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Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins

Folding Ideas・56 minutes read

YouTube ads promote fraudulent schemes like passive income scams by Contrepreneurs such as the Mikkelsen Twins, who exploit individuals with their deceptive tactics and low-quality content, leading to bans from platforms like Amazon for life. Despite claims of success, their methods are criticized for producing shallow and inaccurate content while pressuring individuals to invest in expensive courses, highlighting the dangers of their manipulative practices.

Insights

  • The Mikkelsen Twins engage in fraudulent practices by selling vague advice at inflated prices and violating platform terms of service, showcasing a lack of competence in their schemes despite their notoriety.
  • The Urban Writers, founded by the Moutinhos, operate as a job-posting platform for ghostwriting projects, where writers are expected to compromise on objectivity and truthfulness to meet client demands, resulting in potentially shallow and repetitive final products due to tight timelines and limited research.

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Recent questions

  • What is hustle culture?

    A culture promoting hard work and success.

  • Who are the Mikkelsen Twins?

    Con-artists blending entrepreneurship with scams.

  • What is passive income?

    Income requiring minimal effort for earnings.

  • What is review-trading?

    Exchanging reviews to boost product visibility.

  • What is ghostwriting?

    Writing on behalf of someone else.

Related videos

Summary

00:00

YouTube ads promote Contrepreneurs' passive income scams.

  • YouTube ads bombard the viewer with hustle culture, passive income, and investment scams.
  • The Mikkelsen Twins are highlighted as Contrepreneurs, blending con-artistry with entrepreneurship.
  • Passive income is a key promise in fraudulent businesses, enticing individuals with minimal effort for income.
  • Contrepreneurs like the Mikkelsen Twins profit from selling vague advice at inflated prices.
  • The Twins' scheme involves Grift A, a workshop promising passive income, and Grift B, creating low-quality audiobooks for profit.
  • Grift B entails creating audiobooks by combining trending topics with low evidence standards and spamming them on various platforms.
  • The Twins encourage review-trading in private Facebook groups to boost visibility for their spam products.
  • The Twins' tactics often violate platform terms of service, revealing their fraudulent nature.
  • Despite their notoriety, the Mikkelsen Twins are not highly successful and are just one example of many similar online hustlers.
  • The Twins' lack of subtlety and competence in their scheme makes them entertaining but also exposes their fraudulent practices.

13:22

Seminar exposes unethical marketing tactics and high costs.

  • The importance of ethical reviews is highlighted, emphasizing the need to purchase books honestly.
  • Despite the effort required, the model presented is deemed as requiring minimal effort, money, time, and skill for success.
  • The seminar showcases quality filtering, with a poorly executed pitch attracting a lower standard of quality.
  • The use of deceptive marketing tactics, like labeling Audible as "Amazon's best kept secret," is discussed.
  • The target market for the seminar is identified as individuals lacking skills or interest in learning new ones.
  • The excessive use of testimonials in the seminar is criticized for diminishing returns and reflecting desperation.
  • The seminar is noted for providing intriguing insights into the Twins and their operations, including repeated book titles.
  • The questionable nature of the seminar's claims about unpublished audiobooks is exposed, revealing discrepancies in their publishing history.
  • The seminar's high cost and questionable value are highlighted, with additional upsells expected.
  • The process of testing the seminar's methods, including using a ghostwriting service for a controversial book, is detailed.

26:36

Ghostwriting Challenges and Ethical Dilemmas Unveiled

  • The Urban Writers was founded in 2017 as a division of Dibbly Inc. alongside Dibbly Publishing, both creations of the Moutinhos.
  • The Urban Writers functions as a job-posting board for ghostwriting contracts.
  • Writers at The Urban Writers are not allowed to use their real names and are subject to disciplinary action if they do so.
  • The deliverable for ghostwriting projects is 25,000 words with a 30-day turnaround, averaging 1000 words per day.
  • The main challenge for nonfiction writers is research, which can be time-consuming and may yield little valuable information.
  • The final product of ghostwriting projects may be shallow and repetitive due to tight timelines and limited research.
  • The Urban Writers' training materials suggest writers may need to compromise on objectivity and truthfulness to meet client demands.
  • The book "Treating Epilepsy with Self-Hypnosis" by Brad Default contains questionable claims and relies heavily on easily available information.
  • The writer of the book, Scott, minimizes the presence of insanity in the content and focuses on meeting word count.
  • To increase word count, the writer suggests including definitions and quotations, with a limit of 10% of the book being quotations.

41:36

Writer's Reflection on Writing Process and Industry

  • The writer discusses the persuasive power of set and setting, the power of suggestion in a collaborative relationship, and being open to persuasion.
  • The writer mentions facing writer's block but managing to get ahead of quota by writing over 4,000 words in a day.
  • The writer plans to write two chapters based on 2,000 words per chapter, with eight days remaining to complete the task.
  • Despite feeling drained of ideas, the writer still needs to write the introduction and conclusion, which can be more autobiographical.
  • The writer reflects on the financial aspect of writing, calculating rates for ghostwriters and the cost of writing a book.
  • The writer discusses the stress and time-consuming nature of writing, including research and editing processes.
  • The writer paid $603.75 for writing and editing services, with the writer being paid 1¢ per word.
  • The writer reflects on the emotional and financial aspects of writing, acknowledging the privilege of not relying on writing for income.
  • The writer discusses the founding of The Urban Writers and its purpose of providing cheap writing services.
  • The writer critiques the Mikkelsen Method for creating unideal clients and producing inaccurate, low-quality content.

58:19

Deceptive Twins Sell Exhausted Content Method

  • The method is structured to produce low-quality, deceptive content to attract readers through deception.
  • The creators no longer use their own method, transitioning to selling it instead.
  • Their content is from 2018 and 2019, focusing on low-quality audiobook spam.
  • Amazon banned them for life due to their attempts at posting "Spanish" versions through Google Translate.
  • The Twins sell a method they've already exhausted, pivoting to selling the method itself.
  • The initial window for generating SEO spam profitably has closed.
  • The business model relies on exploiting individuals like Scott to produce content at low rates.
  • The Mickelson twins manipulate individuals into believing success is guaranteed through their methods.
  • They offer a "done for you" partnership, emphasizing minimal effort on the client's part.
  • The Mickelsons are part of a larger ecosystem that relies on platforms like Amazon and gig economy arrangements for their operations.

01:12:14

Deceptive marketing tactics for hypnosis course

  • The book "A Skeptic’s Guide to Hypnosis" was published without any review trading or spamming, aiming to generate passive income. Despite selling only one copy, the authors claim that success is possible but not guaranteed, with testimonials suggesting exceptional results that may not be typical.
  • The authors aggressively market their hypnosis course, claiming it's worth tens of thousands of dollars and offering bonuses valued at over $21,000. They pressure potential buyers to make a quick decision, even encouraging them to go into debt to afford the course, portraying it as a valuable investment while critics argue it's predatory and potentially harmful.
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