you2idea@video:~$ watch R21F79Et98c [36:53]
// transcript — 1166 segments
0:02 It's a fair summary and you know there are two ways to do it. One is to get as
0:06 much money as humanly possible and then burn out, right? Or the other thing you
0:10 can do is build a business that grows slowly and sustainably over time that
0:25 >> You're listening to the 7igure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich
0:29 relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level.
0:34 Here's your host, Dustin Reman. >> What does it really take to build a
0:39 sevenf figureure solopreneur business? I am very honored today. I have probably
0:43 the world's leading expert on this topic and it's a topic that we talk about in
0:47 different ways on this show with different people in different stages of
0:50 this journey. But Justin Welsh is probably a familiar name to anyone
0:53 listening to this because we have a lot of people on the same path of
0:57 solarreneurship. You know, the dream of having a sevenfigure lifestyle business.
1:00 So Justin, thanks so much for being here, for taking the time. I think we're
1:04 going to shed some reality for the listeners about what it really takes,
1:07 what it's really like, and doing this the right way based on all of your
1:10 experience. So thanks for being here, man. >> It's great to be here, Dustin, and thank
1:13 you for the very kind introduction. I appreciate it. It's it's great to be
1:15 talking with you again. >> Awesome. Well, a theme that we talk a
1:20 lot about over in our community is this idea of simplicity scales. You know, I
1:23 think there's a lot of that on the internet. This this sort of idealistic
1:27 version of building a scalable business that doesn't overrun your life. And I
1:32 think we tend to fall into tactics when we talk about simplicity, right? And
1:35 we'll definitely talk about business models and your funnel and things like
1:38 that. But I think at the core, one of the reasons I resonate so much with your
1:43 work is this idea that it's really about lifestyle first. So, I'd love to just
1:47 wrap on that a little bit with you here. Maybe you can give some context to the
1:50 listeners who maybe aren't as familiar with your story about why that's so
1:54 important to you and how you view it when you're working on your own business
1:57 or working with other people who are aspiring to build a sevenfigure solo
1:59 business. >> I think first of all, the idea that simple scales and complexity often fails
2:07 goes back to my kind of prior life. Before being an online solarpreneur, I
2:11 was, you know, a VP of sales, eventually a chief revenue officer. where I helped
2:14 grow a couple of really big healthcare companies, one in New York, one in LA.
2:20 And what I saw internally in both of those companies was that the more
2:25 complex things got, the worse things got. And that was especially true in my
2:31 second job of those two. I was VP of sales, chief revenue officer at a
2:35 company called Patient Pop in LA. And since it was really my first executive
2:39 goround, I worked under the assumption that like I needed more tools, that we
2:44 needed more funnels, that things needed to be more complex. And what we found
2:49 over time was like the old 8020 rule, right? It's 20% of whatever we did
2:54 really well impacted 80% of our results. And so we recognized that was
2:57 understanding our customers very deeply, asking great discovery questions,
3:00 mapping our solution to their pain points, so on and so forth. So that
3:08 really started there. And when I came to build my own business as a soloreneur,
3:13 you would have thought that I would have taken that lesson and brought it over.
3:17 And unfortunately, I didn't. I overco complicated everything from the
3:20 beginning, right? Because I make mistakes more than once generally. And I
3:24 know I had webinars and I had complex funnels. And what I realized over time
3:30 was that in a creative entrepreneurship business online, content matters.
3:33 >> Yes. >> And if you spend all of your time creating the best possible content, you
3:40 can build a sevenfigure business without complex funnels, without complex
3:44 workflows, without a team. And to me, that is where my business is now is most
3:49 of my time is spent creating the best content that I think that I can create.
