A short first-person anecdote by Ryan Deiss describing how he simplified his business into a single napkin sketch of a marketing funnel (buy ads → landing page → opt-in → offer → follow-up). He credits implementing that simple plan with generating his first $1M in revenue and frames it as a lesson in simplifying business models.
I was having this conversation with a friend and he had just casually mentioned, isn't it interesting how so many of the great business ideas were started on the back of a napkin? Whether it was Southwest Airlines or the idea for Ethernet. You can't really overcomplicate a business if you're writing it out on a napkin, Ryan. You have no idea how your business works. You've gotten too complicated. And I made myself a deal. I said, I am going to write out on this napkin how my business works, and if I can't do it, I'm going to declare bankruptcy. And if I can, I'm going to figure some way to dig myself out of this hole. And I drew out a very simple what we would now call a funnel. I'm going to buy ads, and they're going to go to this landing page, and when people opt in, I'm going to make them an offer. And if they don't buy, I'm going to put them in this follow up series. I remember just being done looking at it, going, that's so simple. That's so obvious. I left the event, I went home and I began working that napkin plan. And that was the first year that I generated a million dollars in revenue at the business I still day. It sounds corny, but I'll call it my million dollar napkin.
