This Mindset Shift Took Me From $700K to $2M

I was like, something's wrong with my business. It's never going to be a $2 million, $5 million the way we were doing it. What it was was a wake-up call.

Most creators hit a ceiling, usually somewhere around $500,000 to $1 million, and they just stay stuck. But what if the real bottleneck isn't the business? It's you. You're going to love today's episode with Tim Grahl because that's exactly what he figured out.

2024, we broke $1 million for the first time.

What were the things that really made the difference? You broke through there.

Mindset was a big one. Forget the outcomes. Just try it for a certain period of time and don't give up. MrBeast says to start and you're not allowed to like complain or ask questions or anything until you've done 100 videos. The online course model is tough and only gets tougher the longer you do it. So I was like, what if I run my company where I am responsible and my goal is to get 100% of the people to get what I promised them on the sales page? So then that changes everything, right? When you have product market fit, things start getting easier and like nothing worked until I found This is fantastic advice.

Tim, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to being back.

So we had an episode like a year and a half ago.

Yeah.

Diving into your business. I think it's, I think StoryGrid is a fascinating business model.

Yeah.

Give me like just the, the very quick version of StoryGrid and then we're gonna dive into going from $700,000 to $2 million.

Yeah. So StoryGrid helps writers build the skills write a book and leave their legacy. So it's really the, the fundamental belief is that, uh, the only way to change the world for the better is to tell better stories. And so we teach people how to write books, uh, that will leave a legacy and say something worth saying. And so fundamentally we teach people how to write fiction and then we publish their work.

Yeah, I love it. There's so many things that you've shown of like bringing it down to a science, how you teach it, and then the way that you are all in on the outcomes for your students. Yeah, I absolutely love.

Yep.

You and I have been able to do some writing projects together.

Mm-hmm.

I send you a bunch of stuff. When I'm like, Tim, how do we make this good? Like, this is, this is okay. I think the ideas are solid. How do we make it good? And so we've had a lot of fun working together on various things over the years. Something else I really appreciate about you is that you'll talk about numbers. My audience loves numbers.

Yeah. Well, I like, I like making things more clear and telling the truth because there's so much bullshit out there about what is actually going on and how people make money. And you never really get the— you always— I always feel like they're giving you the bread recipe, but not the yeast.

Yeah.

And so I want to just tell the truth about how it works, how hard it is, the parts that work, the parts that don't. So I'm an open book. Okay. Sounds good enough.

Well, if you're up for it, I'd like to do 3 things here on this board.

Okay.

So first, I want to break down the revenue numbers for your business year over year.

Yep.

And then maybe over here we'll dive into a diagram of how your business works.

Okay.

And then we can get into the mindset shifts, all of those things that led to a breakthrough.

Yep.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

All right. Okay. So we're, we're on this journey from zero to over $2 million.

Yeah.

Right. It's actually, it's not just $2 million, it's $2 million plus, right?

Yeah. We'll do, we'll do somewhere in the neighborhood of like $2.1 to $2.3 this year.

Okay. That's amazing. All right, so let's start out on this graph here. So we've got zero down here and then I don't know, I'm going to put— we'll put $2 million right up here. Okay. So what year do you want to start with on, on the graph?

I think we should start with 2021. So we were coming out of the pandemic and it was this unnaturally high year, I think, for online course sales. We all of a sudden thought we were going to get rich for the rest of our life because it just sold so easy. Yeah. And so in 2021, we did $690,000.

Okay.

And it was our— it was a good year. And at this point, I'm still only basically part-time with StoryGrid. I was splitting my time between StoryGrid and another business I had.

And so just so people get a sense of it, what did the ramp up to 2021 look like? Because StoryGrid was founded a couple of years earlier, right?

Yeah. Well, we started a podcast in 2015, and that's—

So you and Sean Coyne.

Yeah, we started a podcast together. I met him. He had taken one of my online courses about book marketing, and then I read his book not knowing about that. We ended up starting a podcast together, and I didn't think it would turn into anything. It was his podcast, not mine. But as these things do, they grow. And so we started doing workshops and trainings where he would— he's like the brains behind the operation. I do all the operating and marketing and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Okay. So you, you had a pretty steady ramp up to $690,000.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, just kind of a normal— like we have a new training, we sell the training, we would sell it live. People could come watch them live, then we would resell the recordings. We did some just online versions, but it was just kind of your standard workshop training company, online course company.

Right. Okay. Now 2022.

Yeah.

What did revenue grow to?

It grew by a couple thousand. So we did $695,000 in 2022.

Okay, so hold on. How do I make sure that this line is like a tiny bit higher, but not—

You're like a little close to that 1 more than we are.

I know. You need to be down a little bit.

And really these numbers are not telling the full story because we had to bring in some people because we started doing some different things. We had like a membership now. We had to pay people to do that. So Sean and I actually made less in 2022 than we did in 2021.

On this $1 million line is going to go up here.

Okay.

See how I added that, that distance there?

Yeah.

Just thinking through that.

Okay.

So in this case, that's an important detail.

Yeah.

That profit is actually down.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, that's accurate.

Yeah. And then towards the end of 2022, I did this really big promotion for this thing that I thought was going to blow the doors off. Like our— the way we've always done things, we always have a really strong end of the year. So November, December tend to be our best months of the year. It's a combination of how we've run the business. And I think first of the year, people get excited about new things like learning how to write. So I did this big promotion I thought was going to blow the doors off and it was like meh at best. And so I think, I think many people have been there. Yeah. And well, and what it was was a wake-up call. It was one of those like deep in my gut, I was like, something's wrong with my business because we're hitting a ceiling. Like I could feel the ceiling. So maybe I could push harder and harder and harder to maybe get to $1 million off of the current business model. but it's like, it's never going to be a $2 million, $5 million the way we were doing it. And so that's when I really started to get scared, honestly, because I was just like, I don't know what this thing is and what it's— right. It's not growing. It's just kind of stagnating. So I did what people do when they get stuck, which is they hire a marketing consultant and she's actually in the room, Kara. Uh, I hired Kara and she started asking me all of these questions about who my customer was. And I could not answer them the way that was satisfactory to her. And so she said, you need to start talking to your customers. And so over the next 18 months, I had over 600 one-on-one calls with people, customers, non-customers, new subscribers, old subscribers, people that had been listening to the podcast since the beginning, people that subscribed the week before we talked.

And so this is in 2023.

Yeah. At the beginning of 2023, I started doing this because I was like, something's wrong. I don't know what, and I've got to figure this out. So I started talking to customers.

So 600+ calls.