3:53 >> Absolutely. And again for for somehow people don't know your story you know
3:57 your current version nearly 800,000 followers on LinkedIn my favorite
4:01 newsletter the Saturday solopreneur got a series of different products that
4:05 we'll kind of get into and compare and contrast. So now knowing what you know,
4:09 if you were talking to, you know, Justin five, 10 years ago through this theme of
4:14 of lifestyle first, like how would you advise yourself to structure the
4:20 business model in a way that honors what you actually want? Because I think a lot
4:22 of times we start to follow someone else's example and we get trapped in
4:25 complexity because that's what we observe other people doing and we don't
4:29 stop and I I've been victim of this myself to really ask, well, what do I
4:33 want? what like what is this business for ultimately as it pertains to my
4:36 life. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that with the benefit of
4:39 the hindsight that you have. >> Yeah, I think the benefit of the
4:44 hindsight is that I believed that driving revenue growth month over month,
4:48 quarter over quarter, year over year would be the most important thing for my
4:53 business because that's an attitude that you learn in startups in startup land,
4:56 right? >> It turns out that's not that important. Like you don't want to fail. You don't
5:01 want your business to go from a million bucks down to zero, right? But the idea
5:05 is you need to make enough money to pay your bills, save and invest. And if
5:09 you're building an effective lifestyle business, the harder that you try to
5:15 grow your revenue, the more difficult it becomes to maintain it as a lifestyle
5:20 business. I'll give you some examples. So, if you're going to create more
5:25 content than like I just do written content. If I wanted to go into video,
5:29 I'd probably need to hire an editor, a script writer, someone who understands
5:33 YouTube. Everyone thinks that the answer to their problems is to hire or
5:38 outsource. Man, I've had teams of 150 people in my startup days and management
5:42 and employees come with a lot of headaches. That starts to make it less
5:47 than an ideal lifestyle business. If you want to extend your revenue, oftentimes
5:51 you might add additional business models. So in the past I've done things
5:56 like consulting, advising, coaching. I enjoy those things to an extent but what
6:00 happens after time is you're trading your time for money and so there become
6:03 less and less hours in the day to invest in business models that are more
6:07 lifestyle first digital products, subscriptions, things like that. So
6:12 there's always a trade-off. And so what I would do in hindsight is say it's not
6:20 about rapid growth quarter over quarter, year over year. It's about building a
6:24 sustainable business that you enjoy that allows you to afford the lifestyle that
6:28 you want to live while still saving and investing for your future. That to me is
6:35 the most appropriate definition for me of a lifestyle business.
6:38 >> I love that. So the idea there is start with the target meaning the core
6:43 lifestyle maybe the ideal lifestyle the ability to save invest do whatever you
6:48 want to do for your family but get to a number that is enough in whatever that
6:53 means for you as whatever stage of life you are in design a business that can
6:59 succeed towards that goal. Is that a fair summary of it? >> It's a fair summary and you know there
7:04 are two ways to do it. One is to get as much money as humanly possible and then
7:08 burn out, right? Or the other thing that you can do is build a business that
7:11 grows slowly and sustainably over time that you enjoy running. And what I often
7:17 see these quote unquote sort of lifestyle folks, lifestyle business
7:22 folks go after is the former. And nothing is worse than thinking that
7:27 you're almost to whatever number that is, but dying to get there. And when you
7:32 get there, you recognize it's not enough. Right? The best thing that you
7:36 can do is say, "I could do this for the next 10 years." And if you can do that
7:40 effectively, if that's the attitude you have going into your business, you're
7:43 going to build a much healthier, much more fulfilling lifestyle business.
7:48 >> I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful. So, just give us a summary of I like to
7:51 speak in terms of flywheels. You and I are both Nathan Barry friends and and
7:56 fans. if you had to encapsulate your current business model and how it is
8:01 sustainable and how it is something you actually enjoy doing and how you've 8020
8:05 things into your zone of genius like just give us an overview a snapshot of
8:09 your current model and kind of how that flywheel works then we'll get more into
8:12 your offers and talk a little more about some of the strategic decisions you've
8:14 made. >> Totally. From a high level I have digital products and I have a paid
8:20 community and I have a newsletter with sponsors. That's from a high level. Most
8:26 where 90% of my revenue comes from my flywheels, right, for lack of a better
8:31 description, are really simple. Like so simple, I wouldn't even call them
8:35 flywheels. My my whole thought is content is the name of the game.
