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Building with ImaginAction is a business development podcast exploring the systems, strategies, and technologies behind modern companies.
Hosted by GB and brought to you by Levonis.AI, each episode breaks down practical approaches to business growth, operational thinking, AI implementation, product development, automation, and execution — without the hype.
From building smarter workflows and scalable systems to refining offers, positioning, and decision-making, this podcast is designed for founders, operators, creators, and business owners who want actionable insights they can apply immediately.
No interviews. No noise. Just focused conversations on building better businesses in the age of AI.
Episode 1: If You Have an Idea But No Business Yet — What to Sell First, and Why
Today on Building with Imagine-action, we are going to start with what you should be selling.
As you are listening to this, you probably have a notebook with ideas. Maybe it’s a concept for a new service, a digital asset, or a standalone business. But right now, that's all it is—thoughts in your head. You don’t actually have a live business yet.
And if that’s where you’re sitting, here is something you already know: You do not need more motivation. You don’t need to spend the next three weeks trying to "find your why," designing a mood board, or writing a corporate mission statement.
You need to make exactly one practical decision today: exactly what is it you will sell?
That sounds incredibly obvious, but it’s where most people get stuck. They have a basic concept, and then the overthinking takes over. Should it be an online course? A software app? A premium consulting model? A subscription service?
Because they try to design the entire complex machine before they’ve even made a dollar, they experience complete analysis paralysis. Nothing moves. Three months later, they’re still talking about the exact same concept, having made zero actual progress.
I’ve been there, and you’ve probably been there too.
So today, let’s strip away stupid mind clutter. If you are starting from zero, the game isn't to build a massive, complex operation right out of the gate. The game is simply this: What can you get to market fast, with low risk, to a specific customer, just to prove the demand exists?
The start does not have to look the same as the end.
Pick one path. Validate it fast. Then build the bigger thing. Not the other way around.
So Step 1 is Choose Your Customer, Not Your Format (for now)
Most first-time founders ask the wrong question first. They ask: "Should I sell a physical product, a digital product, or a service?"
That’s a format question, and it’s the wrong place to start. The format comes after you know who you are serving. A product doesn't define a business; the customer’s problem does.
When you think about your target market, skip the broad demographic jargon. Nobody actually serves "women aged 25 to 45" or "millennials who like technology." Those aren’t customers; those are just categories, and often defined after the fact.
Instead, look at real people and the actual environment around you:
• Look at the business owner you know who is constantly complaining that they waste ten hours a week manually copying data between spreadsheets.
• Look at the project manager who is utterly overwhelmed because their team’s onboarding documentation is a total mess.
• Look at the specific, recurring frustrations people are actively posting about in a subreddit or facebook group scroll through.
Pick one specific type of person facing one specific bottleneck. If your first offer tries to speak to everybody, it becomes background noise and you’ll simply drown.
And by the way—you don't have to be the first person to think of the idea. Do not try to be an inventor. Google wasn’t the first search engine, and Facebook wasn’t the first social media site. You just need to look at a specific group of people, find a clear angle or a painful bottleneck, and provide a fix.
Now Step 2: Service vs. Product — Which One First?
There are really only three ways to exchange value for money at the start: a service, a digital product, or a physical product. Let’s look at the operational reality of each so you can see the fastest route to real-world proof.
Number 1. Services: The Feedback Loop
If you are starting from zero with limited capital, a service is almost always your sharpest opening move. Why? Because it completely bypasses the traditional roadblocks. It requires zero manufacturing, no shipping logistics, no upfront inventory, and no complex software development. You are simply trading your focused judgment or your direct ability to execute a result that someone else doesn't know how to do—or simply doesn't want to do themselves.
Now, your standard objection might be: "A service doesn't scale. I want to build a digital asset. I don’t want to sell my hours forever."
I get it. However you need to understand that using a service as your starting point doesn’t mean it’s your permanent end goal. It means a service is your fastest source of real-world data. When you solve a problem for a customer manually, you are getting paid to learn. You get to see exactly where they struggle, you hear the precise words they use to describe their frustration, and you can refine your method in real time. As a solo operator, you do not have the luxury of sitting in a dark room for six months building a complex digital product, praying that a market shows up when you hit launch. You need feedback, and you need it now.
Number 2. Digital Products whereby you Package the Outcome
A digital product—like a structured template, a workflow framework, or a narrow masterclass—is an exceptional model. But it only works under one strict condition: the problem you are solving must be narrow enough, and repeatable enough, that the solution can be cleanly packaged.
The classic trap here is trying to build an encyclopedia. People spend months recording dozens of videos or writing massive eBooks before testing if anyone actually wants the outcome.
I have to say I am guilty of this. In fact I have done this more than once. As a former commodity and interest rates trader, I have packaged my knowledge into courses. Every time I have said ‘my content or site needs a refresh’, I build these massively stupid plans with so much work in front of me, that it never gets done. It’s always a work in progress. If fact it is partly what brought me here, but that is another podcast…
If you are a professional with established expertise, your first digital product shouldn't be a massive 20-hour academy. It should be the exact execution checklist, asset template, or script file that saves another manager 15 hours of unneeded stress. Keep the scope razor-sharp and entirely focused on a singular outcome.
