Why should you start your own business instead of becoming an employee?

Well, being a business owner isn't for everyone.
But it may be exactly the change you need!

Let me give you some great reasons to quit your job and become self-employed.

🧵👇

Today, my little one-person business crossed $3M in revenue.

It took 1,187 days, I ran zero ads & operate at a 94% margin.

Here are the 20 steps of my wild & strange journey:

Hope it's helpful to someone.

[🧵 thread]

1/ Created lots of noise

When I was just getting started, I looked at attention as my friend.

I wrote content every day before I even had a business, just to find my voice.

I started on LinkedIn.

I shared my thoughts & observations about building a SaaS unicorn as the CRO.

2/ Honed in on signals

Inside all of that noise was some signals.

Sometimes I bombed, and sometimes I struck a chord.

The more I looked at what resonated, the more I doubled down.

This allowed me to understand what people cared about.

So, I kept writing & talking about it.

3/ Built a service business

My experience building SaaS was resonating. So I began creating more and more content about that.

Founders sent me DMs asking questions.

I responded to every single one.

Once I had prospects in my funnel, I started consulting.

4/ Found my ideal customers

Inside your customer base is more signals.

What are the commonalities between the customers you love & those who love you?

Mine were early-stage SMB SaaS in the healthcare space. A space I was experienced in & loved.

That became my ideal customer.

Build a cold email lead gen agency from scratch

// THREAD //

You've already seen it on this side of twits.

People who have transparently built $10k/mo. agencies with a few resources.

I'm going to reveal exactly how you can start this agency today and the ONLY resources you'll need for it.

Let's begin!

1. Core service

A cold email lead gen agency gets leads using cold email

>> scrapes the emails
>> writes the emails
>> sends the emails
>> books appointments

2. Your clients

Imagine running an agency where ALL appointments are booked for you.

You will target
>> local biz agencies
>> ad agencies
>> ecom agencies
>> coaches / consultants

HUGE MARKET.
PEOPLE GO CRAZY FOR THIS.

3. Cold email clients

Seriously, if you write a killer cold email to an agency, it speaks for itself.

Just ask @blackhatwizardd or @THETYFRANKEL.

What you'll need is obviously a 10/10 first line.

But that's not all.

You need to know exactly what agencies are looking for.

A thread about building a company from scratch:

Building a startup and then attempting to scale is like designing then building a car that will need to eventually fly, even become a rocket ship.

You need to spend time sketching the initial design of the vehicle. 1/n

Almost no one will give you money to sketch. YOU are the likely only investor at that stage.

You can move quicker by finding something similar and then modifying that template for time period, market size, geography, experience and skills.

Then you have an MVP to build

MVP isn’t only for tech companies. Any company can build an MVP version of itself to test and iterate.

Now your likely investors include your family, maybe a friend or two who believe in your vision and mission while sharing the same values.

That is fuel to move the car forward

No one will give you fuel if you don’t have a car because you don’t need it.

You also won’t get enough fuel for the entire journey. You have to be willing to take a risk and start the journey anyway believing that you will secure more fuel along the way.

As you proceed on the journey, you get feedback, adjust your route, circle a few times, hit a dead-end and back up, but you keep going towards your destination - your next goal.

Along the way you secure more fuel from friends and family who start to like your progress

Here’s how to double conversion on your startup’s homepage.

(From rewriting over 1,000 websites.)

A thread 👇

1/ Your "above the fold" (ATF) section is the part of your site that's immediately visible before scrolling.

When visitors see this, they decide to either keep scrolling or bounce.

In seconds, they attempt to assess:

• What you do.
• Whether you're a fit for them.

2/ If your ATF is confusing or uninteresting, visitors bounce.

This happens because of:

1. Weak messaging: Your product's purpose is unclear, uninteresting, or irrelevant.

2. Weak design: Your design is unprofessional or outdated.

3/ There are 3 things you can change on your ATF.

1. Header
2. Subheader
3. Design

Let's dive into each.

4/ Headers need to:

1. Identify how users get value from your product.

2. Include a hook—to get them to keep reading.

3. Speak directly to your customer personas.

I helped a startup grow from $3M to $24M in 8 months.

The secret? Be a little delusional.

Here are 14 lessons I learned about growing a rocketship:

Before going further, always remember:

• It's always a team effort.
• Retention is key to growth.
• It's rare a product grows without marketing.

Okay, let's go:

1/ Find out your wedge and double down.

Wedge: It is simply a strategy to win a large market by initially capturing (1) a tiny part of a larger market or (2) a large part of a small adjacent market.

Our wedge was our unique point-of-view.

Our POV gave the AHA! moment.

2/ It's never one person game.

You need 3 kinds of players: a visionary, executor and processor.

I was the executor, my boss a visionary & my other two key teammates were amazing at processing and making it work.

Lesson:Find a great combination that feels like magic.

3/ Category creation and innovation do pay off.

Our product created its category and innovated its field.

It was a unique sub-category & take on learning.

The timing was right in this case.

Category drives POV & growth.