Start to Finish Blueprint For Building and Selling Digital Products

I would have killed for a resource like this when I started building my online business.

Five weeks ago, Quillkeepers (my new writing program) was just an idea in my sketchbook.

Now it’s a live writing community that will generate over $15k in revenue this year.

I’m going to give you the 5 step playbook of how I built the digital backend:

Plus…

I share my screen and show you everything - my lesson deliverables, email sequences, landing pages and more.

But that’s not all…

I’m having fun making these build in public resources.

And I believe they’ll be a huge boost for many beginner creators who share my obsession with online biz.

Plus… this is me living out the new Tribal motto: Run. Write. Build.

In future videos, I’ll share updates on the branding and design of Quillkeepers - and how I’m creating “Magic Moments” for my users.

And I’ll share some things I’ve observed as a student of writing courses that I think sabotage the user experience (and how I’m avoiding that happening in Quillkeepers).

But for now, let’s talk DIY Digital Biz.

Side Note - if you learn best with video, here’s the link to watch a video I made on all this (watch this on your next indoor ride).

And if you’d prefer to just listen to the podcast, here’s the Spotify link:

Now on to the written version…

It was a bone chilling day in late December.

The air was sharp, the ground was rock solid and all my excuses had frozen over…

I was also 68 hours into a 72 hour fast with the mental alertness of a lion on the hunt in the savannah.

That’s when the idea hit me…

I need to build a writing course.

I’ve had the idea for years. But it just never felt like the time. I thought I needed to wait.

But at hour 68 of my fast, it hit me…

I was lying to myself.

I didn’t need more time. I was afraid to start.

I was…

I was tired of fear stopping me from taking action on this dream I had.

So I took out a sheet of sketch paper and brain dumped my basic ideas for a course.

But why writing? And why now?

Two reasons:

#1. Over the past year, 15+ Tribal athletes started writing on Substack after receiving encouragement/inspiration from the Team

My endurance philosophy guides athletes toward becoming more reflective, insightful, and drawn to clearer thinking.

How?

This post from Tribal athlete sums it up well:

Writing is the like pouring gasoline on an already roaring flame of personal development.

#2. I committed to 2025 being the year of relentless creative output

This is a fun, creative project for me. I don’t care if I’m known as “the endurance guy.”

I got more skills than that DAWG!!!

There’s something in my soul that demands I create more boldly in the world and teach more of my skills.

BONUS #3…

I can get better at the fundamentals of business through the build of Quillkeepers.

And that can help me strengthen my biz operations for endurance coaching/community building.

I’m going to show you exactly how I built the lessons and calls.

But first, I have to share a mistake I made back in September.

I started building a new running eBook - and I caught myself doing the same thing that has derailed me on a dozen other eBook built attempts…

And what happened?

I felt overwhelmed and got pulled away from the initial ideas I wanted to teach.

After 4 hours lining up text borders in Canva, I scrapped the whole thing.

I remembered what my Biz Coach kept telling me:

And so I thought to myself:

I put the run workouts into a Google Doc and posted it to X.

What happened next shocked me…

I got 7 people to download it!!! I expected to post it and hear crickets.

I kept promoting it over the next two weeks and ended up getting 33 total downloads.

That’s when I realized…

I remembered all the times I felt scared to promote my products and just tweeted into the void instead.

That running eBook experience was a huge unlock for my mindset as a digital builder.

And I applied the exact process to Quillkeepers.

Here’s how:

I did start with sexy intro slides in Figma (online design platform that’s a bit over my head).

But they were mostly just pictures that set the stage for story telling.

I also used these to give direction on where the workshop was headed.

I started each writing workshop call by spending ~15 mins in the Figma slides.

Then I shifted to Google Docs and taught right from the page.

A big part of Quillkeepers calls are:

So that was the structure of the calls:

Run. Write. Build.

I wanted Quillkeepers to grow beyond my existing community, so I set up:

I committed to using Quillkeepers to develop the skill of turning something I created once into an evergreen resource.

Then I added the recordings, Google Doc lessons and bonus worksheets to the emails.

Run. Write. Build.

And once I hosted the calls, recorded them and loaded them into the email drip, I promoted the landing page line on X over the 3 weeks of the workshop.

And guess what??

I got 18 people to sign up!!!

(21 if you count the two emails of my own that I put in - and my wife’s)

I saved everything—slides, worksheets, recordings—knowing that in a few months, I could transform it into a paid course, onboarding roadmap, or full-scale community.

That’s it for this edition of building in public.

See you next time,

Ryan

P.S.

Looking to start writing online - and communicate with authority?

Starting on March 14th, the Quillkeepers group is taking on a new challenge together.

Everyone inside is building a digital product.

I will be taking them from start to finish

When I shared this with our group of 14, almost everyone said they were immediately nervous about this.

And that’s exactly why we’re doing it.

Click here to join Quillkeepers.