7 Digital Products You Can Create and Sell After Retirement

One of the advantages of starting an online business after retirement is that you don't necessarily need to invent something completely new.

You may already have decades of knowledge, hobbies, work experience, practical skills, and life lessons that could be turned into something useful for someone else.

A digital product gives you a relatively simple way to package some of that knowledge into something people can purchase and receive online.

There is no inventory to store. There are no boxes to pack. And once the product and delivery system are set up, a customer can often purchase your product and receive it automatically.

The bigger question for many beginners is: What could I actually create?

Here are seven types of digital products worth considering.

1. Short Guides and Ebooks

An ebook doesn't have to be a 200-page book.

In fact, your first digital product may be more useful if it is short, focused, and designed to solve one particular problem.

Suppose you've spent years traveling in an RV. Instead of trying to write a giant book about everything you've learned about RV travel, you could create something much more specific: Your First 30 Days of RV Travel: A Beginner's Guide.

Or perhaps you've spent years growing tomatoes. Your guide might be The Beginner's Backyard Tomato Growing Guide.

Other possibilities could include guides about woodworking, photography, genealogy, sewing, cooking, collecting, gardening, home organization, travel, pet care, crafts, or hundreds of other subjects.

Your professional experience could also provide ideas. Someone who spent a career in management might create a guide for first-time supervisors. A retired salesperson might create a guide about following up with prospects. Someone with bookkeeping experience might create a simple record-keeping guide for small businesses.

The key is narrowing the subject. Don't try to teach everything you know. Help the reader accomplish one specific thing.

Why this can be a good first product: you probably already have the basic tools needed to create a guide — a computer and writing software.

You can start with a simple outline, write one section at a time, format the finished guide as a PDF, and sell it as a download. That makes a short guide one of the most approachable digital products for beginners.

2. Checklists

Sometimes customers don't need another book. They need someone to tell them what to do next.

That's where checklists can be surprisingly useful.

Imagine someone preparing to take their first cruise. You could create The First-Time Cruise Vacation Checklist. It might cover what to do 60 days before the cruise, what documents to bring, what to pack, what to leave at home, and what to do on embarkation day.

Or perhaps you're experienced with estate sales. You might create The Family Estate Sale Preparation Checklist.

Other possibilities include moving checklists, vacation planning checklists, home maintenance checklists, wedding planning checklists, camping checklists, gardening checklists, new puppy checklists, small-business startup checklists, and holiday preparation checklists.

The value isn't necessarily in providing information that nobody has ever heard before. The value is in organizing the information so the customer doesn't have to.

That can save someone time, reduce mistakes, and make a complicated task feel manageable.

3. Planners and Workbooks

Planners and workbooks go a step beyond simply giving someone information. They help the customer actually do something.

For example, instead of creating an ebook about household budgeting, you could create a 30-Day Household Spending Workbook.

It might contain pages where customers record expenses, identify unnecessary spending, set savings goals, and review their progress each week.

Someone interested in gardening could create a garden planning workbook. A traveler could create a vacation planning workbook. A genealogy enthusiast could create a family history research planner. A hobbyist could create a project planner. A person experienced in business could create a business idea workbook.

This type of product can be particularly useful because customers aren't simply reading your advice. They're applying it.

Ask yourself: is there something I do using a repeatable process? If the answer is yes, that process might become a workbook. You can break the process into steps and create pages that guide someone through each one.

4. Templates

Templates help customers avoid starting with a blank page. That's valuable because the blank page is often where people get stuck.

Suppose you've spent years writing professional correspondence. You might create a collection of 25 Professional Email Templates for Small-Business Owners.

Someone experienced with resumes might create resume templates. A real estate professional might create property tracking templates. A teacher might create lesson-planning templates. Someone who loves organization might create household planning templates.

Other examples could include business forms, social media templates, email templates, newsletter templates, resume templates, budget templates, meal-planning templates, and project-planning templates.

A good template gives someone a useful starting point while allowing them to customize it for their own situation.

5. Spreadsheets and Calculators

You don't have to be a programmer to create a useful digital tool. Sometimes a well-designed spreadsheet can solve a problem extremely well.

For example, imagine someone trying to determine how much a long road trip will cost. You could create a spreadsheet where they enter number of miles, vehicle fuel economy, current gas price, hotel costs, food budget, and entertainment expenses. The spreadsheet calculates an estimated trip budget.

Other spreadsheet ideas might include household budget calculators, vacation budget planners, small-business expense trackers, inventory trackers, savings goal calculators, project cost estimators, garden planning spreadsheets, collecting inventories, and rental property trackers.

If you already use spreadsheets in your personal life or used them during your career, think about the tools you've created for yourself. Someone else may have the same problem.