8:38 >> Yeah. >> And a good content system begins with
8:43 one good idea. >> So I'll give you an example. If I have a
8:49 good idea, I generally or or I think I hypothesize that it's a good idea. The
8:53 fastest way to get feedback from me is Twitter or X, right? And so I can just
8:59 post, right? It's very simple. Like you post on Twitter all day. It's different
9:02 than other platforms. You get really fast feedback, but once you understand
9:06 that something's a good idea, like turning that into a LinkedIn post, an
9:10 Instagram story, an Instagram post, a thread, like all the becomes really
9:15 easy, right? And then once you've done that, validating that that idea works
9:19 across multiple platforms is often a good indicator that it would be a great
9:23 newsletter. So all of my content comes from a few ideas. A and the goal of that
9:30 content is really to create discovery top of funnel, right? So I'm being
9:34 discovered by thousands of new people or tens of thousands of new people every
9:38 month, right? I want them to see my short form content as a means to
9:42 discovery. I want them to go from my short form content to my long form
9:46 content, which is why I send people to my newsletter, issues, articles,
9:50 playbooks, all those different things. And I want to do two things there. I
9:53 want to show off my expertise and establish authority. And by doing that,
10:00 I position myself as someone who can solve their problems, whether that's
10:04 building an audience on LinkedIn or learning how to build their first online
10:09 business. And then I have simple, cost-effective digital courses that
10:13 solve those problems. And so for me, it's discovery top of funnel. This is
10:16 like my flywheel for lack of a better description. It's it's expertise and
10:20 authority middle of funnel. And then it's understanding the challenges they
10:23 have and the solutions they're looking for bottom of funnel.
10:26 >> Put it to a reasonable price so it's accessible for most of the world and
10:31 then overd deliver. And if you can do those things, you create, in my
10:35 estimation, a word of mouth flywheel where people are so amped to go out and
10:38 say, "I had this problem. I bought this thing from Justin and it solved it." And
10:42 you want to look like a hero to your friends, you go out and suggest the same
10:46 thing. That's my my business model in a nutshell. >> I love that. And it is it is a flywheel
10:49 because I think the thing that makes it a flywheel is it is a closed loop. And
10:54 the the tail end of what you described there is what makes it such an effective
10:58 flywheel is the overd delivery because as someone consumes one of your
11:02 products, they're likely to consume more and they're very likely to refer other
11:05 people to you, share your content on these social media channels that you
11:09 dominate. And so you're building a virtuous cycle in the way that you're
11:13 delivering the experience, right? And I think as we get more into some of your
11:18 offers and why you introduce community, I think this would be a cool place to
11:22 point out I'm also a seven figureure solopreneur, right? And I have an
11:25 extremely different model in a sense and I have a very different approach to my
11:29 offers. Actually, it echoes exactly what you just said, right? I'm more in the
11:34 camp of a higher ticket group coaching experience because that's my unique
11:37 ability. It's what I love. I'm not a gifted writer, you know, like you are.
11:41 And so much smaller attention. you know, we hit seven figures with less than a
11:45 thousand people on an email list and less than probably 5,000 LinkedIn
11:49 followers. But that was my model and it's a more intensive individualistic
11:54 model in a sense that each client generates more revenue but have far
11:58 fewer clients and far far less exposure than you, but we still overd deliver and
12:02 we get a lot of referrals. And so I just wanted the listeners to hear you don't
12:07 have to be Justin Welsh in the sense of you know over a million you know
12:10 dedicated followers on social media to still have a seven figureure business.
12:14 That works great for Justin because his style is writing first broad-based
12:19 attention on a single uh topic and then you know your preferred delivery model
12:23 is courses and now community. So any reflection on that based on all the
12:25 different models you've seen out there to hit seven figures in as a soloreneur?
