168. We Just Hit A Record MRR At Collective Shift!

And it's just a nice position to be in now. Like we go back two years ago we were like scraping peanut butter off the floor to stay afloat and now we've got a bit of a war chest. We've got a good balance sheet, we've got great Runway, we've got good projections, numbers are good, which allows us to reinvest more in the business, create a better experience for our members, hire amazing people, deliver great experiences and it's just a revolving flywheel once you get it going. Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Bergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift alongside Ms. Bergs, your favorite MBA and CEO of Collective Shift. Join us as we bring you world class crypto research and strategies to help you dominate this crypto bull market as well as behind the scenes viewers scanning a fully remote subscription research business here in Australia. If you like the podcast, we'd love for you to share it around or leave us a follow on your favorite podcasting app or on YouTube. Because today we are talking about we've just hit a new record monthly recurring revenue Collective Shift, which is super exciting. We're coming up to our fourth birthday and bergs, we have doubled our MRR in the last six months, which is nuts considering the market conditions.

It's incredible, mate. What a milestone.

Yeah.

And this is just testament to everyone in the company, us sticking to our strategy and executing and just getting after it, mate. It's such. I couldn't believe it. Like after the numbers were like, all right.

We're like, wait, what exactly?

And things haven't even popped off in crypto man. Like, yeah, you know, the bull market has begun but it's nowhere near peak or even accelerating to the peak. We've got so much further to go and the company is just looking amazing.

Yeah. And we're coming up to our fourth birthday in October. So I feel as though the first two and a half, three years were pretty brutal. But something started to click and we're starting to really find, you know, product market fit. And I think, you know, even from the member feedback recently, like really, you know, a lot of the feedback's been that we're really adding a lot of value and helping people navigate through the cycle. And I think one of the biggest, you know, changes or additions to the business has recently been our platinum, our platinum membership, which has been an awesome addition. For those that don't know, we run like an invite only high net wealth membership tier high, primarily for people with minimum quarter of a million in their portfolio. And you know, we've grown that membership base so I think somewhere between 50 and 60 members now, which is, which is awesome. And everyone in there is at a super high level, either business owners, doctors, entrepreneurs, property investors, etcetera that have a large crypto portfolio. They just need more guidance and clarity on how to navigate the market, maximize this cycle and really build like a long term portfolio. And we share frameworks and insights to help them with their portfolio. And I spend one on one time with them and I flying around Metaguite. One of our platinum's in Bali recently, Brisbane, Melbourne, going to Adelaide soon, you know, Perth. We got guys from the uk, us, Dubai. It's awesome. Like this group is really phenomenal. And South Africa and yeah, the, the group is of a really good quality which is awesome. And we're, you know, really able to help them out.

Mate, let's talk through our product offerings. So how we've changed over time. So I started in 2022. Whatever you were doing before then was just nonsense. Let's be honest and.

Well, let's talk about what we were doing. We were doing, we had Starter Insider on Pro, So we had 19amonth, 99amonth and 199amonth. And really, I'm not gonna lie, we didn't really know what we're doing. You know, we're kind of trying to, we're trying to service every part of the market from complete beginners to experienced investors. And you know, for those around a business before, trying to have more than one Persona when you're just trying to start out is just next to impossible. You cannot service every part of a, of a market.

Yeah, and I think that was the model we had in 2020 when the collectorship platform was first launched. And then when I started in March 22, you had one membership, which is a pro membership and it was 1999, so US$2,000, which is about 3,000 Australian at this massive like sales page. And yeah, customers were few and far between. Are you selling like what, $7 hooks and leads and offers and it was all over, nonsense all over the shop.

I think the hardest thing was we didn't really know what we were selling, we didn't know who we were selling to. And that then created this really mixed marketing message that didn't really, you know, resonate with anybody because we're trying to sell a 3000 Australian product by hooking them in on a $7 basic offer. It's like, what, how does that work.

Exactly. We didn't know what the brand was. We didn't know who we were. So how can we expect our customers to know who we are and what we offer and who we're speaking to? Trying to be something for everyone and just get customers wherever you can, because that's what worked in the past. So that was, that was really horrendous. And the business was fat. When I started, you had so many people, like, who are all these people and what do they do?

We had a lot of people. And I think, you know, one of the, one of the problems were we were trying.