Yeah. Over the 18 months. She didn't say you need to do that many. Yeah, she did not say I needed to do that many. So one of my personality traits is I'm like a freight train. So like, if you point me in a direction and just hit the gas, I just won't stop. Yeah. Now there's downsides to that too. Like, I— it's hard to get me off of the rails, but if you point me in a direction and tell me to go, I'll just keep going. And so she never told me to stop. So I just kept doing the calls. And so, and this is really the beginning of the breakthrough because now at this point, once I'd done a couple hundred of these, I knew my customer. Like I went back and looked at all my notes and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is completely different than all of the assumptions I was making. And so now at this point, I know my customer. So well. Like, I know why they do what they do. I know why they're interested in us. I know why— I know how much money they make. I knew what they do for a living. Like, I know everything about them because I've— I started doing that at the beginning of 2023.

That's amazing. Okay. And so what revenue did that lead to?

It was literally within $500 of 2022. So $695,000.

I was ready to draw a line.

Well, because I didn't know anything yet. All I was doing was all the the talking with custom, with people trying to figure it out. And I, and I was just, but I was playing, I was running the old playbook while I tried to figure out something new. So you run the old playbook, you make the same amount of money.

Okay. So I think there's a, there's a bunch of really interesting points here. First, you did something that other people would think is like unreasonable or like a crazy high number. You know, that is a huge number of calls. Was that like 20+ calls a week? How did that?

Well, they're half-hour calls, most of them. Um, honestly, it's all a blur. Like, I just opened up huge swaths of my week and I had it on Calendly and I would just regularly send it out and then people would just book the calls. There are days I would do like 10 calls.

I remember you showing me your calendar.

Yeah, yeah. And it was just like back to back to back to back. And I would, I would get to my office in the morning and then I, on my way home, I'm like, it was like the whole day just disappeared, uh, because it was like just back-to-back calls. And so I had to do my actual work early in the morning, late at night, on the weekends, because I was spending the whole time on the phone with customers, potential customers, that kind of thing.

Yeah. Okay, so you're doing something that most people would consider unreasonable and you're putting this, just this huge amount of effort.

Yep.

But then the thing is you're learning all of this, but it takes time for the revenue to kick in. I think most of us would assume like, oh, I learned everything I needed to from those first few calls and then I figured it out and then we broke through this $1 million ceiling. And that's just not the case.

Yeah. And in 2023, I got paid my full salary that I was supposed to get paid by StoryGrid while I was shutting down my own old business to do StoryGrid full-time. 5 months. I got paid 5 months.

Okay.

Yeah. So now I'm burning through my savings. Right. You know, like, I'm, you know, I got—

So actually the business, you're working harder in 2023 and the business is looking worse?

Yes.

Or was profit the same or declining?

I can't, I wasn't getting paid. So it wasn't doing as well as it needed to do. My partner and I, Sean Cohen, were not getting paid. And when we were getting paid, it'd be like a few thousand dollars this month is all we could pay ourselves, which is significantly less than I need to run my life. So, yeah, because before this I was making pretty good money doing something else. So, you know, I jumped into this other thing and it was going— it was going downhill. This is why I was scared. This is why I was doing all the calls. I was trying to figure out what was going on.

Yeah. Okay. So then 2024, what does that look like?

So 2024 was the big breakthrough and the big turn was in November because that's when our business does the most amount of money. And then in early December, we broke $1 million for the first time and we ended the, we ended the year at $1.1 million.

Okay. That is fantastic. And I love that I actually had this little bit of a line through there because that is our $1 million ceiling.

Yeah.

That actually very, very few creative businesses actually break through.

Yeah.

What are the things, all right, so, right, so 3 years in a row.

Yeah.

Of not being able to break $700K.

Yeah.

And I, I think most people would see like maybe $100K, $200K, and then $500K and then $800K and then, you know, like this much more linear progression. But you got to this number and stayed totally flat. What were the things that really made the difference that you broke through there?

So mindset was a big one. We can talk about that. I completely changed the business model.

Okay.

So like before we had all these different online courses people can take. Now I'm actually in the middle of cutting it down to just two products. That was a big thing. The business model is just completely different.

Yeah, this—

the— I think the online business, the online course model is tough and only gets tougher the longer you do it. And the market itself is just becoming more and more and more saturated over, you know, 10 years ago, if you were willing to sit in front of a camera and you had any expertise at all, you can make decent money. And it's just becoming harder and harder because lots of people have taken online courses now. It doesn't actually get what they thought because they don't follow through or whatever. And so they're kind of all into the game. And so it's harder to convince people to come off of money to learn. And also information is becoming more and more ubiquitously free. So it's like, what can't you learn on YouTube? That was a big thing, was scrapping the business model, finding something that was sustainable long term, differentiated us from everybody else, but was a much harder business to build to.

Okay, let's jump ahead. Okay. We're halfway through 2025.

Yeah.

What does revenue look like? What are you going to try for?

Conservatively, we'll do $2.2— $2.2 is the goal. 2.1 will be pretty easy. I'm kind of wanting to really hit 2.2 because that means we'll double in a year.

Okay, so let me just go. So yeah, we're hanging out up here at 2.2. It's a pretty big jump. What are you at? We're halfway through the year. What are you at in revenue so far?

So we're 68% of this time ahead of this time last year.

That's amazing.

And so again, most of our money comes in on the back half of the year. And so we're at like about $600,000 and then renewal revenue for the rest of the year is north of $500,000. So we're sitting at 1.1 already. Yeah.

Yeah. So this is where you, you know, the guaranteed renewals and all of that, you're seeing that at 1.1 and you're projecting the rest forward to 2.2 based on how everything is trending.

Yeah.

Uh, one thing that you mentioned that I really, really like is just this +68% number.

Yeah.

And the reason that's so important, uh, I'm just gonna throw it right in here. So many people are like, oh, my business is unique. It's not seasonal. It's not that sort of thing. And I remember working at Wendy's in high school and our manager knew exactly how that day would perform. Based on all of the trends from the previous year. From like, he knew everything that was going on and he would tell you like, oh, well, you know, it's October 10th or whatever, but actually the football game was the same football game was on October 12th last year. Like he knew all of those numbers and he had access to it. And so he knew exactly how the business would perform and he had a goal for every single day. And so, so many people are like, I don't know, we're doing pretty good this year.

No, I have a goal for every month. I know exactly how much we're supposed to make. I have a stretch goal. Fallback goal. I can look easily, look at last year's numbers. I have, you know, different spreadsheets that show me different types of forecasts that I've built out so that any time I can like start adjusting it as I'm going, you know, and there's another thing in there, the difference between forecasts and goals.

And I think that businesses have to separate those two because a forecast is we, we don't have any emotion in it. We're just purely looking at the data and we're not saying, oh, I'm going to do better than this year or better than last year, right? Or like, well, so the goal— go ahead.

