Justin Welsh At 4 M

Yesterday, my little one-person business crossed $4M in revenue.

It took 1,352 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]

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

2/ Honed in on signals

Inside all of that noise? Signal.

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

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.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

5/ 2x'ed my rates

With a well-defined niche, some happy customers, and testimonials, I 2x'ed my rates.

I started creating more content that was even more targeted. This led to more conversations with ideal-fit prospects.

I said no to any company outside of my niche.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

6/ Reduced my time

With new rates, I could have worked the same and made 2x as much.

Instead, I chose to work 50% of the time and make the same.

I used that extra time to figure out how to scale income that was more automated.

My goal had always been to get my time back.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

7/ Kept my eyes and ears open

Something really interesting happened.

In an attempt to find common problems to productize, I started rereading my LinkedIn DMs.

I had some repetitive questions about SaaS sales, but I also had an inbox jammed with questions about LinkedIn itself.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

8/ Tested a hypothesis

Back then, I had grown to 20k+ followers on LinkedIn & people wanted to know more.

I had a hypothesis that this would be an easy info product I could create & sell.

I put together a short course for $50 (more on price later) & wrote posts about it.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

9/ Made my first product $$

I put the product for sale on Gumroad on April 16th, 2020.

In the first month, I made $10,482.

I was shocked.

I now had my first digital product, but it was in a totally different niche than my service business.

Honestly, this confused me.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

10/ Ran with it

Over the next 15 months, I sold about $75k of the course.

I posted about audience building on LinkedIn and found other ways to continue to land consulting clients. (VCs, news sites, blogs, SaaStr, etc)

Even though it felt confusing, I continued to run with it.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

11/ Tripled down

After the course was outdated, people started asking for a new version.

I rebuilt the course, but this time charged $150.

The earlier $50 price was my "trust tripwire".

I charged $50, delivered 100x worth the price, and built trust w/ a loyal customer base.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

12/ Marketed aggressively

With 100% of my LinkedIn content focused on audience growth, and a product directly related to that content, sales took off.

My previous course grossed $75k in 15 months.

The second version has grossed $186k in 3 months.

Next up...

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

13/ I began creating an army

At the halfway point of my course, people are encouraged to leave a testimonial & sign up for an affiliate program.

I built the same automation at the conclusion of the course.

I now have 1,400+ affiliates that have generated $280,000+ in revenue.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

14/ Built a community

As sales picked up, my interest in consulting faded.

I was doing $2k per day in info products and wanted to run with that.

I opened a private community for creators and charged $199.

Those who completed my course were prompted to join.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

15/ Made a difficult decision

I loved my community but realized that it didn't work with my personality.

It was a $15k MRR business, but I felt like I had to be "on" 24/7.

That wasn't the life I wanted to build.

15 months after starting it, I made a decision to shut it down.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

16/ Reinvested my time

With way more free time now, I decided to start Tweeting.

Using what I knew about growing on LinkedIn, I was able to hit 75k followers in about 6 months.

This provided a new channel to build more stuff.

So I did.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

17/ Created a 2nd digital course

I was doing a podcast with @dickiebush and @nicolascole77 about how I built a system for writing content.

The 500+ people on the call seemed to be amazed by it.

That led to my 2nd course, The Content Operating System.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

18/ Added MRR

I noticed that each week I was spending time creating content templates for myself.

What if my audience wanted those too?

I tested it as a $9 upsell on each course.

8 months later it has 2,100+ subscribers.

Almost $19.3k MRR from something I was already doing.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

19/ Started a newsletter

In January of 2022, I launched my newsletter, The Saturday Solopreneur.

I was determined to deliver one piece of actionable advice each Saturday AM that could be read in 4 minutes or less.

In the last 17 months, I've grown it to 115k+ subs.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

20/ Added sponsorships

With over 115k subs, I can charge for each issue to be sponsored.

I have 2 slots per issue, per week, that sell for $2,500.

Now each weekly newsletter is paying $5,000, and people are getting their brand and business in front of a ton of readers.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

Finally, here's what my business revenue looks like:

Products: $2.34M
Consulting: $1.17M
MRR: $197k
Sponsorships: $164k
Community: $130k

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

One last note:

While this thread might be easy to read, none of this was actually easy.

