I just finished $100M Leads by Alex Hormozi. Below is every concept from the book ranked by how directly it applies to my situation: an independent engineer building projects, publishing open-source tools, writing a technical blog, and offering consulting, but with no lead generation infrastructure to connect any of it to an audience. Each section ends with a status tag and a research direction. Skip to the sequenced action plan.
The framework in 30 seconds
Hormozi organizes all lead generation into four methods he calls the “Core Four”:
| One-to-One | One-to-Many | |
|---|---|---|
| Warm | Warm Outreach | Free Content |
| Cold | Cold Outreach | Paid Ads |
You master them in order. You amplify them by getting other people (referrals, affiliates, employees) to do them on your behalf. And the philosophy underneath all of it: give away so much value for free that paying you becomes the obvious next step.
The sections below are ranked by a mix of leverage and urgency: infrastructure gaps that block everything else come first, then areas where I’m already executing, then growth channels ordered by cost and complexity.
1. The newsletter signup doesn’t have a newsletter behind it
This turned out to be the highest-priority fix.
My site has a “Notify me” email signup on the homepage and at the bottom of every blog post. It uses Web3Forms, which is a form submission handler. When someone submits the form, I get an email notification. That’s it. There is no subscriber list, no broadcast capability, and no way to send a follow-up. The signup exists, but the infrastructure behind it doesn’t.
Before lead magnets, before distribution strategy, before anything else: I need an actual email platform. The question is which one. I need to research what technical bloggers are using, what has a reasonable API for custom integrations, and what handles the transition from “notify on new posts” to actual nurture sequences without overcomplicating things early on.
Status: Not started. Next step: research email platforms used by technical bloggers (Buttondown, ConvertKit, Beehiiv, etc.) and evaluate against my actual requirements.
2. Give away the secrets, sell the implementation
Hormozi’s core philosophy: share your best knowledge freely because knowing what to do and actually doing it are completely different things. People consume your free content, realize they can’t or won’t execute it themselves, and pay for the implementation.
This is the one area where I’m already executing well. My blog reverse-engineers Claude Code internals, documents undocumented MCP behaviors, and publishes production patterns. My open-source projects (MCP API Bridge, contributions to the MCP Python SDK) give people working tools they can use directly. The MCP API Bridge project page even has an explicit CTA: “Need an MCP server built for your API? Get in touch.”
Some readers will take what I publish and run with it on their own. That’s a win. Others will read something like the ShopForge architecture post and realize they want help building something similar, or discover a tool like Stylize MCP Server and become a user. The free content feeds everything: consulting, project adoption, and open-source community.
Status: Already happening. Keep going. Increase depth and volume.
3. Create a lead magnet
A lead magnet is something free you offer in exchange for contact information. Hormozi ranks them by value: tools beat services beat information. A checklist someone can use in five minutes beats a 30-page ebook they’ll never read.
I have zero lead magnets right now. The newsletter signup only promises “I’ll email you when I publish something new.” There’s no immediate value exchange.
Some initial ideas worth exploring:
- Tool-based: Something derived from MCP API Bridge, packaged as a downloadable scaffold. Hormozi’s hierarchy says tools outperform information.
- Checklist-based: A production readiness checklist drawn from patterns across my blog posts.
- Service-based: A free architecture review or audit for teams adopting Claude Code or MCP.
Hormozi calls this the “Problem-Solution Continuum”: your free thing handles a chunk of someone’s larger problem, and the rest is what they pay you for. The key question I haven’t answered yet is which format my specific audience would actually use. That requires talking to readers and seeing what they’re struggling with, not guessing from a book framework.
Status: Blocked on #1 (email infrastructure). Next step: research what lead magnets work in developer-focused niches and talk to people in my audience about what they’d actually find useful.
4. Content volume and distribution
Hormozi’s “Rule of 100”: 100 minutes per day minimum on content creation. His content structure is Hook-Retain-Reward: stop the scroll, keep attention, deliver enough value that they feel it was worth their time.
My content quality is solid. My titles are already hook-driven (“Everything Broke at Once: Triaging Claude Desktop After a Week of Outages”). But I have 13 published posts (not counting this one) over the past eight months, with most published in March 2026. The sustained rate is low.
The distribution gaps are just as significant:
- No social sharing buttons on blog posts. Readers who want to share have to manually copy the URL.
- No cross-posting or syndication to any platform.
- No content repurposing. Each blog post lives and dies on my site.
- LinkedIn is my confirmed channel (it’s linked on my site, it’s where my B2B audience lives) but I’m not repurposing content there.
I also have 8 draft posts sitting unpublished. That’s immediate inventory.
Hormozi’s “More, Better, New” framework says to exhaust “more” (increase volume) and “better” (improve conversion) before adding “new” (new channels). The principle is clear, but the right cadence and distribution strategy for a technical niche like mine probably looks different from what works for a business coach. I need to study what other developer-focused writers are doing with repurposing and which platforms actually drive traffic for this kind of content.
Status: Not optimized. Next step: research distribution strategies for technical blogs, figure out sustainable cadence, and decide which platforms are worth the repurposing effort.
5. Warm outreach
Hormozi’s starting point for everyone: reach out personally to people who already know you. His framework is ACA (Acknowledge, Compliment, Ask). The ask isn’t to sell. It’s to offer help or ask if they know someone who needs it.