Yeah, this is the thing is like, I don't love goals in general. I think they're mostly a waste of time. And I'm also like, I'm not a pessimist, like glass half empty. I'm just at some point the glass is going to get knocked over. That's the type of pessimist I am. Okay. So when, when I, I naturally set goals too low. So the only way I can really push myself is to run forecasts so I can say, okay, here's what I know I can do. If I really push, I think I can get here. And then this would even stretch beyond. And now I look at that once I run all those numbers and I look at what pops out the other end, I'm like, holy shit, we're going to easily do 2.1 this year, right? You know, so it's like that's the kind of thing that it forces me as somebody who doesn't like to set lofty goal. Like, I'm not one of those. It's like, we're going to blow. I'm like, everything's going to fall apart next week, you know? And so I have to forecast to keep me grounded in reality because I'll go too low. That's just my natural bit.

Yeah, that's fascinating. Okay, so there's so many more things I want to know about this, but I want to explain the business model in detail. Okay. First, before we do that, we talked about in 2022, profit decreasing.

Yeah.

Profit is a number that does not get talked about nearly enough.

Yeah.

There's plenty of course creators out there who will hit huge top line numbers and do no profit because they're, they're affiliates, you know, like they're paying anxiety, all of this stuff. So you talked about profit decreasing in 2022. What was profit for 2024 and what are you trending for, for 2025?

So 2024 was not overly profitable.

Okay, because you're investing in that growth.

Yeah, and so I told you how often I got paid in 2023. I got paid about that same amount in 2024. It wasn't 5, 6 times, uh, I think I got paid my full amount 4 times up to October, and then because November and December hit and we finally turned the corner I'd been pushing for, then all of a sudden I've gotten paid ever since then.

You know, it's one of those things like these yearly numbers mask a lot of things. If we were to trend it month by month, you'd really see that acceleration.

Yes.

At the end of 2024, which is crazy because that's well over a year after starting all these calls, right?

Well, I did them for 18 months. I did them through half of 2024 and then finally backed off on them.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So what was profit for whichever year you want to say, like 2025, What, 2025? We're currently, we're currently at 24.99. I love where I am projecting. So right now it's a lower profit margin because it's the first half of the year. We're still turning the corner the way I really want it to. But we have all our fixed costs are fixed. Yeah, right. So everything now, as we make more money, it doesn't cost us more money to make that money. And so the profit, this is a lot of times people don't understand how it works too, is that the last like 20, 30% of your revenue is where all the profit comes from. And so because you have all of these fixed costs built into it. And the other thing, honestly, just to be straightforward, the other thing is, and this is the thing my business coach constantly reminds me, I'm a 44-year-old man with 2 kids, one of them in college, one of them in a private school. My wife does not work. I pay, I have to pay for everything. My partner, Sean Cohen, is very similar. And so we pay ourselves a significant salary. Like when I say I'm not getting paid, like I'm, it's not like I'm literally not making any money, but I'm not making anywhere near what my life costs. Right. And so, so the other thing is like, I'm extracting just in our salary, a large percentage of the revenue that's coming into the business because that's just what I need to live. In a perfect world, I'd be 23 living with 6 roommates and not getting paid anything and being able to just dump all the money back into the company. So it's been a real hard balancing act to like keep the growth going, investing in the company, but still actually paying ourselves because I was running out of money. I needed to pay myself.

So the other thing is this 24.99% profit forecast.

Yeah.

Is after you and Sean pay yourself, right?

Yes. Yeah.

So that's like you're like not getting paid what you should be getting paid and having.

So that— I mean, so this represents, you know, basically $500 grand of draws. I've taken zero draws so far. Right. So again, this is back half that all of that money is going to start coming in the way that it, that it's forecasted to come in.

That makes sense. I love this map of your business. So thank you for sharing that. Almost no one shares revenue numbers so clearly. You talked about mindset and business model as two big breakthroughs.

Yeah.

Was there anything else that's really important to cover here?

Yeah, I think we need to talk about building a team.

Okay.

Because this is something I think a lot of creators avoid like the plague. So many I talk to, they're just like, how do I— the question is always, how do I do this without a team? And my question has become, why wouldn't you build a team? Okay. It gives you more money and more freedom. and allows you to like take time off, do the things only you're good at, hand things off to other people that are way better at it than you. So it's, and it starts allowing you to scale the company in a way that you just cannot do by yourself. And so I had this exact conversation recently with Allie, who we both know, and she, we were kind of talking about team. She has a team, but she's trying not to grow them. And my question was, why wouldn't you? If it's gonna make you more money, give you more freedom, allow you to help more people, I'm, I'm, I'm failing to see the downside.

Right. Okay. There are clear downsides that you and I have both encountered at times. Yes. But you have a very specific way of building the team. Yes. Which before we dive into that, I think people need to understand the business model.

Okay.

And we can come back to the team because there's like probably two dis— like two very key changes in how you build a team.

Yes.

To take you from it unlocking tons more revenue and freedom.

Yeah.

In the upside way versus what most people encounter with a team where it ends up like driving up their fixed costs. Yeah.

Yeah.

Getting, uh, yeah. What should be a wonderfully profitable, profitable business into one that's burning money.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we'll come back to team. Let's talk business model right now.

Okay.

Uh, put on your professor hat. Tell us how, how does this business work? How do you make money?

Okay, so this is a little mindset thing too, but, um, one of the things that really got me frustrated with selling online courses is we were selling all these as StoryGrid. We're selling all these courses about how to write better. And they were kind of, again, your typical talking head, somebody teaching something, really good stuff. I still think we have the best training on writing that, that exists. But then I got opportunities to look at the writing of the people that were coming out the other end, and the writing was not any better. Now, this is the same thing for a lot of courses I've taken where, like, I'm not implementing the things or I'm not doing it the right way.

Paid the $1,000. Yeah.

And you're like, whether it's $99 or $1,000 or $3,000 or $10,000, you know, it's like, what's happening? And so I decided after talking to all these people and now it's like, this is what changes is like, we're so used to like looking at the numbers of people on our email list, the numbers of people buying. Well, I've looked into the eyes of 600 people, and some of these people bought our courses, right? And most of them had nothing but good things to say, but I could— their writing had not gotten better. So I was like, what, what would I have to change about my company? Because a lot of times with online courses, we are, um, our responsibility ends on the delivery of the course, right? So I've delivered the course or I've done my live calls or whatever it is. And now I'm absolved because I gave you what I said I would give you, and it's up to you whether or not you put it in. And of course, we all know it's like, what, 10 to 15% of people even finish going through the courses. How many of those actually implement and get what's promised on the sales page? So I was like, what if I run my company where I am responsible and my goal is to get 100% of the people to get what I promised them on the sales page? How would I have to run my company to make that a possibility? So then that changes everything, right? I got to get involved in their life to make sure they actually do the thing that they said they want to do. So we have switched almost completely to a coaching model. And so people sign up, they get matched up with a one-on-one, we call them mentors, and we walk— they walk them through the curriculum. And so every week our students write a scene, they turn it in. Uh, they get one-on-one feedback on that and then they get homework and they do it again and again and again. And the amount of growth I have seen, I now believe wholeheartedly I can take anybody and make them a significantly better rider within a couple months.

