What does a bottle of Dawn dish soap have to do with making money online? More than you’d think. In this breakdown of Alston Godbolt’s January 2023 video, you’ll find the four best online business ideas he walked through that month, along with specific tactics, tools, and real-world examples pulled straight from the video. This is not a list of vague ideas. Each one comes with a concrete starting point.
The four models are: product-focused content creation, selling digital products, recurring affiliate marketing, and the Amazon Influencer Program. Any one of them can get you started with little or no money down. The real question is which one fits the time and skills you already have. Read through all four before you decide.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A clear picture of the “wheel and spoke” product content method and why small channels win with it
- How to find digital product ideas using Insight Factory and Ahrefs
- Why recurring affiliate programs beat one-time commissions for building monthly income that compounds
- How the Amazon Influencer Program works and what follower count you realistically need to start
- The TV commercial trick for finding products that already have massive marketing behind them
- An honest look at what each model costs you in time and money before you commit
- A way to figure out which of these four paths fits your situation, using the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com
Business Idea 1: Become the Authority on One Specific Product
The first idea Alston covers is what he calls the “wheel and spoke” method. You pick one product, any product, and then you answer every question people are asking about it online. You become the go-to source for that product, and over time you build a content hub that pulls in traffic from YouTube search, Google search, or both.
Alston made this concrete with a real example. He was trying to figure out how many monitors he could connect to his own Mac Studio, so he typed that question into YouTube. The top result came from a channel with fewer than 10,000 subscribers. That small channel had a video about how to attach a display to the Mac Studio, and it already had 5,000 views. One video, one question, under 10,000 subscribers. The creator was not famous. They were just the person who answered that question on camera.
The point is not that Mac Studio is a special niche. The point is that small channels can win when they pick a specific product and answer the questions people are genuinely searching for. The creator in that example could keep making videos about Mac Studio: best monitors for Mac Studio, how to set up dual displays, Mac Studio versus Mac Mini for video editors, and so on. Each video adds a spoke to the wheel. The wheel is the product. Every spoke is a searchable question with real traffic behind it.
This method does not require tech. It works for cooking tools, fitness equipment, software, craft supplies, outdoor gear, or really anything that has an audience asking questions. Alston notes that this approach builds domain authority over time and positions you as a credible voice in whatever category you choose. You do not need to be the world’s top expert before you start. You need to know the product well enough to answer questions clearly, on camera or in writing.
Once you have a content hub around a product, multiple income paths become available. You can earn through YouTube Partner Program ad revenue on your videos, use affiliate links to the product itself, sell your own digital guides or templates related to the product, or attract brand sponsorships from companies in that product’s space. The content comes first. Income attaches to the audience the content builds over time.
Starting this one is simple. Pick a product you already own and have real experience with. Search YouTube and Google for the top questions people ask about it. Make a video or write an article answering one of those questions. Repeat that process until you have a small library of content covering the major questions in that product’s universe. The channel or blog you are building has a natural focus, which helps both search engines and viewers understand what it is and who it is for.
Business Idea 2: Create and Sell Digital Products
Digital products are appealing because you create them once and sell them as many times as you want. No inventory, no shipping, no physical overhead. Alston points to Etsy as one of the main marketplaces for this, and he shows it filled with digital products: planners, printables, templates, and downloadable guides that creators made once and listed for ongoing sales.
The type of products that sell well in this space are planners, trackers, printable journals, habit logs, business templates, and digital guides. Alston uses the 75 Hard challenge as a fitness-niche example. The 75 Hard program has a large audience of people who want tracking sheets and planning templates to support the challenge. That is real, documented demand you can create a product around, and it does not require you to be a certified fitness coach or a professional graphic designer.
For creation tools, Alston names Canva as the easiest starting point. Canva is free and has templates for almost every printable format you would want to sell. He also mentions Photoshop and Affinity Photo for people who want more design control. If design is not your strength, you can hire a freelancer to build the product and put your energy into finding the right niches and handling the selling side.