12:30 Yeah, I love to talk about the fact that the way that I built something is one of
12:36 a thousand different ways you can get there, right? And I would hate for
12:40 someone to copy my journey only to find out that my luck or timing is not on
12:44 their side, >> right? What I think about when it comes
12:49 to business is less about what's the step by step or the blueprint or
12:54 whatever you want to call it, right? and more how do you think about getting
13:00 better over time. So for example, the way that I ran healthcare companies from
13:05 a sales and marketing perspective is I always considered myself a
13:08 hypothesis-based sales leader. >> Yeah. >> So I formed hypotheses and my goal was
13:14 to either prove or disprove those as quickly as possible. And once I proved
13:19 something, the goal was to make it better over time. To me, that is how I
13:24 think about online business. There's a lot of forming of hypotheses. There's a
13:29 lot of listening to signal and to your customer. >> Yeah. And I think most people that
13:36 aren't having as much success as they want to have believe that they can just
13:41 do what I did or what you do or what someone else does without recognizing
13:46 that most of the success that we have comes from understanding our target
13:50 market, listening to the signals, listening to our customers, forming
13:55 hypotheses, trying things, and then proving or disproving them as fast as
13:58 possible. If you can do that effectively, you can build a community,
14:02 a cohort-based coaching program, digital products, a SAS tool, an AI tool. You
14:06 can you can do it as many things as you want as long as you figure out what
14:10 people want and how to get it to them. >> I love that. That's Yeah, it's a
14:13 beautiful summary. And the only little nugget I would add to that is it goes
14:16 back to the core question of what do you want? All of us have unique abilities,
14:21 right? And so I love facilitating. I I I love group coaching as a model. That
14:25 might be torture for someone else. then I have no interest in running a SAS
14:28 company, right? But that's because that's my thing. Your thing is writing
14:32 and you're really good at that craft and that art and the science obviously and
14:35 based in the way that you described it. And so that's my encouragement for
14:38 someone listening is you can lean into whatever your unique ability, your
14:41 interests are. And I really love what you shared earlier. What would you love
14:45 to do for 10 years? Like what sounds exciting to do for 10 years? Because a
14:48 lifestyle business shouldn't be drudgery, right? and copying someone
14:52 else's model a lot of times sets you up for drudgery because you're not actually
14:56 doing the thing that fulfills you and you know your unique god-given skills
14:59 and abilities. >> That's right. And you said something
15:02 there that just reminded me of something that I I like to tell folks that I think
15:06 is important which is I like to write >> and I didn't always like to write but
15:11 the better I became at it the more I liked it. Right? That goes with any
15:15 skill generally like you know playing sports is hard but the better you get
15:19 the more enjoyment you often have. So when I talk to people, they say, "What
15:23 should I do? Should I do video or writing?" Like is a common question I
15:27 get. And the answer is do whichever one you can see yourself doing for a long
15:31 time because you truly enjoy it. And then once you've chosen that, become
15:37 really epic at your medium of choice, right? So if you're going to write,
15:41 >> study great writers. Read books on writing. Write all day long, all the
15:46 time. Publish all of the time. Look at what works and what doesn't. study your
15:50 own writing. Like if you're going to do video, go study the best video creators.
15:56 Take a class, take a course. Like marketing is so important, especially
16:00 with AI right now, right? Like marketing becomes so critical because you you can
16:04 build so many things. It's your ability to distribute and market them. So like
16:10 spend an absurd amount of time trying to get good at your medium of choice.
16:14 >> Yes. I love that. That's awesome. A quick sidebar, not to come out of left
16:18 field, but as someone who's so gifted and prolific at writing and it's
16:21 something you love, is there a reason there's there's not a book or is there a
16:24 book coming because that would seem to be the natural culmination of those
16:26 skill sets. >> You know, it's been something that I've
16:31 been in talks for over two years. >> Okay. >> And if I had made the decision 100% to
16:37 write a book, we could do a contract, right, pretty pretty quickly. My
16:44 question is, would I enjoy the structure of writing a book for a premium
16:49 publishing house? There's no shade on a publishing house, and it's not meant to
16:53 be negative. It's not criticism. It's simply for the last six years, I have
16:58 had no boss, no due dates, nothing that I have to get done. And I know a book is a
17:06 painstaking, stressful, anxietyinducing experience. And I think that is something that I
17:14 need to grapple with. And then I think there's probably some self-confidence
17:19 challenges because I've written short form content for 6 years, but I don't
17:24 think of myself as a bookw writer. And so I think getting over that hurdle is
17:28 maybe one of the last remaining hurdles to get over. >> I love it. Well, thank you for the
17:32 transparency there and the and the mindfulness about I hadn't even thought
17:37 about that that like could committing to that and sort of having in effect a boss
17:41 kind of take the joy out of the writing that you love so much and now you have
17:44 the ability to write when you want about what you want and where you want and you
17:48 obviously give up some of the autonomy and the process of a book in the style
17:51 that you'd want to do which is hopefully you know a very popular bestselling book
17:56 under a publishing house so that makes a ton of sense super super insightful one
17:59 thing I wanted to touch on a little bit with you. So, we actually, you know,
1:20 lot about over in our community is this idea of simplicity scales. You know, I
1:23 think there's a lot of that on the internet. This this sort of idealistic
1:27 version of building a scalable business that doesn't overrun your life. And I
1:32 think we tend to fall into tactics when we talk about simplicity, right? And
1:35 we'll definitely talk about business models and your funnel and things like
1:38 that. But I think at the core, one of the reasons I resonate so much with your
1:43 work is this idea that it's really about lifestyle first. So, I'd love to just
1:47 wrap on that a little bit with you here. Maybe you can give some context to the
1:50 listeners who maybe aren't as familiar with your story about why that's so
1:54 important to you and how you view it when you're working on your own business
1:57 or working with other people who are aspiring to build a sevenfigure solo
1:59 business. >> I think first of all, the idea that simple scales and complexity often fails
2:07 goes back to my kind of prior life. Before being an online solarpreneur, I
2:11 was, you know, a VP of sales, eventually a chief revenue officer. where I helped
2:14 grow a couple of really big healthcare companies, one in New York, one in LA.