6. Printable Resources

Printables are digital files customers purchase online but usually print at home. They can be relatively simple to create, which makes them another possible starting point for a beginner.

Examples include calendars, daily planners, weekly planners, meal planners, shopping lists, chore charts, activity sheets, educational worksheets, hobby trackers, travel planners, journaling pages, and goal-setting sheets.

The challenge with printables is that there are already many available online. That means specificity can make a big difference.

Instead of creating another generic weekly planner, consider creating something designed for a particular audience or situation.

For example, Weekly Meal Planner for Two is more specific than Meal Planner. And 12-Week Vegetable Garden Planning Sheets for Beginners is more specific than Garden Planner.

Specific products make it easier for customers to recognize that the product was designed for them.

7. Mini-Courses and Tutorials

If you enjoy teaching, you might eventually consider creating a small online course. But don't assume that your first course needs 50 lessons and professional video production.

A mini-course could teach one specific skill in a handful of lessons.

For example, How to Organize Your Family Photos in One Weekend might contain five short lessons. Or Smartphone Photography for Grandparents could teach someone how to take better family photographs using the phone they already own.

Other possibilities might include beginner gardening lessons, craft tutorials, cooking lessons, software tutorials, music lessons, drawing lessons, home repair instruction, hobby instruction, business skills, and technology lessons for beginners.

You could deliver the lessons through video, written material, email, downloadable PDFs, or a combination.

The goal is not to create the world's most comprehensive course. The goal is to help someone achieve a clearly defined result.

Which Digital Product Should You Start With?

After seeing all these possibilities, you might be tempted to create several products. Resist that temptation. Choose one.

Your first product should ideally be something you can realistically finish.

A 20-page guide that gets published is more valuable to your business than a 300-page book you've been working on for two years. A simple spreadsheet customers can use today may be more valuable than an elaborate software program you never finish.

Try asking yourself three questions: What do I know something about? What problem can I help someone solve? What is the simplest product I could create to help them solve it?

Your answers may point you toward a very different product than you initially expected.

You Don't Have to Create Something Completely Original

This concern stops many people before they begin. They search online and discover that someone has already created something similar to their idea. That's normal.

There are thousands of cookbooks, budgeting guides, planners, gardening books, courses, and business resources.

Customers aren't necessarily looking for something that has never existed before. They're looking for something that fits their particular situation.

Your experience, explanation, organization, examples, perspective, and audience can make your product different.

You don't need to invent gardening. You might simply create the gardening guide that makes sense to someone planting their first garden at age 65.

Use Your Experience as a Starting Point

One advantage of starting a business later in life is that you have more experiences to draw from.

Think about your career. Think about your hobbies. Think about the things friends and family ask you for help with. Think about problems you've solved repeatedly. Think about things you know now that you wish someone had explained to you 20 years ago.

Those can all become sources of digital product ideas.

You might even write down 10 subjects you know reasonably well. Then, beside each subject, write down three problems a beginner might encounter. You could quickly have 30 possible product ideas.

Don't worry about deciding which one is perfect. You're looking for possibilities.

What About Artificial Intelligence?

AI tools can make creating digital products easier, particularly when it comes to brainstorming, outlining, editing, and organizing information.

But AI shouldn't replace your judgment or experience. If you're creating a guide based on something you've done for years, your experience is part of what gives the product value.

You can use AI as an assistant. For example, you might ask it to help organize your ideas into an outline or suggest questions a beginner might have. Then you add your own knowledge, examples, recommendations, and voice.

The result should still be something you're comfortable putting your name on.

How Much Should Your First Product Cost?

There's no single correct answer. A simple checklist or printable might sell for only a few dollars. A detailed workbook, guide, or template package could sell for considerably more. A course could be priced higher still.

But when you're starting, don't spend weeks worrying about finding the perfect price. Your first goal is learning whether people want the product. You can adjust pricing as you learn.

Start Small and Finish

Perhaps the most useful advice for a first digital product is also the simplest: make it small enough to finish.

You can always add more products later. Your first guide might lead to a workbook. Your workbook might lead to a template package. Those products might eventually lead to a course. But none of that needs to happen today.

Choose one useful problem. Create one useful solution. Finish it. Put it in front of real people. Then learn from what happens.

That's how a collection of digital products can begin—with one manageable product rather than an entire online empire.

Ready to Find Your Online Business Direction?

Digital products can be a good fit for people who enjoy creating useful resources and would like the ability to sell the same product more than once. But they're only one of several online business models.

Take the free Learn. Retire. Earn. Online Business Fit Quiz to compare six different online business models and discover which one may fit your interests, available time, budget, experience, and preferred way of working.

Already know that digital products are the direction you want to pursue? The Online Business Launch Kit provides a practical 30-day action plan to help you turn your business idea into something real, one manageable step at a time.