Building In Public #1. The First 30 Days.

In short: It's going really well.

Monday morning are the hardest mornings to write, because I don’t have any momentum to bring with me. I’m thinking about using Monday’s as a weekly series of “building in public”, where I give a high level update on my newsletter, my wins, and my losses.

Please leave a comment or hit reply and let me know if you enjoy this or not. Here goes.

I am now entering my third week of my daily newsletter.

It’s been great so far. There have been many surprises as well as challenges, but all in all, I can already tell how much of an amazing journey I am embarking upon.

An Update On Backend Infrastructure And Business Model

Truth be told, I am still getting organized with some of the backend and figuring out exactly what I want to do. I am trying to take it one day at a time, and make small improvements every day.

Here is a list of improvements I want to make.

1. I need to get up better video recording. Right now, I’m just using loom and editing on top of it. It’s a perfectly good solution for get me started recording my videos, but to go next level. I need to figure out how to use OBS, I need to figure out audio levels and I need to get a better video camera.

2. I’m happy I switched over to Substack. I’ve been nervous about leaving he ConvertKit recommendations network as I’ve gotten a lot of subscribers through it. However, I am still getting lots of organic subscribers through Substack notes. I don’t have any products to sell and so I don’t need the marketing functionality that ConvertKit offers. Switching to Substack has helped me with focus, because there’s nothing else to think about other than writing a great newsletter.

3. I need to get my coaching program a bit more organized. I can not believe how much interest I have gotten for my coaching services. It’s reasonable to think that I’ll be at 10K MRR by the end of my first 30 days of launching the program. With that said, I need to better organize my schedule and create a better framework to bring my students through. I want to avoid being “strict”, as I don’t believe any two businesses are the same. With that said, it’s always helpful to have a basic framework as a guide for my students.

4. I’m reminded that the value of a personal brand is the relationships you make. Yes, my newsletter is a business, as I am using my newsletter as a way to generate paid subscribers, land coaching deals, and land high level consulting deals. However, I’m more convinced than ever that the value of a personal brand is the relationships you build and the reputation you create. Every day, I get emails from people who offer me partnerships on projects, or investment opportunities, or want to “run something by me.” I’m being very picky and choosy about what I decide to say yes to, as I have some important projects in the works right now that need my focus. However, the volume of opportunities continues to astonish me.

Revenue Numbers

1. Paid subscribers - I’ve gotten 28 paid subscribers over the course of the last 30 days. I am going to double the price at the end of the month, so I hope I can continue to average 1 paid subscriber a day. So far I made $1,620.80.

2. Coaching students - I’ve booked two new students for a total of $5,000 MRR. I’m thrilled with this. I know I need to continue improving the product but so far, both of my students enjoy and like the “24/7 access to me” approach.

3. Consulting clients - I have landed two major clients for a total of $13,333 a month.

4. Total - $19,958 MRR

Final Thoughts

This project is off to a better start than I anticipated. This was a big decision for me to move to Substack and create a real infrastructure behind my own creative work.

I am proud of myself for building the structure that allows me to step away from the companies I’ve built. Stodzy and Copyblogger are in such good spots right now. It was a very emotional process for me to give up control and put people in charge to run the companies without my direct input. But the extra time and freedom I have created for myself is allowing me to do the creative work I’ve always wanted to do.

The most important aspect of this is patience. I can’t grow too fast. I need to remain focused on my clients, my students, and my publishing cadence.

I’m not going to take on any more clients for a while. The two projects I am working on are extremely important and I need to generate results.

In addition, I am only going to have 4 coaching students at a time. 4 is plenty and that will give me a good balance of time and attention for each student.

In time, I hope to generate scale through the subscribers, but I’m not worried about that right now. I am going to make my paid content so high level that it would be unreasonable for people not to subscribe to it.

I’m really happy. Hashtag blessed.

Love you. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tim

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