Dickie Bush 🚢

My business generates $600,000/month.

But I only spend $8,215 on tech.

Here are the 7 most powerful no-code tools in my tech stack:

1. ConvertKit ($1,179/mo)

The heart of our operation, handling all email marketing automations and broadcasts.

One of the most important tools in our arsenal.

2. Stripe (2.9% + $.30 per transaction)

This is essential to start collecting payments from day one.

$19M processed & zero issues. It just works.

3. Carrd ($19/yr)

We buy stand-alone domains and host landing page opt-ins that convert like crazy.

It's cheap, fast, and looks clean. No coding required.

4. Airtable ($1,134/mo)

It's our internal CRM and stores data in one central hub. Every product, lead, and customer lives here.

The single most important database in our business.

5. Zapier (~$749/mo)

This is how we scale without hiring an army. Automates 150k+ tasks/month and replaces at least 5+ full-time assistants.

Connects Stripe → Airtable → ConvertKit → Everything else.

6. ChatGPT ($20/mo)

Our go-to AI writing assistant for:

• Analysis
• Research
• Brainstorming

Every team member uses it daily to enhance their writing. Not replace it.

7. Substack (Free or 10% of paid subs)

This is the perfect platform for beginners. The built-in referral engine is a massive growth lever.

Hosts my personal + Write with AI paid newsletter (~$400k/yr).

At scale, even expensive tools become incredibly cheap relative to the revenue they generate for my little business.

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📌 The easiest online business to start?

Ghostwriting.

I recommend this to anyone who wants to start making money on the internet.

My first ghostwriting client paid me $5,000 (while I worked 40+ hours at my day job). And right now, the quickest way to get started is ghostwriting on LinkedIn.

Want to land high-paying writing clients?

Get started here: https://lnkd.in/er5pQZp7

Last week, I spent 7 hours putting together 102 writing templates and 2 AI prompts to help you:

• Write viral LinkedIn posts, faster
• Find proven topics for yourself & your writing clients
• Create LinkedIn and X posts using proven templates

Why?

Because the LinkedIn algorithm has changed, making it harder to boost your reach and go viral.

And I want to help you get better results for yourself and your clients.

So, I put together my proven hooks and post formats that have generated millions of views on my content.

Inside my Social Ghostwriting Template Vault, you'll find:

• 30 LinkedIn & X hook formats (generated 40M+ views)
• 50 short-form post outlines for quick, daily content
• 22 long-form thought-leadership post frameworks
• 2 AI hook generators so you never run out of ideas
• The 8 topics EVERY client wants to talk about

This is everything you need to write viral hooks and posts for yourself and your ghostwriting clients.

Want instant access?

✅ Comment "vault"

I'll send it to you over DM ASAP.

At 24, I thought I had the "perfect" life:

$180k salary.
Princeton grad.
Wall Street trader.

But then a stranger sent me $5,000 on the internet.

And it broke my brain about how to make money online.

Here's the full story:

After college, I was checking every box:

• NYC finance life
• Wall Street trader
• On track to make $180,000/year

But then a little conversation changed everything:

A 38-year-old colleague asked for permission to go to his son's Little League game.

His boss said no.

I thought: "If I do everything right for 14 more years, I'll be sitting here having to ask permission to go to my kids' game?"

Uh oh.

But I didn't quit right away (a big mistake most people make).

Instead, I looked for ways to pursue new opportunities while working a full-time 9-5.

I started a newsletter in January 2020.

My schedule:

• Wake up at 4:30 AM
• Write for 2 hours
• BlackRock during the day
• Build in the evenings

But after 9 months, growth was slow.

So, I committed to a 30-day writing challenge:

Write and publish a curation thread every single day for 30 days.

If it didn't work, I'd find something else.

On Day 27, I hit publish:

• Zero likes
• Zero retweets
• Zero comments

I went to bed thinking, "Cool, this is almost over."

But when I woke up, the post had:

• Gained 5k likes
• Been retweeted by Naval
• I went from 250 subscribers to 1,000+

And then I got a surprising DM:

Someone wanted me to write threads about their work and curate their content.

When they asked how much I charged, I froze.

Afraid to quote a price and get rejected, I said:

"I have no clue what to charge. This would be my first time. How about I do it and you pay whatever value it provides?"

They accepted, and on the weekend, I went ALL IN.

Spent Saturday and Sunday immersing myself in their content:

• Every article
• Every keynote
• Every interview

I delivered a set of threads, an outline for a book, and a curation of their content.

Their response?

"This is sooooooo good! Super helpful."

"Where can I send the payment?"

I sent my PayPal and a few hours later...

$5,000 hit my account.

So I messaged him: "Did you mean to send this much?"

