0 > 90k Followers & $1M ARR in 16 weeks: The Playbook

Creator Journeys Edition 02

It’s funny how quickly things can change in business.

Last week was a major down point for me (read about what happened here) - this week I feel on top of the world.

Here’s why I’m in a much better mental state, an update on the cohorts vs done-for-you dilemma and why I believe things are about to turn the corner.

CONTEXT

Last week I was frustrated with:

The business model (cohorts vs agency)
Client churn
Lead generation
Team
Financial pressure
Not spending enough time in my week creating content

I went on some long walks with my son the past weekend (I’m lucky enough to live by some beautiful nature) and it gave me the mental space to think through all of these.

Here’s how I plan to tackle all of them.

Cohorts vs Done-for-you service

Since Andy’s criticism last week, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of what offer to lead with.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to prioritise the agency model and complete done-for-you service to grow the company.

The reasons why are obvious:

Less pressure on lead generation
More profits per client
Most sustainable business model

I’ve also realised that our ICP for this service is SaaS founders, not Agency founders.

The reason being is two-fold:

SaaS founders have less desire to build the infrastructure needed to support founder-led content in-house
SaaS founders have more money to invest in a done-for-you service model

This doesn’t mean I won’t work with or target agency owners. In fact, you could argue that (for me personally, at least), agency owners are more aligned to my experience & expertise.

But there’s something I’ve realised about agency owners that makes them better suited for the cohorts. And that is, quite simply, they already have a production infrastructure in-house.

This makes them less likely to have a high LTV as they’re more focused on learning our systems and strategy before migrating in-house.

This is where the cohort model is tailor-made for them.

We can teach them how to do this over a period of 3 months, instilling the habit of content creation & production before allowing them to utilise their own resources to continue thereafter.

This doesn’t mean that there won’t be agency founders on our full-service model or SaaS founders inside the cohorts. It’s just that the needs of each are slightly different.

So the cohorts will continue to build a powerful flywheel for our business through the velocity of clients passing through them spreading the good word, but they won’t be the fundamental offer we lean with to grow the company.

Client Churn

As mentioned last week, I’ve never had a single client yet leave this business due to a bad experience. It’s always been because they’ve moved to execute themselves in-house or because they were merely experimenting with content and weren’t fully bought-in on its long-term impact.

These are serious implications I need to consider when targeting prospects, selling to them in a way that manages expectations correctly, and ensuring that they are on the right model when they start.

By redefining our ICP and making sure each person is onboarded on the right offer, I believe we’ll start to have a high LTV that enables the business to scale.

Lead Generation

I’m now going to turn my attention towards focusing on SaaS founders and not packing the cohorts each quarter.

This will enable the business to grow more profitably, have less cashflow pressure, and incentivise the team more (we’re paying staff on deliverables with this business to ensure profitability is built into it from day 1).

I believe the cohorts will continue to grow naturally as a byproduct of our marketing engine growing across LinkedIn & Twitter, and I remain committed to evolving this service and ensuring it’s stellar.

Team

The one major bottleneck I had in the team was finding an account manager who could replace me so that I could grow the business and focus on high-leverage activities.

After redefining our ICP, it became obvious to me that Karthik (our marketing manager at Magnet Monster), would be a phenomenal asset for us.

I spoke to Wiehan (CEO at Magnet Monster) at length about the possibilities of borrowing Karthik for Content Army, and we figured a way out to make it happen.

I’m absolutely delighted Karthik will be joining us. He’s a seasoned operator with over a decade of experience in B2B content marketing and deeply understands the core goals we’re trying to achieve as a company.

I’ve also managed to convince Martin Mezei, a business development/sales expert to join us in a part-time capacity as we build our sales infrastructure.

I met Martin a few weeks ago in Barcelona through a mutual friend and I was ecstatic to learn that he was a creator himself on Instagram who completely understood our core mission.

Look out for Martin & Karthik’s content in the coming weeks - they’re going to play an integral part of us getting this marketing engine roaring!

They’re backed up by an incredible service layer of video editors and designers ready to serve ambitious founders.

Financial Pressure

The pivot to targeting SaaS founders will alleviate the questions about incremental gains investing in this business vs Magnet Monster.

We’re aiming to have a significantly higher margin on delivery for Content Army (email & ecomm is extremely high touchpoint which erodes margin) which means as long as I can generate leads and close sales for CA, it’ll have the same (or better) net gain for our businesses in the long run.

I also see Content Army being a synergistic accomplice to Magnet Monster as well, especially if we continue to service SaaS founders in the Shopify ecosystem.

However, pressure is still on to validate this business model now. There’s very little time for experimentation as we’re about 6-8 months behind our initial projections and still running at a small loss.

Time Management

I was immensely frustrated last week that I was spending so much time away from my core competencies.

I love client work dearly, but I knew unless I could find a skilled account manager then the business had no room to grow.

This week, I’ve spent nearly 3 full days just focused on creating content and getting our systems set up to scale production again.

It’s filled me with energy and optimism rather than firefighting.

My goal is to move towards 80% of my week focused exclusively on content creation and marketing. With the aforementioned changes, I’m confident this will happen in the next 3 months.

That’s it for the business update this week - now for some epic content!

CREATOR JOURNEYS PODCAST #02

Phil Graham is one of the most successful fitness coaches in the world.

Long before the days when everybody was an Instagram coach, he was one of the first to leverage 1-to-many and understand its impact on growing his wealth.

In this episode of Creator Journeys, Phil will share:

*How to leverage the 1-to-many business model to scale your wealth

*Leaning into authenticity to amplify your reach and differentiate so that you don’t compete on price

*Using in-person events & masterminds to create powerful growth flywheels

*Paid advertising strategy to amplify content distribution

Phil is an absolute machine at this game with over 50,000 IG followers and a prominent presence across LinkedIn & YouTube.

Leave your comments below and we’ll run through them during the event 👊