Justin Welsh At 4 M

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]

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

11/ Tripled down

After the course was outdated, people started asking for a new version.

I rebuilt the course, but this time charged $150.

The earlier $50 price was my "trust tripwire".

I charged $50, delivered 100x worth the price, and built trust w/ a loyal customer base.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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 $75k in 15 months.

The second version has grossed $186k in 3 months.

Next up...

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

14/ Built a community

As sales picked up, my interest in consulting faded.

I was doing $2k per day in info products and wanted to run with that.

I opened a private community for creators and charged $199.

Those who completed my course were prompted to join.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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 $9 upsell on each course.

8 months later it has 2,100+ subscribers.

Almost $19.3k MRR from something I was already doing.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

Now each weekly newsletter is paying $5,000, and people are getting their brand and business in front of a ton of readers.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

Finally, here's what my business revenue looks like:

Products: $2.34M
Consulting: $1.17M
MRR: $197k
Sponsorships: $164k
Community: $130k

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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...

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

Please RT https://t.co/WSV9ukavy4

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 23, 2023

Time to pivot and move up a little. Angel invest.

Invest 10K Now, Harvest 10M In 10 Yearshttps://t.co/46c9E5x24i
DemocracyTechhttps://t.co/fX1Weke5np

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 23, 2023

Soloprenuership may have defeated me, friends.

I’m prepping the resume and heading into the job market. Wish me luck.

— Ryan Giordano (@rtgiordano) May 22, 2023

I recently wrote a Tweet that generated:

- 2.6M Impressions
- 9K engagements
- 3K new followers
- 2.3K new email subs

I wrote it using a copywriting formula I created called VFCA.

Here's how it works (and how you can use it too):

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 23, 2023

I gave it a spin. https://t.co/CMltuYdHBi

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 23, 2023