Their response: "Dude, this was amazing, is that enough for you?"

This moment broke my brain about the potential of ghostwriting.

I was getting PAID to write and study someone I looked up to (who I was going to write a thread on anyway).

They referred me to other people and I started landing more $5k writing gigs.

Then I used ghostwriting as the first step to building a 7-figure digital business—ultimately helping me quit my 9 to 5.

📌 But if I could start over, I would start ghostwriting on LinkedIn.

Demand is going up on this platform—and you can land high-paying clients if you fix your positioning and have a proven outreach method.

So I created a free, 5-day email course with everything you need to get started.

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this post to get free, instant access.

I'm 29.

22 lessons I’d tell my 22-year-old self:

1. No one cares what you do, they care what you can do for them.

2. The people you look up to are nothing special, they’ve just been doing it longer.

3. Most of the things you are caught up in will not matter at all in 5 years.

4. Fear of failure and rejection are symptoms of an ego problem, let it go.

5. No one on earth is thinking about you anywhere near as much as you think they are.

6. You can solve almost every modern-day problem with writing, exercise, clean eating, sunshine, and meditation.

7. 95% of reading, planning, and brainstorming is procrastination disguised as productivity.

8. Success comes from doing somewhat-monotonous things every day for years (but no one wants to hear that).

9. You dramatically overestimate how many things you can do at once and dramatically underestimate how much effort it takes to do one thing well.

10. Your friends will say “you’ve changed” because they don’t know how to say “you’ve grown.”

11. Money stops flowing the second you see it as scarce, and starts again the second you see it as abundant.

12. Work 12 hours per day, 6 days per week. It will never be easier to do so.

13. Call your parents every day. You’ve already spent 90% of the time you’ll ever spend with them. And they’re the only people on earth who have been a part of your entire story.

14. Smile more. Future you would trade everything he has to get to replay the level you’re currently playing, so enjoy it.

15. You can only commit to 3 things at a time. One for your health, one for your business, one for your lifestyle. Choose wisely.

16. Pay to learn from people ahead of you. It’s the fastest way to compress time.

17. Learn to write. Learn to sell. Everything else becomes easier after that.

18. Stop comparing yourself to people ahead of you. Compete with a) your former self and b) your future self.

19. You should feel laughably unqualified when starting anything. Start anyway.

20. Get in shape, build a business, and treat the women in your life with respect. It’s your moral obligation.

21. Prune your life of miserable & mediocre people. Have zero tolerance for those who blame, gossip, complain, or criticize.

22. The world is rigged hilariously in your behavior if you simply believe it to be.

Building an audience is simple.

But most overcomplicate it.

You only need 1 habit to attract LinkedIn followers:

Write & publish 1 post every day.

I wasted years trying (and failing) to build this writing habit.

Now I write and publish every single day.

Here are the 7 proven steps I used (so you can start building your LinkedIn audience):

—
📌 This daily habit completely changed my life.

It helped me:

• Quit my corporate job
• Make my first $10,000 online as a ghostwriter
• Build my $19,000,000 digital writing business

Which is how I know the easiest digital business to start is ghostwriting.

And right now, the quickest way to make money on LinkedIn is to become a ghostwriter.

Want to land high-paying writing clients?

I wrote a FREE 5-step blueprint with everything you need to make money ghostwriting on LinkedIn in 2025.

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this to get (free) instant access.

3 years ago, I was making $180k on Wall Street.

But then I quit.

I had nearly 3x'd my W2 income from a side hustle in ~30 months.

Here's how it happened:

1. At 22, I got my dream job as a hedge fund trader making $120k, thinking I'd do it forever.

(The pic below is a selfie I took when I first started.)

2. 6 months in, realized my coworkers 15 years ahead of me did not live lives I wanted.

3. COVID hit and I got to work from home, so I reinvested my extra time into learning & writing.

4. During 2020, I wrote a weekly newsletter called Dickie’s Digest.

After 32 editions, I had ~200 subscribers.

I was ready to give up.

5. September 2020, I challenged myself to publish for 30 days straight.

• My Day 28 post went viral
• Followers jumped from 250 to 2,000
• Newsletter subs went from 200 to 1,400

6. That viral post reached legendary copywriter, Craig Clemens.

He asked if I'd do something similar for him.

I said I'd do it for free.

7. I'd accidentally became a ghostwriter.

Spent the weekend building Craig 2 book outlines.

His assistant sent me $5,000 for the work.

8. After my daily writing challenge, I wanted to keep going.

But publishing alone is hard.

So, I tweeted asking if anyone would like to join me in a 30-day writing sprint called Ship 30 for 30.

$50 and you got it back if you reached Day 30.

