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How to productize your data without building software from scratch

Joseph Carlson sets a good example of how to build an honest business model and capitalize on your knowledge. He is trying to help people make better investment decisions and has built a substantial following on YouTube, where he makes videos on growing wealth through purchasing stocks.

Behind the videos, he has built a tool that blends his personal knowledge (what we call the semantic layer), with publicly available market data to productize that knowledge. The product is Qualtrim, a suite that includes a dip finder, portfolio insights, and a dividend tracker, sold through a paid membership with over 10,000 subscribers.

Qualtrim is just another way (a very effective and profitable one) to bank on the reputation and trust Carlson earned through his videos. Anyone can pull up stock price info but what people are really paying for is his semantic layer. It's the specific logic, filters, and perspective he built on top of public market data that people are willing to pay for.

Replying to Carlson's post on X, one user said: "I've been following you for a little longer than 2 years and I subscribed to the Patreon last November. The content is really good, especially the last 2 videos, but what really made me subscribe was Qualtrim, I think it adds a lot of value."

What Carlson did with Qualtrim is what thousands of domain experts, agencies, and firms dream of doing: converting proprietary logic into a standalone, subscription-based software product.

The problem is the delivery mechanism. Exposing your web app to hundreds or thousands of users can complicate things from a licensing and access control point of view. We built Embedsy to give people who work with Power BI a quick and cost-effective way to launch a branded app showcasing their reports. 

If you're sitting on data and an audience that trusts you, and wondering whether there's a product in it, that's exactly the conversation worth having. Let's talk.