Finding the right products to create is where most people get stuck. Alston recommends two research tools. The first is Insight Factory, which has a free entry point and walks you through how to identify high-quality product ideas selling well on Etsy. The second is Ahrefs, a paid keyword research tool he uses himself. His process with Ahrefs is to type in words like “planner,” “printable,” “downloadable,” or “template” and filter for high-traffic, low-competition keywords. That combination identifies where demand exists without much supply, which is exactly where a new seller can break in.
When it comes to selling the products, Alston lays out a few paths depending on your budget. If you are starting with zero money, you build a social media profile, a blog, or a YouTube channel and sell directly through your content. Your content is your storefront. If you have some budget and want to move faster, you can run Facebook ads, YouTube ads, or Pinterest ads to a product listing page. Alston specifically calls out Pinterest as a strong traffic source for planners and printables because the platform is visual and its users are actively shopping for inspiration and tools.
Alston also mentions that at the time of this video he was building a PLR (private label rights) membership. The model gives members access to pre-made digital products they can sell as their own. He mentioned early-access pricing at $11 per month, rising to $29 per month after the launch window. The broader point is not about that specific membership but about the structure: the digital products business is active enough that people build entire service businesses around making it easier for others to get started in it. That tells you the demand is real and ongoing.
The core appeal remains: you do the creation work once, and the product can sell again and again in a semi-passive way. You still have to come up with ideas, build the products, and get people to see them. But you are not trading hours for dollars the way you would with freelance work or a service. The product keeps earning while you sleep, which changes how you think about building income over time.
Business Idea 3: Build a Stack of Recurring Affiliate Programs
Alston is specific here: he is not telling you to do affiliate marketing in general. He is telling you to focus on recurring affiliate programs. The distinction matters more than most people realize when they are trying to build stable income instead of a number that resets every month.
With a one-time affiliate commission, you earn when someone buys, and then that relationship is over. With a recurring commission, you earn every month that the person stays subscribed to the product or service. Software tools, VPN services, hosting platforms, and subscription communities often pay recurring commissions. If you refer five customers to a recurring program in January, those five customers likely generate commissions again in February. You start February ahead of zero before you have done any new work. Add five more in February, and March starts with ten active commissions.
Alston uses NordVPN as his live example. He shows that searching “NordVPN affiliate program” on Google brings up their sign-up page quickly. From there, you can create comparison content: NordVPN versus ExpressVPN, NordVPN review, NordVPN setup guide. He found a video doing this on a channel with around 5,000 subscribers that was already getting solid views. The comparison format specifically works because people who are about to pay for a VPN subscription want to know how the options stack up before they commit. Your comparison video is exactly what they need at that moment.
The practical starting point is simple: search Google for “best recurring affiliate programs 2023” or any current year. You will find lists covering categories like software, health, finance tools, and business services. Pick one or two programs that align with topics you already know or care about. Create comparison and review content. Sign up for the affiliate program through their official page. Put your tracked affiliate link where viewers or readers can find it.
The snowball effect Alston describes is genuine. Early months are slow. You are producing content without seeing significant commission. But each month you hold existing referrals plus add new ones. By month six or eight, the base of recurring commissions you have built is meaningful enough that a quiet month does not feel like starting over. This model rewards the people who stay consistent longer than it rewards the people who try the hardest in the first thirty days and then quit.
Business Idea 4: The Amazon Influencer Program and the Dish Soap Connection
This is where the Dawn dish soap comes in. Alston was watching a football game and saw a commercial for Dawn Platinum Easy Squeeze. He noticed that when a product is being advertised heavily on national television, the marketing is already done. Millions of people are already aware of the product and some portion of them will search for reviews, comparisons, and demonstrations before buying. Your job is not to create demand. Your job is to show up with useful content where that demand already exists.
The Amazon Influencer Program lets content creators upload short product videos that appear directly on Amazon product listing pages. When a shopper watches your video and then purchases the product, you earn a commission. Alston shows an example video on Amazon that is only 32 seconds long. It is not a high-production piece. It is a useful, clear demonstration of the product that helps a buyer make a decision. That 32-second video earns a commission every time it contributes to a purchase.