7 days later, 50 of us were writing & publishing daily Atomic Essays together.

9. November 2020, cohort-based courses were exploding.

So I decided to make the next Ship 30 cohort $99 (but with no refund).

10. January 2021, Ship 30 was accelerating.

My first ghostwriting client had connected me with Nicolas Cole 🚢👻.

Cole joined this cohort and shared his writing frameworks.

We partnered and built Ship 30 into the internet’s fastest-growing cohort-based course.

The next 12 months were the most intense of my life.

11. By the end of 2021, we hit $1M in revenue.

My personal take home:

• $180k (full-time job)
• $420k (Ship 30)

I had nearly 3x'd my W2 income from a side hustle in ~30 months.

12. February 2022—my annual bonus hits my bank account.

It was now a bigger financial risk for me to stay at my job than to leave.

But I was terrified.

Everyone thought I was crazy walking away from a $180k/yr job.

13. In the middle of February, I was talking to Cole on a walk and he said:

"What decision would the person you want to become make?"

The answer became clear.

I hung up on him, called my boss, and put in my 4-week notice.

14. Last year, my old hedge fund closed and I would've been laid off.

I'm grateful every day I ended up taking that bet on myself.

—
📌 But the bet I'd make today?

Becoming a LinkedIn Ghostwriter.

Ghostwriting is the quickest way to build a side hustle income.

I created a free, 5-day email course which has everything you need to get started.

Get free, instant access here: https://lnkd.in/e5j34ssu

I quit corporate when my little side hustle reached $40k/month. Here's how:

First, there are 3 ways to earn money in the world:

1. Jobs

A job is where you trade dollars for hours.

For example, you're a Starbucks barista who gets paid $12/hour.

If you're at this level, move to a career ASAP.

2. Careers

Instead of dollars for hours, you're trading performance for dollars.

If your boss fired you, that business would make less money.

3. Business

This is where you trade other people's time and performance for money.

It's where you have full entrepreneurial ownership over your trajectory.

But that's not for everyone.

Right now, you're probably either in a job or a career.

So, if you want to build a side hustle, get to a career as soon as possible.

Why?

Because a career gives you:

• A stable, regular income
• Skills that make you harder to replace
• Freedom to build your business on the side

This is the exact approach I took:

• 2020: I built a daily writing habit while working at BlackRock
• 2021: Turned this into a side hustle, reaching $40,000/month
• 2022: I quit my Wall Street job to scale Ship 30 for 30

Now, I didn't quit my job until I hit 2x my income.

This was so I could operate from abundance, not scarcity.

But if I could start over today?

I would start a LinkedIn ghostwriting side hustle.

Because demand for ghostwriters is exploding on this platform.

So, I built a LinkedIn Ghostwriter OS to help you get started.

It has everything you need to land high-paying clients before the end of 2025.

Inside, you'll get:

• 20+ AI prompts to help you build a business
• My "Leaks & Faucets" strategy for finding leads
• Viral content LI templates (that anyone can use)
• My $3M Sales Call script that closes high-ticket deals
• Voice matching prompt to write in any client's style
• A step-by-step, 30-day implementation roadmap

And tons more!

Comment "ghost" and I'll send you a free copy.

(And if we're not connected, send me a connection request with the word "ghost" and I'll send it over.)

If you’re low on creative ideas, it’s because you’re consuming too much content. Here’s how to fix it:

Drop everything and take a walk WITHOUT your phone.

Bring nothing but a pen + notecard.

Keep walking until you’ve filled the entire notecard with ideas.

This might take minutes.

Or it might take hours.

But you need to give your brain the space to process without overloading it with an endless feed.

Build silence like this into your daily routine.

Find a time of day where you break away from the chains of the social algorithm.

Let your mind:

• Relax
• Process
• Distill
• And synthesize

Watch your creative ideas (and your creative output) skyrocket as a result.

2 weeks ago, I boarded a flight from Austin to Miami plagued by a feeling of overwhelm:

• Half-made decisions
• Incomplete errands
• Unfinished projects

But 3 hours later?

I marched off the plane with elite clarity.

Here's the 7-step process I used to purge my life of open loops:

—
📌 I'm using this to scale my $600k/month business to $1,000,000/month.

But I made my first $10,000 online as a ghostwriter.

(While working 12-hour days at my Wall Street job.)

Ghostwriting is the perfect side hustle.

And right now, becoming a LinkedIn Ghostwriter is the easiest way to land high-paying clients.

Want to know how to land high-paying writing clients before 2026?

This free, 5-day email course has everything you need to get started: https://lnkd.in/eHkKx-rr

Bad way to learn copywriting:

1. Bookmark dozens of posts
2. Read all the books
3. Apply none of them

Instead, just read The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman.