We didn't know who we were servicing. So ultimately we didn't know what the problems we were solving. So we're trying to solve every problem. And what end up happening was we wasn't. We weren't really solving any problems because we were trying to solve every problem. And one of the biggest, like, you know, I was shit moments was Gold coast oz crypto con two or three years ago, 2022, 2022, when we had all three products. We had the $7 ultimate crypto blueprint or whatever the hell it was called, and people coming up to us going, what do you guys do? How do you help me and what do I need to get to get the help we need? And we were like, I was saying something, the other guys were saying something else. We're trying to push them into the $7 thing. Maybe they get the 99, maybe they get the 19, maybe they're 199. Who knows? We don't really actually really know. And that was a real oh shit moment coming after that conference going, we know what we talk about, we know our shit in terms of research and education, but we are not productizing this and we are not making this easy for like, we can't even explain what people need and what we do. How on earth are the customers supposed to figure out what. What we do? And that was like, okay, that was, that was a big, big moment for.

Us to shift.

Exactly right. And we didn't know who our customers were, which product they would fit into, what was good for them or if they were a good fit. Let's stay with 2022, then we'll go to 2023. And up to now, so end of 2022 was the oh shit moment. So you're out there, you're raising capital, you're going to America, Dubai, Singapore. And the general thing was, if we had a problem, throw money at it, and no one was really looking after the money. We had the big oh shit moment. We had to essentially restructure the company, the org structure. We had to lean the company out. We had to have only the people we absolutely needed. And there were a few people in the company that weren't performing that needed to go. And that was, that was probably the. One of the toughest times in the business, I think.

Yeah, we cut half our staff, basically half the expenses of our staff. It was pretty brutal. But that was one of the things we had to do. We were over resourced. We were in a bear market and we're trying to figure out that we hadn't really figured out. Think that's just a, you know, perhaps of quite a common thing in startups. I mean it goes one of two paths, right? You make the difficult decisions and you figure it out or you run out of money and the business ends. That's really the only two options you have. And for 90% of businesses, they run out of money. And you know that we were very close, you know, a number of times.

Yeah, we were hemorrhaging money, we were hemorrhaging users as well. So the churn was just insane because crypto was boring and yet people just like, nah, I don't need this anymore. And it was like, jesus, how do we get more customers? We were servicing our old customers.

Yeah.

And we were just like, please don't leave. Yeah. Instead of working out what the market segment was that we were going to chase. And I think around the December time, we redid our website, we redid our product offerings. And then In February, in 2023, you started doing sales calls. So we actually went through and created those Personas who we were going to target. And then we started going after them. And you got on the phones.

Yeah, that was a really interesting.

Time because all of a sudden we started getting all this data from like new users in the market, you know, people that had problems. And we're trying to figure out how to solve those problems. And we started to get all this new data of what the new business model would look like in terms of who are the customers that we're trying to target. And I remember the first 2030 calls, they were very, very bad because I had no idea what I was doing. I've never done sales calls in my life. Didn't even know what. I remember just getting on the phone and going, you know, hey Aaron, what's your, what's the biggest problem you've got right now in crypto? And you. And you'd be like, well, you know, I don't know how to move my crypto from my, from my exchange to my wallet. I'm like, okay, cool, this is what you do. And then at the end you go, oh, awesome man, I appreciate your help. And I'm like, yeah, no worries. Oh, we've also got this membership if you want.

And it was like 0% conversion rate. Right. Like I was just helping, which I love and I still help people to this day. But it was more about giving them the, the, the overview of like the future problems they'll have, other areas of their portfolio, other things that they may need, you know, across their journey of investing crypto, like, you know, portfolio structure, education, community, you know, sales strategies, things like that that they don't even know is something that they need. And that's now something we share on this call is just like other areas of sort of their journey that you know, we help with. And you know, that was just again a journey of learning sales calls, learning about, you know, how can we help people. Pricing points, pain points, the terminology that people use, all of that. Like it was just a huge learning experience. But, you know, yeah, yeah.

And we started doing Ben and Bergs along the way. We started doing monthly webinars as well. And we had to go after recession proof customers because interest rates are going up. Crypto is very boring. People are leaving the market, they have to worry about paying their mortgages, you know, and, but there is a class of people where they, sorry, a cohort of people that, you know, have more money, are recession proof and recognize the opportunity in the market. So we started doing these kind of webinars. We were educating a lot of people, were getting pro members. We did the kind of cross promotion with big exchanges as well with our research. And I feel like that is where we really started to build our brand.

Yeah, the credibility. There was a, there was a tipping point that I feel, you know, from probably somewhere around.

