Most people think making money online requires a big audience, a startup budget, or some technical skill they don’t have. What Alston lays out in this video is different. A $7 digital product, priced at the impulse-buy level, sold to a small audience of people who actually have the problem you solve, is a realistic path to $300 a day. That’s the whole premise. And the math behind it is simpler than most side-hustle gurus want you to believe.
This is not about building a course empire or becoming an influencer. It’s about picking one specific problem, creating something on your computer that solves it, and then figuring out how to get the right people to see it. Alston walks through every step at a lake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the whole thing is worth watching. But if you want the core ideas in readable form so you can actually act on them, here they are.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A clear definition of what a digital product actually is and why it’s different from a physical product
- The profit margin breakdown that makes digital products hard to ignore
- Every major type of digital product across every niche, not just the marketing space
- Why workbooks outsell ebooks and what to build instead
- A step-by-step process from niche to first sale, including which platforms to use
- How to price your first product so people buy without overthinking it
- The honest drawbacks of digital products that nobody talks about upfront
- Not sure what to sell? Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com to find your match
What a Digital Product Actually Is
Alston defines it plainly: a digital product is something you create on your computer, or have someone else create, that is sold and delivered over the internet. That’s it. The buyer submits payment, they get access instantly or within minutes, and you’re not involved in the delivery at all. No shipping. No warehouse. No showing up.
The technical definition he gives is that a digital product is just zeros and ones sitting on a hard drive, whether that’s your hard drive, a Google Drive, or a platform like Gumroad. When someone buys it, they get a link. That link takes them to the product. The whole thing happens without you lifting a finger after the initial setup.
Compare that to a physical product. Alston holds up his camera in the video and walks through the economics of something like that. The camera probably cost around $700 to $800. The store selling it, somewhere like Costco, is making maybe $30 to $40 per unit after all the costs of manufacturing, shipping, stocking, and staffing. The margin is thin. The complexity is high. Digital products flip that equation entirely.
Why the Profit Margin Changes Everything
Here’s the number Alston gives: if you sell a $20 digital product, your profit margin is roughly $19. The only cost you’re eating is the payment processor fee, the platform fee for wherever you’re hosting the sales page, and maybe an email marketing provider. That’s it. You built the product once. Every sale after that is nearly pure margin.
Physical product businesses dream about margins like that. Digital product creators get them by default. This is why so many people who try to make money online end up pivoting to digital products after burning time and money on dropshipping, Amazon FBA, or other product-based businesses where the margins are thin and the logistics are brutal.
To hit $300 a day at $7 per product, you’d need about 43 sales. At $17, you’d need about 18. Those are small numbers when you have the right content driving traffic to a sales page. They’re not instant, but they’re achievable without a massive audience. That’s the math Alston is pointing at when he talks about starting with a low-ticket product priced in the impulse-buy range.
Every Type of Digital Product Worth Knowing About
Alston goes wide on this list, and it’s worth capturing every category because most people’s mental image of digital products is too narrow. They think “online course” and stop there. But that’s just one slice of a much bigger pie.
Templates. Instagram Stories templates, Google Sheets templates, budget trackers, planners, and similar ready-to-use files that someone can plug their information into and immediately put to work. These are some of the fastest products to create and sell because the buyer gets an instant result.
PDFs, guides, and cheat sheets. A single page or short document that answers a specific question or walks someone through a specific process. Think “5-step guide to changing your own brakes” or “Weekend fishing kit checklist for ice fishing beginners.” Focused, fast to create, easy to deliver.
Workbooks. Alston is a fan of these and covers them in depth below. They’re PDF-based but interactive. The buyer writes into them, checks boxes, and works through a process. This format tends to have better completion rates than passive content.
Ebooks. Longer-form written content. Still viable, but Alston notes that AI has hurt this category. People feel like they can get the same information from ChatGPT, which has driven down the perceived value of ebooks. There are still ebook-based businesses working well, but they require more marketing effort to justify the price.
Minicourses and short video training. A series of short videos teaching one specific skill. Not the 40-hour course model. Something a person can complete in a weekend. The lower the time commitment from the buyer, the easier the sale.
Presets and media files. Photoshop presets, Adobe Premiere Pro presets, B-roll footage, sound effects, music tracks. If you’ve ever bought a song on iTunes or a sound pack for video editing, you bought a digital product. Creative professionals sell these constantly and the buyers are other creators who need to save time.