You were telling me that as you unlocked this, you felt like, yes, I can absolutely do that. And then you were telling me a story of like seeing this come in. You're like, that person I can help. Yep. And sure enough, that person, Joe.

And then we come back to Joe.

One person who you're like, all right, I can't help you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Your writing is so bad. Tell me about that.

So the first time, okay, so we had been doing a version of our training where it was the old style of training, but you would get a mentor. So the mentor was kind of walking you through, but you still weren't writing every week. It was still just like filling out worksheets and that kind of thing. So it was working. We were seeing progress, but it was kind of slow and methodical. And I was like, what can I do in 6 weeks if I just give me some writers? And so I talked to my partner, I was like, all right, I'm going to do a 6-week workshop and I'm just going to have people send me their scenes and then I'll just tell them what they did wrong and see what happens. Yeah. So, and I ran the whole thing myself the first time, like did the live calls, did all the feedback, did everything. So this guy named Joe and he gave me permission to tell the story, right? So he sent this scene and I read it and it was the worst thing I've ever read. I don't even know what he was trying to write about. I was like, and my first thought was, I can't help this guy. Like, this is so beyond my match. Yeah. And I was in my— I was like, I'll just— I'm just going to give him his money back and tell him to go on his way. And I was like, well, I do have 6 weeks. I can give him his money back at the end of 6 weeks just as easily as I can now. So I went through the StoryGrid methodology and what Sean, my partner, came— he's a genius, and he came up with all the methodology and stuff. So I kind of ran him through and was like, all right, try it again. So he wrote something the next week. It was a little bit better. I'm like, okay, gave him some feedback. By the end of the workshop, he was top 3 in the class. Like, I literally read the scene and it was like, Joe, I'm like, this isn't the same guy. And I went back and like remind, like, just to make sure I was right. And it's like he became a significantly better writer in 6 weeks. So that's we, we are all in on feedback. I think basically what we're doing is taking deliberate practice, which is a very like well-known established scientific way of learning a complex skill. And we're just the first ones that have actually applied it to writing.

So I love that because you're taking extreme ownership. Yes. Of the outcomes.

Yeah.

Which I would say 1% of creators do that.

Yeah.

Maybe less.

Yeah. I think, and it, we, I know for me it was because I was afraid. Mm-hmm. It was because it felt like, what if I can't actually do this? But then starts begging the question of why am I promising that I can on the sales page anyway?

Yeah.

Um, and oh, the other thing is we do a money-back guarantee and the money and you, if you go through the program and you turn in your scene every week and you're not a significantly better writer and you get to decide if that, if you're significantly better. Yeah. We'll give you your money back. But if you go through the course and you don't turn in your homework, we don't give you your money back.

Yeah, you have to.

You have to do the process. Could you—

we have a handshake.

Yeah.

You do your part. I'll do my part. And if this isn't resulting in what I said it will.

And after hundreds of students, we've done 2, 2 who have asked for their money back. Yeah.

All right.

Yeah. It's not 100%, but it's a lot closer than it used to be.

It's pretty damn close to 100%. Yeah.

Yeah.

This is where you're You're so detailed in numbers. You're like 24.99%.

Yeah. On the sales page it says 99% of people.

And now you could probably add a like 0.8 to the—

Yeah, I'd have to go back and do the math. Now I'm probably going to do that. Okay.

So the first thing is, you know, this change they make, they see you making is on the outcome.

Yeah.

The second one, what would you say? Like one-on-one feedback?

Yeah, I think it's, it's a coaching. It's a kind of a standard coaching model, right? So it's like you get paired up with a coach. They're going to take you through our proprietary process. And take you through this process that we know will move you from point A to point B, which is where you are now and where you want to be. Okay. Overall, that side of it, there's some like details that are specific to us because it's writing, which would be different than like business coaching or teaching marketing or like video editing or something. But it's, it's a basic one-on-one coaching model.

Yeah.

So our linchpin is the coaches. That's where we put most of our time. Is making sure the coaches have everything they need to succeed.

So let's talk about the coaches for a second, because coaches mean overhead, right? You've got a team there.

Sure.

So if we talk about the coach, what does a coach cost you?

Well, fixed cost, $0. Okay. Right. Because they're—

That's an important detail.

That's an important detail. So they get paid per student that they're working with. And so if we don't have a student, we don't pay them. So they're all contractors. Almost all of them have their own business on the side, and then they work with us to supplement or add to that income. Or, or a lot of them are switching more and more to just working with us because it makes sense.

You ramp up volume and—

Yeah, because think about like if I'm running my own consulting business, it's like I've got to go prospect for clients, then I've got to talk to them about what they need, then I got to do a proposal, then I got to send an invoice, and then there's scope creep. And with us, all you do is the part you love doing, which is working with the writer and coaching them and editing them. And then we just send you money every month. You don't have to worry about it. And so— and we pay really well. So, yeah.

So what do you— what do you pay on a per-student basis?

Yeah, we pay per student $300 to $350 per student. So we actually pay more if they take on more students because it lowers our— not cost overhead, really it kind of does because we have to have people that manage them, but it just less people to manage makes everybody's life a little bit easier. So as they take on more students, they get paid more per student. Okay.

You're saying about $300, $350 per student?

Yeah.

Okay. I like that because you're clearly incentivizing the outcome that you Yes. And which is basically for your best coaches to then spend more and more time with you.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, and that's per month.

Yeah, that's per month. And the other thing is that what I didn't even realize is till recently I was talking to some of our, uh, just asking them like, why do you work with us? Why don't you work with other people? Why don't you go get your own clients? And even, um, one of our editors, he makes well into six figures as an editor and ghostwriter, but he's like, yeah, but with you, I know I'm getting paid every month. Yeah, he's like, so I go from $0 guaranteed every month to X dollars guaranteed every month, and now I just have to fill the gap above it.

Right.

And he's like, that's a completely different shift for me is like now I go into every month knowing you're at least going to pay me this, right?

So he's looking at his fixed expenses, maybe his mortgage, maybe a few of these other things. And he's like, look, that's covered. And then I'm totally okay with the lumpiness of freelancing by the project or by the hour for other things.