Two years ago, there was a tipping point where it went from we were trying to work with everyone else to build our brand and trust and reputation to overnight I feel as though it's flipped. And then now everyone wanted to work with us because we were the trusted, reputable company and now we have endless amounts of, you know, exchanges, inquiries, B2B, all sorts of stuff about people wanting to work with us. And that really comes down to our, really our trust and reputation. And the biggest point of difference for us and something we've always stuck by is being completely independent and never taking any external money for advertising. Advertising, no commissions, no Paid promotion, no, no affiliate deals, nothing. Like, we only make money through the subscription fees that we charge for our information. And if our members are making money, they stick around with us and if they don't, they cancel. And the fact that we've grown to our highest monthly, you know, recurring revenue figure and our highest number of members is the reputation and results that we are creating for our members that we hold our hat on. And if we're not doing a good job, people will leave. Like, that's, that's the only way this works. And I'm very proud of that for us, for, for never, for never taking on that, that external money.

Exactly. We've gone the hard route because we want to be here for the long term and we've made it so they can't say no. And we've done that by making that choice to be like, okay, we're going to be front facing, we're going to do a lot of social media across a lot of channels. You've been d. Diligent with this for like a year and a half and that sucks for the first six months to a year. But then you hit that tipping point and you grow and you compound. So everyone knows who you are, they know what's going on in your life and they know about collective shit. They see you flying around and this is the thing where before we'd have to explain to people what collective shift is. Now they're drawn to us and they know what the company is and what they do. And that is through constantly compounding on social media.

Yeah, we didn't have any social media channels when we first started. Like, you know, it was about a year of just grinding, of absolutely zero results. I remember sitting down with you so many times going, mate, this is like we are putting in, so you remember this conversation. We'd be like, we are putting in so much effort and getting a total fat 0% ROI on this. This is ridiculous. Why is this so hard? And then, you know, after a year, year and a half, it's started to come down and work and then, you know, I feel as though it just, it grows in there. Like I remember having was, wasn't that long ago I had like a, a couple of thousand followers on Instagram and you know, nearly at 30,000 now, you know, or the, the podcast or the YouTube channel or whatever it is. Like, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy how that impact has had over the last sort of year or two, but it's hard work. Like we invest that's another part just in terms of, you know, if there's business owners listening to this, which I'm sure there is, like just reinvesting as much as you can into the business. We have not taken out any money outside of our salary, like here and there if we need it, but we've kept as much money in the business from retained earnings to reinvest. Right. Hiring more people. You know, we recently hired a head of Member Success, a new analyst, a bookkeeper, another developer. You know, we've got marketing teams, we've got, you know, investing into advertising. Like we just consistently reinvesting everything that we can afford into our business and look what happens. Bergs like, yeah, competitors have died off. We're not, you know, we're working with some of the largest crypto exchanges and brokerages with Australia. Like, you know, we have a B2B arm for those that don't know. We're providing research to, you know, different exchanges that you would all know.

Competitors have died off. Like it's just, you know, I think it's just a compounding thing of a lot of different things.

Exactly. And again, that's like another market segment we've gone after with B2B because that's where we fit in. And I think this kind of all came together. We started off with kind of an affiliate model, then to a paid model affiliate being that we give someone our research and they brand it Collective shift and there's a book, a call button. So people come back to us and we get customers that way. Now we've gone to paid model and. And I think this was really reaffirm, reaffirmed in November 2023, where people that were on the fence, whether they're customers or partners, B2B partners. They saw what we did at Oz Crypto Con. And I remember going into that going, this could go either way. And it was absolutely brilliant, mate. Talk us through what we did at that conference and the response, it was nuts, mate.

I've never experienced anything like it. All I remember was day one, I'm walking over the bridge in Melbourne and this is towards the conference, 8am in the morning and then someone popped, pulls over on the highway in his ute. Two people in the car like, oi, Ben, how are you, mate? What's going on? Let's go. I was like, jesus, what the hell's going on? And they just walked into the conference and I feel as though we just got swamped for two days. It was like I felt like a celebrity, like it was ridiculous, like it was so much fun. I loved it. We had the, we had the booth. We, you know, we did a keynote. We had like had the separate sessions the analysts hosted. We had.

We did, we, we held an event on the Saturday or Sunday I'm pretty sure. And mate, it was just lines. Hordes of people all weekend were just like, even the, even the talks, mate, were packed. You couldn't get a seat.

I remember one particular moment, you and I were standing at the back of a tour. This was Matt Nick and we just nailed our talks. They were how to research like a pro what's up coming up in the market. And I can't remember the title of your talk, but you smashed it. Yeah. I think your crypto sell strategy, right?

Yeah. It was like how to, how to, how to win and actually profit in this upcoming bull market or something like that.

