand by including and suggesting only tools that I have personally tried and that I sincerely believe to be useful to my readers.

Readers Poll - Help me Improve this Newsletter

Thank you for providing your feedback and preferences.

I am always curious to know how I can provide you with the most useful info on the topic of monetizing content curation.

If you have enjoyed this issue so far, please support this publication by clicking on the heart/like icon at the end or by sharing / forwarding to a friend who could appreciate it.

Robin

In the *Premium Section*:

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1) Checklists: Examples and Tools

My shortlist of relevant examples of curated checklists that monetize (5) + web apps designed for creating checklists (5).

2) Monetizable Curated Business Ideas (2)

Ideas yet to be realized for curated information projects

3) Curation Monetized: Real World Examples (2)

1. Catalog of Top X from Y

2. Directory of Z Industry Resources