Yeah. So like we pay comparable to— so if you look at like what traditional— what editors get paid at traditional publishing houses, we pay more per hour than they do. Now we're not paying them full time. And then like compare anybody else kind of in our space that pays editors to do stuff. We pay a lot more than them. So I'm trying to pay at the top end because I want to recruit the best editors and then keep them for a long time. Now they make less per hour than working one-on-one with their own clients, but not if you add in invoicing and prospecting and posting on social media and all that kind of stuff. And so because I've had this conversation, we're like, you're only paying this much and it works. My goal is $50 an hour. Some of them make less, some will make more depending on how long it takes them. But, but then like, yeah, but you don't have to do all this shit that you not only don't get paid to do, you hate doing. And they're like, oh, right.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm going to work for you.

I love that.

Okay.

So we're at this $350 per student per month. What's the— why don't you write up here what, like, what does the program actually cost?

So the current model that we're probably going to stick with for a long time is it's $3,900 for the— for 3 months. So we require people to sign up for 3 months upfront and commit. Yeah. Because we do want them to stick with the program long enough that they can see significant growth.

Yeah.

And then it goes to $1,100 a month ongoing for as long as they—

as long as they want to invest in their writing. Okay.

So we pay $350 off the top to the student. Then we have, you know, infrastructure behind to manage all that.

Okay. That makes sense. Now, other things here, let's— I think it'd make a lot of sense to dive into lead gen.

Process. Yeah.

What does it look like to actually bring in new students, uh, and, and what's working there?

So the two things that have made the biggest difference— so the first is SparkLoop, which is owned by Kit.

Okay.

Uh, it is the only thing I found that is set it and forget it advertising. So, you know, there's, uh, Meta ads and, and YouTube ads and all that kind of stuff that work great. We're starting to get into that, but you constantly have to like do work and twist the knobs basically. With SparkLoop, it just— I just get new subscribers and we put them into a funnel and I keep track of it. And so far, for every dollar I spend, I make $3.50 within 6 months.

Those— yeah, the ROI here, the most important thing to track in advertising.

Yeah.

So that is $1 equals $3.50 in 6 months.

Yeah.

So that's a pretty good ROI.

Yeah. The only downside is I can only spend so much. Like, you only have so much inventory. You need to work on that.

Yeah. How much are you able to spend per month?

About $5,000. Okay. So with those numbers, I would spend as much as you let me spend.

Yeah. So we need, we need more partners for you because here you're paying other creators and publishers to get in front of their audience.

Yeah. And SparkLoop and then YouTube has been huge for us. I started taking YouTube seriously about 20 months ago. We had 3,000 subscribers. We had just picked up over several years of like randomly putting shitty videos on there. We're now at like 34,000 subscribers, but we get, you know, it doesn't— subscriber counts don't matter. View counts matter, obviously. But for me, I'm looking at how many leads were coming in. And basically everybody that buys from us now has watched our YouTube videos. They may have not found us on YouTube, but not a single one has not seen my YouTube videos. And that's often what gets them to finally, like, reach out to us because of the YouTube channel.

Yeah. And then you can hook them in. So they're getting your emails.

Yeah.

YouTube as well. You're picking them up on multiple channels.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I just— YouTube is my drug of choice, so I don't really like Twitter or Instagram or any of that. I consume a lot of YouTube. And so for me, it makes a lot of sense. But a friend of mine that really pushed me over the edge to finally get into YouTube, he's like, it's the only platform where they pay you to advertise, right? So I don't— I make like $500 a month or something off of YouTube, but like, I'm— they're paying me for access to their channel and they just— I just get new people, right? I mean, YouTube is like a thing. Like, it's hard. You got to learn all kinds of stuff and, you know, it's not easy. But it's like, to me, the— it's the number 2 search engine after Google. I think, you know, I think AI is going to eventually kill search in general, but it's not— it's not going to catch up with YouTube, right? At least in the foreseeable future. So showing up in the place where everybody goes to learn something new in an education kind of business seems like a no-brainer.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What did it look like to get serious about YouTube?

I started posting twice a week every week. I don't— I'm not as regular anymore. But I was like, I'm going to come hell or high water every Tuesday and Friday. I'm going to put up a new video. So and I was doing my own editing for the first year and a half, something like that.

Do you think that's important?

No.

Okay.

I just didn't have the money. I wasn't even getting paid myself. So, so there's a lot of Thursday nights where I was up till 2 a.m. editing a video so I could put it up the next day because I committed to doing twice a week. I committed for 6 months to doing twice a week. I think it's really important when you're starting something new is like, forget the outcomes, just try it for a certain period of time and don't give up. And you're not allowed to make a decision. Me, it's 6 months.

Okay.

I'm going to do something for 6 months before I'm allowed to decide not to do it anymore. And so at 6 months, it was like crushing for us. So I'm like, I'm just going to keep going. Yeah. So YouTube was— oh, and then it was just like, buy a decent camera. Like my buddy, his name's James Scott, he runs JHS Pedals. He has like this huge YouTube channel.

Yeah, I've met him.

He's a brilliant guy. And he's like, I called him and he's like, he got on his computer and just turned the phone around. I was like, buy this camera, buy this light, you know, set this up. And so I bought it, I got it all in. And then he got on the phone with me and just walked me through the settings on the camera, where the lights go, 'cause I don't know any of this stuff. And it literally is there all the time. And I just turn it on and hit record. And then, and then, you know, that's it.

So what about from a script writing or packaging perspective?

I mean, I don't know if I'm the best per— you've had brilliant YouTube people on the show.

Yeah, all the knowledge on YouTube.

Yeah, yeah, like I'm not very good at it. And so I think it's your typical watch a lot of videos, try to figure out the right way. If you get it 70 to 80% right, that's good enough in the beginning. Um, you know, you gotta have a hook at the beginning.

You know, it's like kind of deliver on the promise.

Just literally all of those things you hear, you just actually did it. I just actually did it. Yeah. Wrote scripts and, you know, lots of like, you know, saying something, fucking it up and then doing it again and doing it again and then cutting it all out. I mean, you know, it's just, I didn't do it any other way than what everybody does. So which is just get started, pick a topic, do it on, he gave me really tight parameters. Josh did. He's like, 8 to 15 minutes, pick one topic and just teach that topic. Don't go over 15 minutes. Don't go under 8 minutes. And I was like, okay. And then I became my freight train. I'm just like, I'm just going to do that until somebody tells me to stop.

You know, it's funny when I hear you saying on YouTube is just do the work. Like there's no secret. I was talking to this guy who had lost a whole bunch of weight and I was asking him like, what did you do? And he's like, you know, blow your mind, but I counted calories and I ate less calories than I should. And you're like, oh yeah. And it's exactly this. You know all the advice, just you have to do it.