And each of these talks had probably a 300 person seated capacity. Yeah, that was packed. Everyone was standing behind. And then outside of the gate where we were standing, people were there as well. All of Even customers and B2B partners coming up going, holy, look at this, this is packed out. And people weren't leaving because we're just dropping that fat alpha.

Yeah.

By that point in time we knew exactly who our customers were, what was happening in the market and how to deliver something completely different to everyone else but give their maximum value. And people lined up to get in. Like even though the previous talk to get in for our talks.

Yeah. And I think even all the, the live master classes we host, all the content, whether it be in person, online, whatever, we always lead with as much value as humanly possible. Like we, we don't do this like old school style of give a little bit and then sell for most of it. Like it's not about that. Like we want regardless if you become a member or not, we actually don't care. We just genuinely want to help you. And if any session, any bit of content that you consume of ours, we want you to walk away going I learned something or that was helpful. That's our number one goal. And I think ultimately that's a long play game. But that's we, that's, that's one of our values. You know what is a burgs long term, we want to build long term. What is it?

We do long term things with long term people.

Yeah, exactly. And that's like 100% everything that we do. We want to do long term. We don't want short term relationships, we don't want short term partnerships, we don't want short term customers because we know the longer that we can work with someone, you know, over time, the better the results are going to be for them and for us.

Exactly. And from that we even updated all of our company values because we were a very move fast and break things type company because, you know, we needed to figure it out quickly. But then we've moved towards, it's more about being trusted, being high quality, you know, thinking about our members and everything we do, always learning, improving and innovating, being best in class. And they've got all behaviors behind those different values. And that's been a huge fundamental shift in competitive advantage for us because all of our staff aligned to that and we reinforce it in the company.

Yeah, it's just a nice position to be in now. Like, you know, we go back two years ago, we were like, you know, scraping peanut butter off the floor to, you know, stay afloat. And now we've got a, we've got a bit of a war chest. We've got a good balance sheet, we've got great Runway, you know, we've got good projections, numbers are good. Which allows us to reinvest more in the business, create a better experience for our members, you know, hire amazing people, deliver great experiences. And it's just a, it's a revolving, you know, flywheel once you get it going exactly right.

And even things like our financial reporting, we constantly update that, always improve. Very difficult to do, very boring. But now we're in a position where the reporting is so good we know exactly what's going on, the business, where to put our effort and just getting back to new products like the Platinum members. We modeled that for many, many months and we actually stopped the Platinum membership. I don't know if you remember that where we started off with a Platinum product, we weren't charging enough, we were over servicing, we only had a few people. It wasn't really working. We end up just stopping the product. We kept those few people until they were either going to cancel or not. And then we went away, came back some months later and redid the entire product and it landed like it is our hottest selling product. People want this and they're willing to pay for it.

This was something that, you know, I feel as though we had the vision for. I mean I, I always thought we could do. Like, I always felt that there was something there, but it took a long time to get right. Like even if you go back three or four years ago when we were like, even in the previous business, there was there was a guy that we're trying to get something off the ground and we just couldn't get it right. You know, there was just, it was, it was actually years into making this product and consistent evaluation, talking to customers, figuring out what they want. And then we launch in October and it has just gone gangbusters. Like the Platinum has overtaken all of our expectations, I think in terms of like, you know what, what we're able to deliver now and the, and the feedback from, from those Platinum members has been phenomenal. So I'm super, yeah, super proud of what we've been able to build. I'm excited about where it's going to go as well.

And I think you have more of an affinity with Platinum members. You resonate more with them. Being a business owner, doing all the crazy things that you do, having business owner problems. You don't have to be a business owner to be in Platinum, but it's more about the way that you think the amount of capital you have and what you want to do with it.

Yeah.

And that is more, yeah, your level rather than the other products that we offer.

So, yeah, I absolutely love working with the Platinum members. Like, it's just been so much fun to work with them. I resonate with them. And yeah, ultimately, if you like what you do, Bergs, the money follows. If you chase the money. Yeah. Doesn't really work that way.

That's exactly it. And you know, we worked our butts off in this business. I did a post recently on LinkedIn where people say work smarter, not harder. And that's bullshit. That's a fallacy. You need to get in there, you need to work really hard and learn the system because you can't optimize a system you do not understand. Right.

So.