- It's taken ~4 years & 4,000 pieces of content
- There are days when I think it's all going away
- I'm an outlier - the creator game is tough

Does that mean you shouldn't try? No.

But...

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

You should have a very "long game" mentality.

1. Start a side project.
2. Build it to 60% of your salary
3. Then go all in.

Good luck! I'm rooting for you.

Thanks for taking some of your time to read this today.

Feel free to ask a question & I'll respond to as many as I can.

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 22, 2023

Please RT https://t.co/WSV9ukavy4

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 23, 2023

Time to pivot and move up a little. Angel invest.

Invest 10K Now, Harvest 10M In 10 Yearshttps://t.co/46c9E5x24i
DemocracyTechhttps://t.co/fX1Weke5np

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 23, 2023

Soloprenuership may have defeated me, friends.

I’m prepping the resume and heading into the job market. Wish me luck.

— Ryan Giordano (@rtgiordano) May 22, 2023

I recently wrote a Tweet that generated:

- 2.6M Impressions
- 9K engagements
- 3K new followers
- 2.3K new email subs

I wrote it using a copywriting formula I created called VFCA.

Here's how it works (and how you can use it too):

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) May 23, 2023

I gave it a spin. https://t.co/CMltuYdHBi

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 23, 2023

22: Ukraine

Wondering if people who are afraid of open-source AI infrastructure have, in fact, a deep distrust of human intelligence.
Do they doubt that the benefits of AI will be overwhelming compared to the risks of misuse?
Would they have had similar fears about the open internet?

— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) May 21, 2023

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Transformation Church (@tcliveny)

Looks like others are noticing that SF is the next Detroit: https://t.co/UYDDMgKiWB

— Keith Rabois (@rabois) May 21, 2023

80% of Americans believe that large corporations and the ultra-wealthy should be paying more in taxes. If Republicans are serious about avoiding default, let’s start there — not cutting programs that help hardworking families.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 21, 2023

Cars are not sentient. But they don't have to be sentient to be regulated. Insiders like you talk relentlessly about the need to regulate AI but stay vague on the details. I think that causes anxiety among the early adopters.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Give me five of your startups. Get them to place ads on my tech blog. I will give them A1 coverage. Deal?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

My whole adult life has been a search for quiet. I've had 3 different buildings soundproofed. I can continue working on something in a noisy place, but to *start* working on something I need quiet. https://t.co/dgcqmWQOZI

— Paul Graham (@paulg) May 21, 2023

Have you found the quiet yet?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

I deleted all productivity apps a while ago and I couldn’t be happier.

Using several apps to become more productive actually makes you unproductive. You waste valuable time that you could use for work.

Take a pen and a paper or simple note app, write down your tasks, and cross…

— Catalin (@catalinmpit) May 21, 2023

Most people have still not heard of #ChatGPT. That is the truth.

Most of those who have played with it, have not truly integrated it into their life and work. That is the truth.

Most early adopters have not figured out how to get the rest of their team along. That is so.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 20, 2023

This is an Einstein-Tagore dialogue where Tagore said all reality is subjective.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Four years of university at ages 18-22 is so dumb. People struggle so much to just say this.

Maybe like 1 year of business / engineering would have been good at 18 and then another year of philosophy at age 30

I had the dumbest ideas about how the world worked when in college

— Paul Millerd (@p_millerd) May 21, 2023

GOP are extreme, unreasonable hostage takers. They want a spending caps deal 3x longer than any deal struck in recent history; steeper spending cuts that would throw American families off healthcare, childcare & food; extreme immigration provisions that shut off legal pathways.

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) May 21, 2023

रेलमार्गको राष्ट्रिय गुरुयोजना बन्न लागेको मा खुशी लाग्यो।
केहि महिना अघि मात्र यस्को बारेमा हिमाल खबरमा लेखेको थिएँ । त्यो लेखको लिङ्क दोस्रो ट्विटमा पाउनुहोला ।https://t.co/4bbC2dSiiC
(१् / २)

— Arnico Panday अरनिको पाँडे (@arnicopanday) May 21, 2023

Imagine the outrage when this guy learns that half of all Americans are below the median

Who wants to tell him? pic.twitter.com/gtjKJfdZ4A

— Trevor Loy (@trevorloy) May 20, 2023

I keep seeing my various AI experiments reused by AI Influencers ("Ten shocking things GPT will do!"), especially my stuff with Code Interpreter.