Yeah. I mean, I've watched, I don't know, 100 different videos on how to— and I would implement some of the things and then you just have to just keep doing it.

Yeah.

Well, is it Ali Abdaal says like, just start or no, this is MrBeast says start and you're not allowed to like complain or ask questions or anything until you've done 100 videos.

Yeah.

And I just like that kind of mindset. It's just like, just And he's like, make one thing better in each video. And so it's, it's the same thing everybody says, which is like, start before you're ready. You know, just—

you said mindset. And so I want to dive into that before we talk about mindset and then— and team.

Yeah.

Was there anyone in this journey who, like, was really there for you or coached you through it?

Yeah. So there's— I felt like I was getting a lot of good inputs from a lot of people, but I have a business coach that I work with. His name is Michael Walsh. He just launched this book called Freedom by Design. Because his whole thing is, as you grow a business, you should become more free. And so when we turned this corner at the end of 2024, I didn't even mention this. My workload went down, not up. Right. So his whole thing was like, yeah, you can just keep grinding and hit a million and then you'll, you'll burn out and the company will either go out of business or fall back down to $700,000. He's like, so you've got to turn the corner in a way where your, your life gets easier as the business makes more money. So actually his goal for me next year, right? So this is my $2.2 million year next year. His goal is that I take the last week of every month off. He's like, that's what you need to be doing. Oh, interesting. And when he says off, it's like you're gone. I'm gone.

Yeah. So no one can ask. Yeah.

And this year I've already taken more vacation than I took last year.

That's, I mean, it's such an important thing because usually the story tells something totally different.

Yes.

All right. This has been amazing. Let's sit down and dive into mindset.

All right.

Mindset's probably the thing that you talked about the most, and I've known this about you, like the freight train, you get totally dialed in on something.

Yeah.

Let's dive into that more. What did it look like to shift that mindset? Because you've had that characteristic for a long time.

Yeah. My whole life. Yeah. It's one of those things.

Blessing and a curse right there.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you had that in 2021, 2022, 2023, $700K, $700K, $700K. What changed in the mindset?

Well, so I mean, it's always where do you start the story? So you could easily start this story 19 years ago when like I quit my job, was going to work for myself, blaze of glory the way you're supposed to do it. And 6 months later, I was like asking my parents for money because I couldn't afford groceries for my 6-month-old. I quit my job 2 months after my first son was born. And my wife was—

I did something very similar right around the same time as when I quit my job. Yeah, it's a hard time to do it.

Yeah. So, so over 19 years or, you know, 2 years ago, over 17 years, I had multiple times grown something to kind of this ceiling that I couldn't break through. And what I would do instead of break through was go do something else that looked like it could make more money. Often, honestly, it did. Like, I, you know, my income was going up over the year. It wasn't, but it wasn't getting to like where I pictured, you know. Um, I've always wanted to grow something big, something that impacts a lot of people, that makes a lot of money, that, you know, is worth throwing myself into and spending my one life on. So there's, I can look at 4 or 5 of these points over 17 years that I was like hitting the ceiling. And we talked a little bit about this on the first, uh, the podcast episode. Yeah, that we did. Because, uh, I hit one of these in 2023 around the summer where I was like starting to pull back from the business. And this was the moment when I was like, you know what, I mean, I was gonna try to make a joke, but I shouldn't be funny about this because this is real. So it was 2023, I'm 42 years old, right? Uh, I don't have enough savings, I don't have enough like I can't retire in 20 years, right? And I'm, and I'm like, if this keeps going this way, I'm truly going to be—

Right, you ran that forecast and it's not good.

Yeah, well, and I'm not young anymore. Like, I'm running out of runway. Like, you can't start making it up at 58, right? So I'm like, if I'm 10 years down the road still here, this is bad. This is getting critical now. I can't fuck around anymore. And these were the moments I started thinking like, you know what, maybe I'm just not cut out for this. Like, and I was like, you know what, Nathan will give me a job.

I'll just—

he'll find me something. They'll like give me money every 2 weeks, you know? And, and it can't— I won't— and, you know, it'll probably work, you know, less than I'm working now. And, and I'm still young and I still got 20 years. Like, I can, you know, if I hang around KITT for 20 years, you know, I can retire and I'll be okay. And this was— I mean, this was like I was starting to feel this way and my partner sensed it. And so every other time I didn't have a partner, I was doing it by myself. And Sean and I had been working together now almost 10 years. We've had exactly one argument and this was the moment. And he's got a temper on him. Like, I've seen him lose his— he loses his shit about once a month about something, you know? And but this was the first time it was pointed at me. And he said the equivalent of like, what are you doing? You're abandoning me.

Like, it wasn't that articulate because you're looking for something else rather than pushing through the problems.

Like, like drawing back, right? And when I needed to be leaning in and it was because I was starting to feel like, oh, this isn't working. This was, you know, 8 months after I realized something was wrong in the business. Things weren't better, um, wasn't getting paid, uh, my runway was like— I'm starting to see the end of the runway of money. And, uh, and he, he called me and like lit into me, and, uh, I immediately was like, you're right, uh, I don't know what's going on, but I'll fix it. And so I just started like, what's going on? I need to fix this. and I kind of reached this point where I was like, all right, I just got to like give everything I can to this because I have wanted to do this my whole life. This is kind of the last shot I'm going to give myself because I have kids, I have a wife. Like, I don't want to be poor when I retire. I don't want to rely on Social Security that probably won't be there.

Right.

And so if I want to be a responsible adult, I either need to make this work or I need to go find something else to do that's more reliable. And, and then like this concurrence of things happen, you know, I went to a mastermind group and that was really good for me. And then this is when I met my business coach, Michael Walsh, and we started like working together a little bit, kind of impromptu how we met. And then I watched this one Alex Formosi video.

Okay.

And now his videos have been popping up and I refuse to watch them because I'm like, he's going to try to sell me cryptocurrency. Like, yeah, he's just like, sure. A bro, and you were picturing Alex Hormozi, right?

Like, dial it up to 11. Yeah, yeah.

And then, uh, a mutual friend of ours, uh, MDS, Matt D. Smith, uh, sent me one of his videos. Like, you got to watch this. I was like, fine. I watched it, and I'm like, this is the best video I've ever seen on sales in my entire life.

He's so good.

He's like—

that's the thing, everyone, you want to write him off or whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you actually look at the content of what he's saying and and you're like, this is fantastic advice?