It taught me more about copywriting than dozens of books combined.

And you can steal Sugarman's 7-step process to write high-converting copy (that helped me generate $15,000,000):

—
📌 Copywriting helped me build a 7-figure writing business.

(While working 12-hour days at my Wall Street job)

But I made my first $10,000 on the internet as a ghostwriter.

And right now, becoming a LinkedIn Ghostwriter is the easiest way to land high-paying clients.

Want to know how to land LinkedIn writing clients in 2025?

Here's a free, 5-day email course on how to get started: https://lnkd.in/eCFfC5cX

Things anxiety hates:

1. Action 
2. Specificity
3. Negative visualization

Said another way, when you feel that twinge of fear in your chest:

1. Do something

2. Do something that gets you closer to a specific outcome

3. Do something while accepting that if the result you so fear ends up happening, you're resilient enough to handle it

Anxiety is always a signal for action.

Rather then letting it hunt you down, probe deeper into these feelings.

Find what is uncertain or what you’re failing to communicate.

Take control over the parts you can, and DO SOMETHING.

You need to read this book.

Steve Jobs reread it every year for 38 years:

And at his memorial service, all 500 guests were given it.

In 1972, while in high school, Steve Jobs discovered the "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda.

In Yogananda's teachings, Jobs found the secret to channeling consciousness into creativity:

• He meditated daily
• Became a vegetarian
• Studied Zen Buddhism

And these 5 ideas from "Autobiography of a Yogi" helped him build the $1 trillion Apple empire:

1. Self-realization.

Steve Jobs was drawn to the spiritual disciplines of Kriya Yoga:

• Transcend limitations
• Access intuitive wisdom
• Manifest your fullest potential

These routines unlocked Jobs's inner genius.

2. Yogananda's "no limitations" message became Jobs's leadership mantra.

For Jobs, Apple products must:

• Be different 
• Push boundaries
• Disrupt industries

Macs, iPods, and iPhones all came from a mind expanded by meditation.

3. Yogananda helped Jobs tap into his intuition.

He described it as "more powerful than intellect" and credited it for his biggest breakthroughs.

Through daily meditation, Jobs strengthened his intuitive muscles.

4. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Yogananda once said:

"Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become."

Jobs's obsession with simplicity came from his pursuit of inner clarity.

5. Passion is born of a deep sense of purpose.

Jobs had a relentless drive to put a "dent in the universe."

And to do that, he needed to be passionate. Because if he didn't have passion for what he was doing, he wouldn't have been able to continue building Apple, even when times got tough.

Jobs always saw himself as part of the spiritual lineage of innovators like Yogananda.

And his dying wish for the world echoes the core message of the yogi whose words shaped his life.

"You can't connect the dots looking forward," he famously said. "Only backwards."

Yogananda's memoir was his map.

—
📌 I study legendary leaders as I build my digital business.

But I made my first $10,000 on the internet as a ghostwriter (while working my 40+ hour corporate job).

Ghostwriting is the easiest way to make money on LinkedIn.

Because right now, demand for LinkedIn Ghostwriters has never been higher.

Want help landing high-paying clients?

Here's a free, 5-day email course on how to get started: https://lnkd.in/eAnyMKPG

In my early 20s, I felt stuck.

I blamed:

• The rich
• My teachers
• The "algorithm"

Everyone but myself.

Then I faced these 4 inconvenient truths.

These helped me lose 100 pounds, quit my job, and build a $20,000,000 digital writing business:

—
📌 I realized these truths while writing consistently online.

This simple, but powerful daily habit is how I landed my first $5,000 client as a ghostwriter.

(While working 50+ hours/week at my Wall Street job.)

And right now, the quickest way to make money on LinkedIn is to become a ghostwriter.

Want to land high-paying writing clients?

I wrote a FREE 5-step blueprint with everything you need to make money ghostwriting on LinkedIn.

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this to get (free) instant access.

Most say relationships shouldn’t be transactional.

But I disagree.

Every relationship is transactional:

• Family
• Friends
• Viewers
• Readers
• Customers
• Significant others
• Day-to-day interactions

Thinking otherwise goes against human nature.

And this lens has improved all of my relationships.

Here’s why:

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📌 This framework helped me turn my writing side hustle into a $15,000,000 digital business.

But I made my first $10,000 online as a ghostwriter.

This is why I'm so bullish on ghostwriting:

• Easy to start (no writing experience needed)
• Perfect side hustle (I had a 40+ hour corporate job)
• Huge potential upside (my first client paid me $5,000)

Want a free, 5-day email course to help you get started?

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this post to get instant access.