The lack of attribution is not an issue, but I wish they'd include the prompts from my original threads so people can see what to do.

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) May 21, 2023

Prompt Share - Midjourney

Inspired by @tasmilie - check out his amazing work and give him a follow!

Prompt:
minimalism, close-up, portrait, haute couture --ar 16:9 --s 750 pic.twitter.com/RNmYcMbC1q

— Alie Jules (@saana_ai) May 20, 2023

You should try better prompts.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Sometimes just shipping it can be the key thing https://t.co/fyvvHqCkks

— Emad (@EMostaque) May 21, 2023

Steve Wozniak took his PC to his bosses at HP who were unimpressed (and Steve Jobs was furious!).

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Emad. I'd like to join your team and help you scale.

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Kind of amazing how often one sees assertions that the global role of the dollar lets America borrow at low interest rates. Do you even FRED, bros? 1/ pic.twitter.com/q1ADssq4xM

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 21, 2023

So the dollar's role as the de facto global currency does not let the global economy absorb all that excess dollars that the US prints?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Wait, do they print anything or is this all some data center gimmick?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Republicans in DC are pushing for a massive increase in the $858 billion Pentagon budget, a $1.8 trillion tax break to people who inherit over $1 billion & a $3.5 trillion extension of Trump's tax breaks. Oh, did they tell you how very, very concerned they are about the deficit?

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 21, 2023

House Republicans walked away from a meeting with the Biden administration.

They returned hours later with a ransom note that’s nothing more than a partisan right-wing wish list.

The MAGA extremists are recklessly driving the nation toward a dangerous default.

Get serious.

— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) May 21, 2023

What explains the global wave of authoritarian populism and anti-elitism?

From today’s GPS: my conversation with @Harvard @Kennedy_School comparative political scientist @PippaN15 pic.twitter.com/0SmXTeCGr6

— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) May 21, 2023

New research indicates that wealthy countries should contribute up to 90% of the finance that is required for global climate mitigation. https://t.co/ILYAtAuyzC pic.twitter.com/ByxxMI4OnN

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) May 21, 2023

New research indicates that wealthy countries should contribute up to 90% of the finance that is required for global climate mitigation. https://t.co/ILYAtAuyzC pic.twitter.com/ByxxMI4OnN

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) May 21, 2023

Notion is the perfect tool to keep track of a bunch of things you probably shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

— Dickie Bush 🚢 (@dickiebush) May 21, 2023

Is this democracy? https://t.co/jif45dnCot

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 21, 2023

Social media isn’t social - it’s performative.

Where’s the chitchat, the banter, the easy laughter?

We made something new.

Push-to-talk, whenever you want.

With perfect transcripts and AI art.

A dinner party in your pocket.

Follow @getairchat

Never feel alone again. pic.twitter.com/V9urTOVf4u

— Naval (@naval) May 21, 2023

Few things are harder to predict than the ways in which someone much smarter than you might outsmart you.

That's the reason I worry about AI. Not just the problem itself, but the meta-problem that the ways the problem might play out are inherently hard to predict.

— Paul Graham (@paulg) May 21, 2023

It would also be smart to employ some systemic thought here:https://t.co/lYZz6I4exA

— Greg Kieser - Reforesters and Dear Machine (@gregkieser) May 21, 2023

People who "work intensively with AI" could not predict GPT-4 capabilities.

E.g. Yann LeCun have boldly claimed that even GPT-5000 won't be able to solve task which require innate understanding of physics in Jan 2022. The specific task he provided was solved by GPT-3.5 only a…

— Alex Mizrahi (@killerstorm) May 21, 2023

a lot of confident takes out there pic.twitter.com/1T8n0H3Gk1

— AI Notkilleveryoneism Memes (@AISafetyMemes) May 21, 2023

I don't think that does it, because the bureaucracies doing the funding wouldn't know how to distinguish good alignment papers from bad alignment papers. It's possible that some progress could be made on AI interpretability this way; but I don't think that's enough.

