Introduction
Client work pays this month. Intellectual property pays every month after. That sentence is obvious enough to be a cliché, and yet almost nobody restructures their week around it.
What counts as IP
Not a course. Not a PDF. IP is a documented method with a name, a version number, and a defensible reason it produces a result — something another person could apply without you narrating it over their shoulder.
If it only works when you explain it, it is a talent. If it works when someone reads it, it is an asset.
The compounding part
The first version is always worse than doing the work yourself. The fourth version is better than you are on a bad day, because it has absorbed every edge case you hit in between. That is the whole compounding mechanism, and it only starts when you write the first bad version down.
- Name the method before you feel it deserves a name.
- Version it publicly so improvements are visible rather than silent.
- Licence it annually rather than selling it once — renewal is the honest quality metric.
Where it ends up
Three years in, the method is the business and the founder is the editor. That is not a downgrade. It is the only version of the job that survives contact with a normal life.