Yeah. So I just started freight training his content, right? So I went all the way back to the first YouTube video he ever did, and I just started watching every single one of them. And, um, there was one in particular— he said, he said this a bunch on a bunch of different videos, but it was like I needed to hear it. And he was basically like, you just need to work harder. And I was like, okay, like, I've just— and there was like this series of like that kind of like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do everything, I'm gonna be a decent husband and a decent father, and I'm going to try to take care of myself physically. Everything else gets burnt up on the altar. I'm going to give everything to this business. So I told my wife, um, I mean, we're either going to go bankrupt or this is going to work. And she kind of gave me the, uh, the 300 speech of like, come back holding your shield or on it, you know. And she was like—

and she was basically like She knew what you needed to hear and told you that.

Well, and she was like, don't worry about me. I'll be here when, when, when you get done, just do whatever it takes. And so I just started ratcheting up to 60, 70 hours weeks, you know, getting up at 6 AM, working all weekend, you know, just putting in the time.

How did you spend that time on the things that really mattered? Because I think a lot of people do that and they're like, oh, I just got to put up, put in the time and they they waste it.

Well, I think having a business coach was helpful because he kept steering me in the right direction. Because when we started working together, I'm like, I need to make more money. And he's like, no, you need to build a team. And I'm like, teams cost money. I don't have money. I need money. And that's when he started saying, like, if, if you do that, you'll burn out and you'll just fall right back down. And so he started just teaching me about, like, how to build a sustainable business. And so some of that, and, but a lot of it was just grinding. I'm doing YouTube videos. I'm sending out email newsletters on a regular basis. I'm running a workshop at the same time, you know, doing all the feedback myself, like trying to figure out what was going to work and, and just like pushing as hard as I possibly can. And I had an assistant. I— we didn't turn the corner until the end of 2024. And so it was about 15, 16 months of that, of just pretty relentless.

So then you brought up the team.

Yeah.

There's so many different perspectives on building a team.

Yeah.

You've got people all the way like Josh Kaufman is a good friend of both of ours.

Yeah.

And he's like, no team ever. And he has designed the perfect business for him.

Yeah.

He's doing very well at it.

Yeah.

And then, you know, the other end of the spectrum, I guess it's probably me, right? I have 95 people on my team at Kit.

Yeah.

And then even as I'm building a personal brand, like I'm building a team around doing that. And so everyone says like, oh, team or no team. But really there's a lot of nuance within that. Like Anne-Laure Lecomte has been on my podcast and she is very thoughtful about how she works with freelancers and she's actually gone from from, you know, more of a team full-time to like a small focus group of freelancers. You're the first person that I've talked to, I think, on the podcast who has this model of, look, I can scale up a team and I have some fixed costs, but also these coaches who are very core to the business, I only have to pay them when I get paid. And so you get the scale and a lot of the benefits of the team without the biggest problem, which is this insane overhead.

Yeah. And it's also trying to find a sustainable business model that has recurring income in it. So I don't have to rely on like quarterly launches or whatever. Right. I think that's part of it too. But my thing is like, I can make more money, impact more people, spread the StoryGrid methodology and have more freedom by having a team. So I don't understand the downside.

Why I wouldn't do that.

Yeah.

So, okay, but let's dive into that because the downside can be pretty extreme if you do it wrong. Yeah, this is— I want to be clear, this is a narrow path that we're walking. It is with some pretty big pitfalls if you get it wrong, right? So the downside could be less freedom because you spend a lot of your time on calls and management. Yeah. Hiring and firing is a pain. You and I have both had times that we've been talking to each other and they're like, oh man, like, you would not believe what this person on my team just did.

Or how do I like delete my entire Google Drive on the way out the door? Yeah.

Yeah, that one was rough.

Yeah. I mean, thankfully it was back in like 5 minutes, but those 5 minutes were stressful.

Yeah. And then also like profit being way down or any of these things. And so what I want to drill in on is like, in this narrow ridge that we're walking of like a team being fantastic.

Yeah.

What are the things that make that really clear?

So, you know, I'm not like a huge expert on this. I'm an expert on doing it wrong. So I've had multiple versions of teams over this year. This is the first time that it's— it's the biggest team I've ever had. We have 26 total, no full-time, all contract. Um, and it's so much fun. Like, I love it. It's so fun having a group of people dedicated to the same thing I'm dedicated to, that are excited about it. Um, and so there's a lot of things that go into it. One thing for me is I— one of the traps I fell into that was extremely painful to get out of was, um, like keeping people that weren't doing great, especially as we started to change our business model, and they weren't keeping up and then trying to pay them what they wanted, not what the job was worth, because I felt bad. And, uh, we had this, this big moment with somebody. They kind of— well, they, they left and burned a bunch down on the way out the door, and we were able to recover. But I was like, I had bent over backwards to try to make this person happy, pay them what they wanted to get paid. I was overpaying them, and then this is how it ended. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to do it the way I want to do it.

Yeah.

And I think there's a part of me that was like constantly— I just started trusting my intuition more of just like, this is the right way to do it. This is how I want to run my business. This is what we're doing. And there became— I kind of have this mentality of like, we're going somewhere. If you think that's an interesting place to go, get on board. If not, get the fuck off my train because we're going somewhere. And so And when I started doing that, all of a sudden people started popping off. They're like, I want to go there too, right? And I want to help you get there because I'm going to get what I want at the same time you're getting what you want. And so I've just got this stone cold pack of killers now working for me that I just like, you know, just they're so good at what they do. They care so much about the students, right? This is my thing. Is it's like we haven't really got into this, but it's like I wanted to be a writer my whole life and like nothing worked until I found Sean and the StoryGrid. And then he taught me how to do it. And I just want to teach everybody. Like, there's so many people that want to be a writer. And so this is what I tell my team all the time. I was like, unless it's unethical, immoral, or illegal, I will do anything to help people become a better writer. And when, when you get that passion, they're like, that's what we want for people too.

And when you're saying, hey, we will own the outcome.

Yes.

Right. Like, that makes such a big difference because then you completely stand out.

Yeah. And then it's like, if it's not working, we'll just change it. Like, we don't have to stick to anything if we're always looking at the outcome. Are people making the kind of progress that they should be making? And so, um, so no, but on a more practical side, I do— a lot of people, and I, I've fallen into this trap too, is like, oh, I'm going to hire an assistant. Or I'm going to hire somebody to write my emails for me, or I'm going to hire somebody to take these mundane tasks off my plate. The problem is, though, that just sucks revenue, right?

Right.

