Offer first

by Dale Davidson March 18, 2026

There is a popular YouTube entrepreneur named Alex Hormozi who ran and sold a successful gym business, gym software business, and now owns a sort-of private equity company.

He is a cheesy influencer type (which helps him cultivate deal flow for his company) but his book, $100M Offers has some gems in it.

$100M Offers: How to Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No

The core idea is that in business, instead of starting with what you're good at or your skills, you start with the offer.

You figure out what a potential customer wants and would definitely want to buy, and then figure out how you if/how you can deliver.

“The pain is the pitch.” If you can articulate the pain a prospect is feeling accurately, they will almost always buy what you are offering. A prospect must have a painful problem for us to solve and charge money for our solution.”

As an aspiring 1099, a logical way of finding a gig is to talk about your skills and what you are capable of doing.

This often works because many gigs are plug and play and the "problem" that the customer is solving is "hire a person with X skills."

BUT, if you want to differentiate yourself from everyone else with the same skill, you need to figure out the core problem the customer or program manager is trying to solve.

Let's say the customer is trying to hire a data analyst with SQL skills. Okay, lots of those exist.

But does the client care about SQL skills? Not really. They care that their boss is complaining that reports aren't getting done fast enough. Or the analysis is wrong or inconsistent which is embarassing.

If you get to a conversation with a PM, you can differentiate yourself by saying something like "If you bring me on I'll implement my SQL quality assurance and automation process, which makes analysis accurate AND faster."

If that's truly the PM's problem, they'll be dying to hire you and then you'll have more leverage as a 1099.

So in your field, first, think about what problems the customer has and what a dream offer would look like to them.

Then, see if that's something you can deliver and pitch it in your conversations with PMs, include it in your resume, and ask your network to introduce you to people who have that problem.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.