WordPress and design templates. Website templates, landing page layouts, Canva designs. If you can build something in a visual tool and export it or make it shareable, someone else probably wants to skip the design work and just buy your output.
Recipe books and itineraries. Alston mentions these as underrated examples. A 3-day Kenosha itinerary with restaurants, things to do, and places to stay is a sellable digital product for someone visiting. A recipe collection for a specific diet or cuisine has a built-in audience. These are not glamorous, but they work.
Why Workbooks Beat Ebooks Right Now
Alston’s first digital product was an affiliate marketing workbook. He walks through what made it work. The first section of the workbook had buyers write down 10 to 15 affiliate products they could potentially promote, then choose one that paid over $25 in commission. From there, they did basic research. By the end of the workbook, they had a real plan on paper.
The reason that works better than an ebook is simple. When someone downloads an ebook, they often read a little, get distracted, and never come back. The passive reading experience doesn’t create the feeling of progress. A workbook forces participation. You’re filling things in. You’re making decisions. When you close a completed workbook, you feel like you actually did something. That feeling drives people to take the next step, whether that’s creating content, starting their business, or coming back to buy the next thing you’ve made.
Alston also notes that AI has specifically devalued ebooks because people feel like they can get the information for free from ChatGPT. A workbook sidesteps this. ChatGPT can give you information, but it can’t make you sit down and fill out the worksheet that actually applies that information to your specific situation. The active-participation format holds value in a way that passive content is losing.
Niche Ideas That Are Wide Open Right Now
Alston offers a handful of specific niche examples in the video, which is more useful than the usual “follow your passion” advice. Here’s what he mentions and why each one has real potential.
Construction. If you’ve ever built a home or worked in construction, you know what every material, tarp, and panel does. Most homeowners don’t. Alston talks about watching his own house get built and wanting to understand what each step meant. There are thousands of people in that same situation. A guide to “what’s actually happening during home construction” written for non-builders is a gap in the market.
Fishing. Alston mentions a fisherman behind him in the video and notes that fishing is a huge niche with many sub-niches. Lake fishing, saltwater fishing, bass fishing, crab fishing, ice fishing. Each one requires different equipment, different techniques, different prep. A checklist for first-time ice fishers, or a starter guide to saltwater fishing gear, serves a real and specific need.
Car repair. He uses the Subaru Outback as an example. “Repairing a Subaru Outback” is a big problem. “Changing the oil on a Subaru Outback” is a small problem. Small problems make better digital products because the buyer knows exactly what they’re getting and how quickly they’ll get the result. A short video guide or PDF walkthrough for a specific car repair on a specific model has a defined audience searching for exactly that answer.
Wedding planning. A 6-month wedding planner built in Canva, saved as a PDF, uploaded to Google Drive. Then you create videos about how to save money on weddings, five things brides forget, how to plan a wedding under different budgets. The content attracts people. The product converts them.
Travel itineraries. City-specific, event-specific, or conference-specific. Alston mentions Comic-Con as an example. People attending a big convention want to know where to eat, where to sleep closest to the venue, and what to do between sessions. A PDF itinerary built around a specific event or destination can sell for $7 to $17 to an audience that’s already planning a trip and just wants someone to do the research for them.
The Step-by-Step Process From Idea to First Sale
Alston walks through this multiple times in the video because it’s the core of what he’s teaching. Here’s the full sequence as he describes it.
Step 1: Pick a niche. Base it on your knowledge, your skills, or your experience. You don’t need to be a certified expert. You just need to know more than the person who’s struggling with the problem you’re solving. Construction experience, fishing knowledge, wedding planning, car maintenance, local travel expertise. Any of it works.
Step 2: Find a specific sub-problem. Inside any niche are 20 to 30 distinct problems. Don’t try to solve all of them. Pick one. The smaller and more specific the problem, the better the product. “Car repair” is too big. “How to change the oil on a Subaru Outback” is exactly the right size. Write down five to ten sub-problems in your niche and choose the one where you can deliver a clear, fast result.
Step 3: Create your product. This is where most people overcomplicate it. Alston says you can build your first digital product in a weekend. Use Canva for templates and workbooks. Use Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel for trackers and planners. Use a screen recorder for short video guides. Use Google Docs or Word for written guides. If you know how to code, build templates. If you don’t, you don’t need to. The tool you already know how to use is the right tool.