@thejustinwelsh on Twitter, Yesterday, My Little One...

Yesterday, My Little One…

Metadata

• Author: @thejustinwelsh on Twitter
• Full Title: Yesterday, My Little One…
• Category:tweets
• Published Date: 2023-05-22
• URL: https://twitter.com/thejustinwelsh/status/1660619395532505094

Highlights

• Yesterday, my little one-person business crossed $4M in revenue. It took 1,352 days, I ran zero ads & operate at a 94% margin. Here are the 20 steps of my wild & strange journey: Hope it’s helpful to someone. [🧵 thread] (View Tweet)
• 1/ Created lots of noise When I was just getting started, I looked at attention as my friend. I wrote content every day before I even had a business, just to find my voice. I started on LinkedIn. I shared my thoughts & observations about building a SaaS unicorn as the CRO. (View Tweet)
• 2/ Honed in on signals Inside all of that noise? Signal. Sometimes I bombed, and sometimes I struck a chord. The more I looked at what resonated, the more I doubled down. This allowed me to understand what people cared about. So, I kept writing & talking about it. (View Tweet)
• 3/ Built a service business My experience building SaaS was resonating. So I began creating more and more content about that. Founders sent me DMs asking questions. I responded to every single one. Once I had prospects in my funnel, I started consulting. (View Tweet)
• 4/ Found my ideal customers Inside your customer base is more signals. What are the commonalities between the customers you love & those who love you? Mine were early-stage SMB SaaS in the healthcare space. A space I was experienced in & loved. That became my ideal customer. (View Tweet)
• 5/ 2x’ed my rates With a well-defined niche, some happy customers, and testimonials, I 2x’ed my rates. I started creating more content that was even more targeted. This led to more conversations with ideal-fit prospects. I said no to any company outside of my niche. (View Tweet)
• 6/ Reduced my time With new rates, I could have worked the same and made 2x as much. Instead, I chose to work 50% of the time and make the same. I used that extra time to figure out how to scale income that was more automated. My goal had always been to get my time back. (View Tweet)
• 7/ Kept my eyes and ears open Something really interesting happened. In an attempt to find common problems to productize, I started rereading my LinkedIn DMs. I had some repetitive questions about SaaS sales, but I also had an inbox jammed with questions about LinkedIn itself. (View Tweet)
• 8/ Tested a hypothesis Back then, I had grown to 20k+ followers on LinkedIn & people wanted to know more. I had a hypothesis that this would be an easy info product I could create & sell. I put together a short course for $50 (more on price later) & wrote posts about it. (View Tweet)
• 9/ Made my first product $$ I put the product for sale on Gumroad on April 16th, 2020. In the first month, I made $10,482. I was shocked. I now had my first digital product, but it was in a totally different niche than my service business. Honestly, this confused me. (View Tweet)
• 10/ Ran with it Over the next 15 months, I sold about $75k of the course. I posted about audience building on LinkedIn and found other ways to continue to land consulting clients. (VCs, news sites, blogs, SaaStr, etc) Even though it felt confusing, I continued to run with it. (View Tweet)
• 11/ Tripled down After the course was outdated, people started asking for a new version. I rebuilt the course, but this time charged $150.Theearlier$50 price was my “trust tripwire”. I charged $50, delivered 100x worth the price, and built trust w/ a loyal customer base. (View Tweet)
• 12/ Marketed aggressively With 100% of my LinkedIn content focused on audience growth, and a product directly related to that content, sales took off. My previous course grossed $75kin15months.Thesecondversionhasgrossed$186k in 3 months. Next up… (View Tweet)
• 13/ I began creating an army At the halfway point of my course, people are encouraged to leave a testimonial & sign up for an affiliate program. I built the same automation at the conclusion of the course. I now have 1,400+ affiliates that have generated $280,000+ in revenue. (View Tweet)
• 14/ Built a community As sales picked up, my interest in consulting faded. I was doing $2kperdayininfoproductsandwantedtorunwiththat.Iopenedaprivatecommunityforcreatorsandcharged$199. Those who completed my course were prompted to join. (View Tweet)
• 15/ Made a difficult decision I loved my community but realized that it didn’t work with my personality. It was a $15k MRR business, but I felt like I had to be “on” 24/7. That wasn’t the life I wanted to build. 15 months after starting it, I made a decision to shut it down. (View Tweet)
• 16/ Reinvested my time With way more free time now, I decided to start Tweeting. Using what I knew about growing on LinkedIn, I was able to hit 75k followers in about 6 months. This provided a new channel to build more stuff. So I did. (View Tweet)
• 17/ Created a 2nd digital course I was doing a podcast with @dickiebush and @nicolascole77 about how I built a system for writing content. The 500+ people on the call seemed to be amazed by it. That led to my 2nd course, The Content Operating System. (View Tweet)
• 18/ Added MRR I noticed that each week I was spending time creating content templates for myself. What if my audience wanted those too? I tested it as a $9upselloneachcourse.8monthslaterithas2,100+subscribers.Almost$19.3k MRR from something I was already doing. (View Tweet)
• 19/ Started a newsletter In January of 2022, I launched my newsletter, The Saturday Solopreneur. I was determined to deliver one piece of actionable advice each Saturday AM that could be read in 4 minutes or less. In the last 17 months, I’ve grown it to 115k+ subs. (View Tweet)
• 20/ Added sponsorships With over 115k subs, I can charge for each issue to be sponsored. I have 2 slots per issue, per week, that sell for $2,500.Noweachweeklynewsletterispaying$5,000, and people are getting their brand and business in front of a ton of readers. (View Tweet)
• Finally, here’s what my business revenue looks like: Products: $2.34MConsulting:$1.17M MRR: $197kSponsorships:$164k Community: $130k (View Tweet)
• A few notes of potential interest:
  1. I no longer do anything SaaS-related.
  2. I don’t do any paid ads.
  3. I don’t have any full-time employees, but I do have a wife that helps me stay very organized and a part-time VA.
  4. I don’t have any “growth assistants” or writers. (View Tweet)
• One last note: While this thread might be easy to read, none of this was actually easy.
  • It’s taken ~4 years & 4,000 pieces of content
  • There are days when I think it’s all going away
  • I’m an outlier - the creator game is tough Does that mean you shouldn’t try? No. But… (View Tweet)
• You should have a very “long game” mentality.
  1. Start a side project.
  2. Build it to 60% of your salary
  3. Then go all in. Good luck! I’m rooting for you. Thanks for taking some of your time to read this today. Feel free to ask a question & I’ll respond to as many as I can. (View Tweet)
• If you enjoyed this thread, then: → Follow me @thejustinwelsh for weekly info like this. → RT the first tweet to share it with others. (View Tweet)
• I go deep on these lessons every Saturday morning for over 115,000 solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and creators in my newsletter. If you’re building (or are thinking about building) your own thing, consider joining us. A 4-minute read or less each week: https://t.co/X3l2wg6fme (View Tweet)