— Eliezer Yudkowsky (@ESYudkowsky) May 21, 2023

If AI is getting all it's info from the internet, it will do whatever it can to protect dogs and cats ... not sure what it'll consider the threats?!?!

— Mike Oswald (@StoneRoadPress) May 21, 2023

pic.twitter.com/uijWbnyKqs

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 22, 2023

Wait until the AI influencers, who flunked algebra, realize that AI is actually math.

— Sean M. Boisselle (@seanboisselle) May 21, 2023

So much writing on the debt ceiling right now seems utterly behind the curve. The question now is what does Biden do if Rs refuse any deal that doesn't effectively give them complete control of US policy? Or maybe even actively seek financial crisis? 1/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 21, 2023

This is not Economics. This is a hostage situation. What do YOU know about hostage situations? ;)

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 22, 2023

Since we both teach the same thing or similar things to similar audiences. Let's team up. How far are you in? Do you need help with marketing?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 22, 2023

“For 5% of the American defense budget and zero American military casualties, the Ukrainians military is destroying the Russian military, and that is absolutely in American interests.” https://t.co/AevHwOMHGY

— Kori Schake 🌻🇺🇦 @korischake on post (@KoriSchake) May 21, 2023

How do we go back to being a society that builds its train stations like spectacular Art Deco cathedrals? pic.twitter.com/GB7zgGRZvA

— Culture Critic (@Culture_Crit) May 21, 2023

my mother in law found my Twitter feed...

👋 hi Linda

— Alok Tayi (@aloktayi) May 21, 2023

I'm a landlord.

At one time I thought I would build a portfolio of rentals.

I absolutely cannot stand it and can't wait to sell and never do it again.

No liquidity, high fees, and lots of headaches.

Some people are cut out for it.

I am absolutely not.

— Mark McGrath (@MarkMcGrathCFP) May 21, 2023

🧐

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2023

Photoshop is fucked.

This new AI model from Google, MIT and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics lets you modify a picture in any direction you want instantly by dragging it.

This work takes months of training and hours of work in Photoshop. pic.twitter.com/uC5V9ZpcwA

— Zain Kahn (@heykahn) May 21, 2023

Nine regals
Thinking their world was eternal
On the cusp of upheaval pic.twitter.com/kjfBPPfiKT

— Balaji (@balajis) May 22, 2023

Nine kings met in 1910
Four years before World War
No one thought that noble world would ever end
But beneath the surface
Technological change was bubbling
Political movements were surging
They didn't have the skill to run their countries
So they lost themhttps://t.co/fNGpGgtJDa

— Balaji (@balajis) May 22, 2023

Constitutional monarchy = digital presidency.

Just like several of the monarchs saw their powers constitutionally limited, so too do many politicians already have their powers digitally limited.

In many ways, the network is already upstream of the state.https://t.co/5cfm1CyACH pic.twitter.com/Z9i33hpt3C

— Balaji (@balajis) May 22, 2023

...and when you consider birth rates in the distinct groups this gap is going to widen at an accelerating rate. pic.twitter.com/ZePUCi58sM

— Daniel Pickering (@the_djp_) May 22, 2023

If you're not using AI, you're falling behind.

Here are 18 AI tools to future-proof yourself. Get more tools like this by signing up to Superhuman AI--the world’s biggest AI newsletter.

— Zain Kahn (@heykahn) May 10, 2023

Starting to get TikTok-like addicted to Twitter’s new home feed@elonmusk is doing some algorithmic magic and it’s starting to understand what I like to see VERY well

💊 💉

— @levelsio (@levelsio) May 21, 2023

The future of Twitter is 'X- the everything app'. The goal is to make 'X' app as useful as possible, as entertaining as possible, & a source of truth.

— Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/FSH6g66b2K

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) May 21, 2023

Clinton also warned that re-electing Donald Trump would 'spell the end of democracy' in the US. Read the full interview 👉 https://t.co/4MzDWKQrF6 pic.twitter.com/b8eYfy6Sei

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) May 22, 2023