And so what I did instead was started building this team of coaches where I only pay money once I've gotten money in. So once I got my $1,100 in, then I take $350 and I give it to somebody. But if that $1,100 disappears next month, I don't have to pay them the $350. And so now I don't have this fixed cost. Then I only added fixed costs as we've reached certain levels. So as we reached a certain level in one of our things, it's like I need somebody to manage this. But now I can run the numbers and there's enough money there that I can pay this person this fixed cost and reliably pay them, pay everybody. And there's— I can still look at the profit that's coming out the other side. And so then I start hiring. Then only— I mean, I'm still editing my own videos, sending out my own emails. Like, only once our regular profit got to a certain point did I then go add more fixed costs that are still relatively easy to drop if I need to because it's contractors and I'm only taking a small amount of their time, like my video editor and all these other things. So I don't feel like, hey, if this month I got to let it go, I got to let it go. And so, and then I start people in small roles see if they kill it or not. If they don't, I don't renew it. Right. So this is how I get around firing people, is I hire them for small stints and I give them— and I try to give them about 80% of what they need to do the job. Not very deliberately. Yeah. Because I want to see what happens when they don't know what to do.

Yeah.

Do they sit and wait for me to ask? Then they're gone immediately. Do they ask me before trying to figure it out themselves that they get a conversation before they're gone? Yeah. But, and, but what's nice is gone is, hey, thanks so much. That project went great. I don't really have anything. I'll let you know. And then I don't have to fire. I've had to fire people and it's not fun, but like, it's just a non-renewal.

Yeah.

And then once somebody comes in, you, you know, the A players as soon as they show up, because it's just like, I got this woman that's helping me with my— grow our Twitter and I'm just like, this is an A player. Like, I forget that it's happening. And then I look and all the numbers are going up the right direction and she just pings me if she needs something from me. And when she does, she's already tried to do it herself, right? And so I'm just looking for those people to show up, and then I just— would you like to do more? Would you like to do more? Um, but I think not starting with these fixed costs that don't bring in revenue, but building something around a variable cost that is attached to revenue. And then once you get the revenue to a reliable level, you can start plugging in some fixed costs that aren't as risky as building this whole team that you've got to pay for.

Yeah, you're unlocking it at each level and that, that completely makes sense. Yeah, I love this. One thing that I'm curious about is this jump, you know, as we're going from $1.1 to $2.2 million and these things that you've unlocked with a new mindset, how you're focused on a team and then this business model, where does it go from here?

So the long-term goal in the next 8 to 10 years is I want to get to $25 million. That's the goal. By 2027, I want to be past $5 million. My business coach is pushing me to shoot for $5 million next year. I don't think we're—

Might be a little fast.

Well, you know, we're at 16, I think, mentors now. So to get to $5 million, I'm going to need like 30 plus. Now I have like management structures and training. I'm a little worried about growing that fast. Um, but really the business is simplified, right? We used to have all of these products. We're down to 2 products. Yeah, we have a membership product that is a— like, we do training, uh, and that's a small part of the business. And then this thing that we lined out, that's— we've keep cutting products to get to the simple things that work the best, that have the most profitability, longer lifetime value of of each customer. So now it's just more of that. And now it's, well, making sure our lead gen is matching how fast we want to grow. And now I got to build a sales team for that. And I've got to then also make sure that we have training for new mentors and then training for our current mentors so they can keep leveling up, so they can take writers all the way through writing a book. And what's nice is since we're just running one product, I can hyperfocus and just keep making it better and better and better and better. And so even if somebody tries to compete with us, which we have zero competition right now because what we do is so hard, they're never going to catch up because we're now so far ahead and we're moving so fast because I have money now to spend on making it better and better and better. And so my goal, like, this is what I've been saying now for a year. People are like, oh, you should do that, you should do that. I'm like, no new product. No new, no new nothing. And in fact, all I've done is cutting because now every time I cut something, I can take the people that are running that who are like crazy smart and I can put them back on the main thing, right? So now I'm getting my smartest people constantly focused on how do we make this thing better?

Something that I talk about, I've talked about a lot over the years is if you really want to scale a creator business, you have to build a skyscraper not a strip mall.

Oh, God.

And so, so many people say, okay, I make $500 grand off of this product or $300 grand. If I want to make more, I need to add the second product and then third product. And they go from here. It's the same thing as having like, you know, you got your RadioShack and your Subway and all these things. You built up this whole strip mall. And that's a very complicated way to build a business over $1 million. And it almost never builds a business over $5 million.

Yeah, well, well, Hormozi says he's like, you, until you break $1 million, you should have One avatar, one product, one channel. Like, you should— any channel, any avatar, any product, if you can't hit a million with that, you have a problem. The other thing that was interesting, because the unsung hero behind Alex is Layla. She's the smart one, right? I mean, Alex is brilliant, but he's like marketing sales guy. She's the one that knows how to run a company. I wish we could see more from her, because if you go back and watch her old videos, they are Like, so brilliant. Anyway, I was— there was this point where I told Sean, I was like, things are getting easier. I can feel it. Like, like where, where when we were, I was churning harder and harder and harder to stay at $700,000. Now things are getting easier and we're going to double this year.

Right.

And I like the week after I said that, I was watching a Leila Hermosi video and she started talking about how when you have product market fit, things start getting easier, not harder. In fact, you can make a lot of mistakes and you still do okay because you have product market fit. And like, that's what we finally found. That's what it took me 600 phone calls to figure out and trying lots of different versions of our product is product market fit. And now that we have that, now it's just make it better, better, better, better, better. Make sure more and more people find out about it. And, you know, we'll be actually trying to manage the growth. We're going to be one of those, you know, 10-year overnight successes, right?

I love it. I think just ending on that note of the simplicity.

Yeah.

You know, as you get scale, it's really because you narrow down the focus. Things got simpler over time and you ended up saying no to a lot of things. Yeah, I think a lot of people say like, oh, once I get scale, I'll be able to say yes to even more things. It's like, actually, that's not true.

No, no, no. Yeah.

On that note, where should people go to follow your content? Check out StoryGrid.

Yeah.

Check out your writing. Throughout all of this, you're a prolific writer.

Yeah. Yeah. So StoryGrid.com is the website, StoryGrid on YouTube, StoryGrid on Twitter. We are now on Twitter. And then my own writing. So I have 6 books. My most recent is The Shithead. It's the best thing I've ever written. In fact, everybody listening to this show will love that book. The number one feedback I got is from like entrepreneurs and business owners. Absolutely love the book. So read The Shithead. You'll absolutely love it. Uh, best title ever. Uh, Sean came up with the title, uh, and then I'm working on my next one. Uh, but yeah, so that's where you can find me.

Sounds good. Well, thanks for being a great friend for more than a decade now. And thanks for coming back on the podcast.

Yeah, of course. Thanks, Nathan. Thanks for having me.

If you enjoyed this episode, you'll love the last time Tim was on the show where we explored how to write a book that sells for decades and how he built a publishing flywheel that keeps growing. Be sure to like the video and subscribe for more, and I'll see you next week.