In this interview, Esteban Baez of 7 Figure Agency talks with Austin Hauser, founder of Base Coat Marketing, about his two‑year experience within the 7 Figure Agency community. Austin explains how he joined when his business had only one or two clients and was operating at a negative recurring revenue, investing more than he earned. Trusting the guidance of Joshua Nelson and the agency’s community, he left his 9‑to‑5 job and, within 11 months, transformed the business from negative cash flow to a multi‑seven‑figure "Titan" agency. He discusses the importance of numbers, noting that profit margins tend to shrink as revenue grows, and shares that his agency now serves a large client base with strong retention. Austin highlights the broader business principles he learned—beyond tactical marketing—including leadership, mindset, and training leaders, which enabled him to scale a team of about 30 people while only directly managing a fraction of them. This operational autonomy gives him the freedom to take extended vacations while the business continues to run smoothly. The conversation underscores the role of community mentorship, systematic scaling, and the pursuit of freedom through well‑designed business systems.
Hello everyone, my name is Esteban Baez with 7 Figure Agency, and today I have with me Austin Hauser, Base Coat Marketing. Awesome. So Austin, share with us a little bit of your experience here with 7 Figure Agency.
Yeah, so I joined just about 2 years ago, and at the time we had maybe 1 or 2 clients, and we were actually negative recurring revenue. I was investing more into the business than it was actually generating. I had a very short runway to get things off the ground.
Oh wow. And I jumped in with both feet.
I left my 9 to 5. And I trusted in Joshua Nelson and his entire community here to get us where we're going, not knowing if the outcome on the other side of that was gonna be positive or negative. And in the course of those 2 years, we have officially hit Titan status, which means we are now a multi-seven-figure agency.
Oh wow, that's incredible.
Yeah.
Now a lot of people are wondering, what are your profit margins, retention rate, that sort of stuff? Can you share a little bit about that?
Yeah, so numbers are what helped guide us through this entire process, right? We started out and it was all just about how much money can I possibly make? And I remember setting these goals back then, which was like, hey, I can like— what all these things I'm going to do once I hit 7 figures. And now we look back on that and it was— it took us 11 months to get to that point.
11 months.
11 months to go from negative recurring revenue to 7 figures.
That's a record-keeping time. I mean, you did it pretty fast.
Yeah. And, you know, execution's important, right? Okay. Um, but yeah, it's, it's really— when we look at the numbers, um, profit margins are extremely important. But a lot of people just look at profit as like, that's the number I need to focus on, when in reality that number is going to shrink as you get larger, right? You're taking a smaller piece of a bigger pie.
Okay.
And, um, everything I'm telling you, by the way, is something that I've learned through people in this community here. Like, I didn't just jump into this business and know all these things, but, um, I always tell my wife, if, if let's say this business just blows up tomorrow, okay, um, we will absolutely be able to build something new and different because of everything that I've learned in this community. I see.
So it sounds like you learned business principles here.
More than just marketing, right? So like tactical marketing stuff, sure, that room will get you what you're looking for. But from a leadership standpoint, mindset, you know, the ability to train leaders to lead your team. We now have 30 people on our team.
Wow.
And I don't manage all of them, right? I barely talk to half of them other than maybe once a week. And having the ability to know that the team's gonna run on their own, when this year so far, we're in July, I have taken almost 2 months of vacation or travel time. So it's about creating freedom too.
Okay, excellent. Thank you so much for sharing, man. This was really good. We really— I hope you guys enjoy the short little interview here with Austin Hauser. Thank you for sharing your experience with everybody here. Yeah, that's excellent. All right.