The barrier to entry is lower than people expect. Alston mentions hearing from creators who got approved with as few as 3,000 followers. The pushback he hears most often is “I don’t have enough followers yet.” His response is direct: you need to create content to get followers, and you should be creating content anyway whether or not you are being paid for it right now. If you make product videos for the Amazon Influencer Program, those same videos can go on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. One piece of content, three platforms. If any of them gains traction, all of them benefit.
His advice on product selection is practical. Do not start with complicated tech products that require deep expert knowledge to explain well. Start with products you actually have at home right now. The Dawn dish soap on your kitchen counter has over 8,000 ratings on Amazon. Millions of people buy it. A clear 30-second video showing how the Easy Squeeze feature works, or comparing it to the original bottle, is exactly the kind of content that helps a buyer on the fence make a decision. That decision generates a commission for you.
The TV commercial tip Alston gives is worth writing down. When you see a product advertised heavily on national TV or major streaming services, that brand is spending significant money to create consumer awareness. Awareness translates into search volume. Search volume means people typing that product name into Amazon, YouTube, and Google looking for more information. Position your content at that intersection and you are working alongside existing marketing momentum instead of trying to manufacture it from nothing.
The cross-platform angle makes this even more attractive. One product video can earn Amazon Influencer commissions on the product page, get organic views on TikTok or YouTube, drive clicks to your affiliate link in the description, and build your overall following at the same time. Each of those outcomes is separate revenue or audience growth from the same piece of content you filmed once with your phone.
Not sure which of these four models fits where you are right now?
Answer a few questions about your skills, your time, and your starting budget at finder.platformproof.com and get a clear recommendation for your first step.
Honest Drawbacks: What Each Model Actually Costs You
Every one of these models is legitimate. Every one of them also has real costs beyond just money. Being honest about those costs before you start helps you pick the right one and stay committed to it instead of jumping between all four and finishing none of them.
Product Content Creation
The biggest cost is time before income. You will produce a lot of content before your channel or blog generates meaningful ad revenue or affiliate income. The payoff is that a well-built product hub works for you around the clock once it exists. A 5,000-subscriber channel can pull 5,000 views on a single video, as the Mac Studio example showed. But you have to make videos consistently long enough to find the ones that hit, and that takes months of work before results show up in your bank account.
Digital Products on Etsy
The upfront creation work is real. You are building a product before you know whether it will sell. Good research with Insight Factory or Ahrefs reduces that risk but does not remove it entirely. Paid ads speed up the feedback loop but cost money. Organic audience building is free but slower. The path that fits you depends on whether you have more available time or more available budget at the start. The biggest mistake in this model is building twenty products without confirming the first one sells.
Recurring Affiliate Marketing
The slow start is the main frustration. Early on you are making content and not seeing meaningful commissions. The compounding effect Alston describes is real, but it takes months before you feel it working. People who quit at month two or three never get to experience the snowball. This model rewards consistency and patience more than any other on this list. If you need fast income right now, this is probably not your starting point.
Amazon Influencer Program
You need an existing social media presence to apply. If you have no audience today, the program is not available to you yet. It becomes a goal you work toward while you build content through one of the other three models first. Once you are in, the production work is relatively low complexity. Short product videos are faster to create than long-form content. The main tradeoff is that Amazon’s commission rates for many product categories are lower than what dedicated affiliate programs in software or subscriptions pay.
How to Choose the Right One for Your Situation
If you have no budget and no audience today, start with product content creation. Pick a product you already own and have used enough to talk about honestly. Answer the five most common questions people ask about it. Post those five pieces. See which one gets traction. That data tells you whether the product niche is worth continuing before you commit months of work to it.
If you have some design ability and a small budget to test, digital products on Etsy are worth running as a real experiment. Use Insight Factory to find a niche with documented demand, create one product, list it, and run a small amount of Pinterest or Facebook ads to measure whether it converts before you build out a catalog around it.
If you already make content and have any audience at all, even a few hundred followers, add recurring affiliate programs immediately. You already have a distribution channel. Inserting one well-matched affiliate link into content you are already producing is the fastest path to your first recurring monthly commission without creating anything new.
If you have 3,000 or more followers on any social platform, apply for the Amazon Influencer Program now. You can film a short product review with your phone today and have it submitted within a few days. This is one of the lowest-friction on-ramps to earning commissions from an audience you have already built.