I have nearly 10 years at eBay plus prior enterprise experience. That’s a deep network of engineering leaders, many of whom are now at companies adopting AI tools. The trust already exists, which means conversion is high and the cost is zero.
The general framing would be something like: “Are you or your team exploring Claude Code or MCP? I’ve been building with it since launch and happy to share what I’ve learned.” But the specifics of how to approach this at scale, what channels to use, and how to track what’s working all need more thought. Hormozi’s ACA framework is a starting point, not a finished playbook.
Status: Not started. Next step: figure out the right approach for reaching my specific network without it feeling like a mass campaign.
6. The Dream 100
Borrowed from Chet Holmes: identify 100 people or platforms that already have your ideal audience. Build genuine relationships over time. Provide value first. Collaborate later through guest posts, podcast appearances, or co-promotion.
My open-source contributions (MCP SDK PR, MCP API Bridge) already put me in proximity to some of these people organically. But I haven’t been intentional about it. Who exactly belongs on this list, what “providing value” looks like in practice for each person, and how to build these relationships without it feeling transactional are all open questions.
Status: Not started. Next step: research who the key voices and platforms are in the Claude/MCP ecosystem and figure out what genuine engagement looks like.
7. The starving crowd
Hormozi’s #1 factor in marketing success: find people actively desperate for a solution. A mediocre offer to a starving crowd beats a perfect offer to a lukewarm audience.
I’ve found mine: developers and teams adopting Claude Code and MCP who are hitting undocumented walls in a fast-moving, poorly-documented ecosystem. Nearly all of my posts cluster around this pain point. The ecosystem is new enough that I’m one of the few people publicly documenting what works and what breaks.
Status: Already positioned here. Don’t dilute into general AI content.
8. The goodwill framework
Every interaction builds or depletes goodwill. Content and free resources are deposits. Sales asks are withdrawals. You need more deposits than withdrawals for the asks to feel natural.
My ratio is healthy. I have a “Working Together” section on the about page, consulting mentions on every blog post, project pages with clear CTAs, and a contact form with multiple engagement options. But all of those asks lead directly to a contact form with no nurture path between “interested reader” and “fills out form.” There’s a gap where email nurture should live: the place where I keep making deposits before asking for the withdrawal.
Status: Depends on #1 (email infrastructure). Once email exists, this gap closes naturally.
9. Cold outreach
Reaching out to strangers with a personalized, value-first message. Hormozi’s process: build a targeted list, personalize each message, lead with value, follow up relentlessly.
Lower priority for me because the content engine can do heavy lifting. The general idea is to identify companies adopting these tools and share relevant content with their engineering leads. But cold outreach to technical audiences is easy to get wrong. The line between “sharing useful research” and “unsolicited pitch” is thin, and the norms in developer communities are different from the B2B sales world Hormozi comes from.
Status: Not started. Next step: study how other independent engineers and builders in technical niches approach cold outreach without burning credibility.
10. LTV > CAC
You can afford to spend more per lead than competitors if your lifetime value per client or user is higher. Consulting engagements, SaaS subscriptions, and long-term project relationships all have high LTV, which means investing significant time per lead (deep blog posts, personalized outreach, free tools) is rational.
This also connects to the “More, Better, New” framework. Before adding new channels, I should exhaust more volume and better distribution on what’s already working. The unpublished drafts mentioned in section 4 are “more” sitting on the shelf.
Status: Ongoing. The math favors depth and personalization over breadth.
11. Referrals
The principle is straightforward: after delivering work or helping someone succeed with a tool, ask for referrals at the moment when they’re most satisfied. Open-source work also functions as a passive referral engine, since people discover my code and then find my site.
The details matter though. When to ask, how to ask, whether to offer incentives, and how to make referrals easy without making them feel like an obligation are all things I need to think through once I have more active engagements and users to learn from.
Status: Future. Next step: revisit once I have real experience to draw from.
12. Paid ads
Hormozi’s final Core Four method: paying to put your message in front of cold audiences at scale. Start with your best organic content, put money behind it, and track CAC vs LTV.
Lowest priority for me right now. My niche may be too specific for broad paid ads to be cost-efficient, but I don’t actually know that yet. There might be narrow targeting options on LinkedIn or other platforms that work for technical audiences. The honest answer is I have no data here and won’t until the organic foundation is in place.
Status: Not yet. Next step: revisit after items 1-7 are operational and I have enough traffic data to make informed decisions about paid acquisition.
The plan, sequenced
Committing to now:
| Priority | Action | Research needed | Blocked by |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Set up real email platform | Evaluate platforms for technical bloggers | Nothing |
| 2 | Keep publishing deep technical content | Sustainable cadence for this niche | Nothing |
| 3 | Create one lead magnet | What format my audience actually wants | #1 |
| 4 | Publish draft posts, add share buttons | Which distribution channels matter | Nothing |
Items 1, 2, and 4 can start in parallel. Item 3 is gated on email infrastructure.
Needs further exploration:
| Action | Open questions |
|---|---|
| Warm outreach to professional network | How to approach this authentically |
| Repurpose posts to other platforms | Which platforms drive technical traffic |
| Build Dream 100 list | Who the key voices are in this ecosystem |
| Systematic referral program | What works for referrals in this space |
| Cold outreach to adopting companies | Norms for outreach in dev communities |
| Paid acquisition | Whether narrow targeting even works here |
The highest-leverage change is also the most foundational: the site’s email signup has no list or broadcast capability behind it. Everything else builds on fixing that first.