And you had to do this with sales. So we knew that you were, you were selling to pro members. And the whole process you're like, look, I just need help here. I'm overwhelmed. I'm having to do this social media, lead the company on and on it goes. And I think it was Trav, our advisor and I were like, well, Ben, you need to get this moving like an F1. Like you need to sort it out, like till it's 100% and then pass it on to someone else and teach them. It's very similar to one of your EO buddies where the company, he was selling a product, it was just him and another guy. And then they had to figure out sales. And once they did it and they were constantly executing on it, they could then Hire other people and teach it to them.

Yeah. One thing that I've learned as a founder is you need to know what you're doing and do the thing yourself to know the standard and the quality someone else needs to meet before you can hand it off. Anytime I've handed off a role or a task, responsibility in the business that I haven't know how to do myself, it's failed. Because if I don't know how to do it, then I. How am I supposed to set the standard and the direction for someone else to come in and do it for me? So that is something that I've learned with sales, content marketing, advertising.

You know, pretty much all the areas that I own in the business, even product, all the areas I've, that I've owned in the business. And now being able to hand off, I've had to get to a certain level to bring someone in to make sure they're in the right direction. And that's, that's been a big, big, big positive for us.

This is a good lesson for leaders out there. If managers, if you're hiring for a position that you don't understand and you don't know what good looks like, you're in danger. You either need to get an advisor in, do part of it yourself, get a trusted person, whatever it may be, model it out before you get those people in, because you need to understand and be able to guide them to drive their performance.

Yeah.

And, and that's what we've seen with the people we've hired. And just on hiring men, like, do you remember, like a while ago we tried to. Years ago, we tried to hire people and they get to interview and they wouldn't know what collective shift is or what we did, and we'd have to explain it. And I was like, oh, God, this is not the right person. We had some people that will go through, know a little bit now we've got people coming to us and by the time they get to us for an interview, they've been through one or two interviews already. And they're like, bergs, man, so good to meet you. I listen to Bennett Burgs. I remember when he did this. And Ben. Oh, you were in, like, Adelaide. You're near my house and oh, we love collective shifts. I see your content everywhere. I only applied for this job because I saw you on Twitter. I wasn't looking for a job. It's such a turnaround.

Yeah, it's one of the competitive advantages of having an online presence, an audience, is that you actually Attract the best talent, because talent wants to work at the best places. And if you're not a good place to work at will, the best talents are going to work there. Right? Good, good, good companies attract good talent and content is a great way to do that because then they have an affinity, affinity with the brand. They already have a trust that the brand is what it is. They have, you know, there's a reputation and they feel proud to join a company because they also want to be part of building something great. And I think that's been a huge shift in our ability to have awesome people work for us. Really.

Just in one of the roles. Two out of the three people weren't looking for roles at all. They just saw that you posted that and they're like, actually, this is the thing that I'm after.

Yeah.

Only one person wanted to leave their current job. And when they get into the interview, what's wild is they kind of know us a little bit. Then they come into the interview and one of my roles is to go through our values and assess for cultural fit how well is this person going to fit into the team and do they have those shared values? And I go through those and ask them some questions and the response is, holy shit. Because they love that kind of thing. I'm thinking about them and the fit and. And it's not just them fitting in with us. It's us fitting in with them. We have to have that value alignment. And for them to say that we actually practice what we preach is like, oh, my God, this, this all lines up for me kind of moment for them.

I agree, I agree. So, yeah, I mean, there's so many different things. I feel as though if there's ever a takeaway that I could give in this journey, it's been. There's never one thing that gets you to where you want to go. It's continuously compounding, day after day, 1%. And it's the compounding of 1% over four years that gets you to where you want to get to. And just the grit and determination you need to get through all the bad times because there was endless amounts of. To give you a time.

And it's wild when you look back, like, if someone told me that story and they're like, would you do that? I'm like, no, we did it right.

Yeah.

And this is the thing. Keep persevering. The storm will end. You know, if you keep going, you will beat your competitors because they will give up, because they're probably sane.

But then, you know, the good times are on the horizon. And right now we're heading into those good times. And that's just reflected in our results, which is awesome to see.

Yeah. And we're not stopping here, folks. We got big, big things planned. We're only just starting the bull markets 11 here and we're just so excited to continue helping people, getting amazing results and bringing you better bergs every week, honestly. Because I like this.

It is. It's good fun, man. And it's good to recap to remember where we were and how we're here now and then celebrate it.

100. So here's to another double. Hopefully in the next six months we'll say let's go. Thanks guys for, for tuning in. We hope you like that episode. A little bit of an insight as to where we're at as a business and how we got here. We'd love for you to share it around if you know anyone that you think will find that valuable. It's how we grow the podcast. And we'll see you on the next episode.

Thanks, champions.