Number 3. Physical Products aka The High-Friction Route
Then we have physical products. This is what a lot of people dream about, but ironically, it is the hardest, highest-friction path for a solo operator starting from zero. Physical products mean prototypes, manufacturer negotiations, minimum order quantities, shipping logistics, and cash flow tied up in boxes sitting in a warehouse or a garage.
Can you do it? Absolutely. But your timeline to validation drops drastically. Instead of knowing if your idea works in 7 days, you might not find out for four or five months, after you've already sunk thousands of dollars of your own money into manufacturing.
If your grand vision is a physical asset or a complex software app, ask yourself this tactical question: "How can I strip this idea down and sell the value as a manual service or a simple digital framework first, just to prove the demand actually exists?"
Once you have picked the specific customer and the simplest format, your single objective for the next 7 days is validation.
Validation does not mean asking your partner, your mum, or your mates if they think your business idea is cool. They care about you, which means their feedback is completely biased. One mate might try to talk you out of it to protect you, while another encourages you just to be supportive. Either way, it isn't accurate feedback.
Real validation requires a customer to put skin in the game. It means they must give you either their money, a firm commitment, or at the very least, a highly specific level of active interest.
Here is the operational framework for the next 7 days:
First, build a Minimum Viable Offer. This is a simple, less than one-page write-up. No logo, no design fluff, no branding. Just clear, plain language that outlines:
1. The exact, painful problem or gap in the market you have identified.
2. The clear, specific result you can provide in the next 30 days.
3. Exactly what it will cost them.
Second, put that plain-text offer directly in front of 5 to 10 real people who match your target profile. Send a direct message, pick up the phone, or reach out directly within the specific professional group where they actually hang out.
Yes it might sound like spam, but figure out a way to get feedback.
Do not pitch them like a greasy car salesman. Speak to them like a peer. Keep it completely straightforward:
“Hey, I’m helping three business owners fix their daily operations and sort out their messy processes this month so they stop wasting hours every week. I'm doing the heavy lifting manually for X. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send over the details."
There is going to be some creativity in how you phrase. Ask AI for several variations. Find one that doesn’t sound spammy or annoying. It’s there somewhere.
If people immediately lean in, ask for details, or want to sign up, you have a live business asset. If you hit complete silence, or if people give you polite, vague compliments but refuse to commit, the market is telling you the truth. It means the problem either isn't painful enough, or your offer isn't sharp enough.
Quick tangent: A long time ago, in my first job as a future broker, I was brought on saying I would be given leads and accounts. That was actually bullshit. I was given exactly 17 leads from an old trade show, and it turns out they had been called and called (there was a bit of a Glengarry Glenross vibe there).
Meanwhile I saw that each day the Clearing Firm (think ‘accounts department’) would send over customer account balances. I noticed there were a massive number that were unassigned to a broker. Pages and pages of them. They all had balances of a few dollars. In other words, they were inactive and old. One of the brokers said something like “they won’t trade, and yours if you want them”.
If like any other new broker, I called and said “would you like to send money and trade again?”, I would not have been successful. Instead I called each one and explained I am an analyst and broker. I asked if they would like to receive my written market commentary free of charge.
Over a period of only a few weeks, boy did it work well. It turned into a massive influx of business for me. Even my boss said he has never seen anything like it. Right place, right time maybe, but it was the fact I offered something, not asked for something.
Think about how you can do that too.
Now Where could a custom AI tool could Fit Into Your Execution?
If one thought you have is something "this makes sense, but I still don’t know how to map out my offer or write the steps"—this is precisely why we built Levonis.ai.
When you are a solo entrepreneur or a manager trying to push a project forward inside a company, the hardest part is that you are completely on your own in your own head. You don’t have a team to bounce ideas with, so you get stuck in that circular loop of overthinking.
Levonis acts as your virtual product development team to break that exact loop.
You don’t need a polished strategy. You can literally bring your messy, half-baked thoughts to the table. When you start Levonis, you meet Michael, your project manager and concierge. Michael is built to apply healthy, structural friction. He will ask the awkward questions you might accidentally be avoiding, helping you refine exactly who your customer is and what your core offer should look like.
From there, you can use specialized agents like Sophia to explore marketing, or Jack to map out the daily operational issues, or Liam to talk tech stuff. Your team does the heavy lifting of organizing your thoughts and structuring your model. It gives you the clear mechanics you need to step out into the market with confidence, and structure.
Now let’s wrap this up with a workable action plan you can start on today, with Levonis or not. Here is your checklist for the week:
1. Stop looking at your list of 50 ideas. Pick one specific customer profile that you actually see up close in your day-to-day life.
2. Identify their single most frustrating bottleneck. What is the one manual, messy process that is draining their time or driving them mad?
3. Decide on the absolute simplest format to solve it. Don't overcomplicate it—keep it to a direct manual service or a narrow digital template.
4. Write out your offer on a single sheet of paper. No logos, no websites, no fluff. Just write down the problem, the result you will deliver in 30 days, and the price.
5. Put that plain-text offer in front of 5 to 10 real people before you even think about building a webpage. Find those people and pitch. Think” even 1a 100% rejection rate teaches me something (but I bet it will not be 100%).
Let’s stop hiding behind theory. Stop procrastinating with endless planning. You just need the mechanics.
Hit subscribe, and let’s build something better. I’ll see you in the next episode.