Find Your X
All four of these models share one underlying question: what do you already know, own, or care about that other people are actively searching for? Your experience with a product, a niche, or a topic is worth more than you realize, but only when you match it to real demand. The quiz at finder.platformproof.com helps you do exactly that. Answer a few questions about your situation and walk away with a clear recommendation for which model to start with and what your first step looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need money to start any of these business ideas?
Not necessarily. Product content creation and recurring affiliate marketing can both be started with a phone, a free YouTube or TikTok account, and time. Digital products have a free path through Canva and Etsy’s free seller account. The Amazon Influencer Program has no application fee. Every model has a real cost, but for three of the four that cost is primarily your time rather than your money.
How long before I make my first dollar?
It depends on the model and how much effort you put in each week. The Amazon Influencer Program and Etsy digital products can produce a sale within days if your video or listing reaches the right buyer quickly. Recurring affiliate commissions and YouTube ad revenue take longer, often months, because they require building an audience before income follows. No one can give you an honest specific timeline without knowing your niche, your content quality, and your actual weekly effort.
What exactly is the “wheel and spoke” method?
It is a content strategy where you pick one product and build a hub of related content around it. The product is the center wheel. Each piece of content, answering a specific question or covering a specific use case, is a spoke. The goal is to become the go-to source for that product so that anyone searching for information about it eventually finds your channel or site. You are not covering a broad topic. You are covering one product from every angle.
Is Insight Factory free to use?
Alston describes it as having a free entry point where you can get started and learn how the tool works for finding Etsy product ideas. The free tier is enough to evaluate whether the tool fits your research process before committing to a paid plan. Ahrefs, the other tool he mentions, is a paid keyword research platform that makes more sense for someone already generating some revenue who wants to invest in scaling up their research process.
Why recurring affiliate programs instead of regular affiliate marketing?
Because one-time commissions reset your income to zero at the start of every month. Recurring commissions carry forward. If you earn commissions from five customers in January, those five likely pay again in February without any additional work from you. You build on top of what already exists instead of starting from scratch each month. The difference between those two structures becomes very significant after six to twelve months of consistent effort.
What follower count do I realistically need for the Amazon Influencer Program?
Alston says he has heard of creators getting approved with as few as 3,000 followers. Amazon does not publish a firm minimum publicly, and results vary based on engagement and account quality, not just raw numbers. If you are below that range, the right move is to start creating product content now on any platform and apply once you have built a meaningful active following.
Can I use the same product video on multiple platforms?
Yes, and Alston specifically recommends it. A short product video you make for the Amazon Influencer Program can also go on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. If the video contributes to a purchase on Amazon while also getting organic views on social media, you are earning from the same effort in multiple places at once. This is the “double and triple dip” Alston refers to in the video, and it is one of the genuine efficiency advantages of the Amazon Influencer model.
How do I use the TV commercial tip to find products to review?
Watch any major TV channel or streaming service during commercial breaks and take note of products being advertised. Heavy national TV advertising signals that a brand is spending real money to create consumer awareness. That spending creates search volume. Search for the product on Amazon and YouTube to see how crowded the review space is. If detailed reviews are limited, you have an opportunity to fill that gap before the market gets saturated. The Dawn dish soap example is a real case of this working: nationally advertised product, millions of buyers, and relatively few short review videos from regular creators.
Read Next
If the recurring affiliate marketing idea resonated, the longer-form breakdown of how Alston built income online over a full decade gives useful context for how these models play out over years rather than just weeks.
Read: I Tried Making Money Online for 10 Years (Here’s What Actually Worked)
Sources
- Alston Godbolt, “REVEALED: Best Online Business Ideas For 2023” – YouTube, January 2023 (youtu.be/Cx1hr6YPKEo)
- Insight Factory – Etsy product research tool, free entry tier available
- Ahrefs – paid keyword research and competitive analysis tool (ahrefs.com)
- Amazon Influencer Program – amazon.com/influencer-program
- NordVPN Affiliate Program – nordvpn.com/affiliate-program
- Etsy – digital product marketplace (etsy.com)
- Canva – free design tool for creating printables and templates (canva.com)
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.