2:20 And what I saw internally in both of those companies was that the more
2:25 complex things got, the worse things got. And that was especially true in my
2:31 second job of those two. I was VP of sales, chief revenue officer at a
2:35 company called Patient Pop in LA. And since it was really my first executive
2:39 goround, I worked under the assumption that like I needed more tools, that we
2:44 needed more funnels, that things needed to be more complex. And what we found
2:49 over time was like the old 8020 rule, right? It's 20% of whatever we did
2:54 really well impacted 80% of our results. And so we recognized that was
2:57 understanding our customers very deeply, asking great discovery questions,
3:00 mapping our solution to their pain points, so on and so forth. So that
3:08 really started there. And when I came to build my own business as a soloreneur,
3:13 you would have thought that I would have taken that lesson and brought it over.
3:17 And unfortunately, I didn't. I overco complicated everything from the
3:20 beginning, right? Because I make mistakes more than once generally. And I
3:24 know I had webinars and I had complex funnels. And what I realized over time
3:30 was that in a creative entrepreneurship business online, content matters.
3:33 >> Yes. >> And if you spend all of your time creating the best possible content, you
3:40 can build a sevenfigure business without complex funnels, without complex
3:44 workflows, without a team. And to me, that is where my business is now is most
3:49 of my time is spent creating the best content that I think that I can create.
3:53 >> Absolutely. And again for for somehow people don't know your story you know
3:57 your current version nearly 800,000 followers on LinkedIn my favorite
4:01 newsletter the Saturday solopreneur got a series of different products that
4:05 we'll kind of get into and compare and contrast. So now knowing what you know,
4:09 if you were talking to, you know, Justin five, 10 years ago through this theme of
4:14 of lifestyle first, like how would you advise yourself to structure the
4:20 business model in a way that honors what you actually want? Because I think a lot
4:22 of times we start to follow someone else's example and we get trapped in
4:25 complexity because that's what we observe other people doing and we don't
4:29 stop and I I've been victim of this myself to really ask, well, what do I
4:33 want? what like what is this business for ultimately as it pertains to my
4:36 life. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that with the benefit of
4:39 the hindsight that you have. >> Yeah, I think the benefit of the
4:44 hindsight is that I believed that driving revenue growth month over month,
4:48 quarter over quarter, year over year would be the most important thing for my
4:53 business because that's an attitude that you learn in startups in startup land,
4:56 right? >> It turns out that's not that important. Like you don't want to fail. You don't
5:01 want your business to go from a million bucks down to zero, right? But the idea
5:05 is you need to make enough money to pay your bills, save and invest. And if
5:09 you're building an effective lifestyle business, the harder that you try to
5:15 grow your revenue, the more difficult it becomes to maintain it as a lifestyle
5:20 business. I'll give you some examples. So, if you're going to create more
5:25 content than like I just do written content. If I wanted to go into video,
5:29 I'd probably need to hire an editor, a script writer, someone who understands
5:33 YouTube. Everyone thinks that the answer to their problems is to hire or
5:38 outsource. Man, I've had teams of 150 people in my startup days and management
5:42 and employees come with a lot of headaches. That starts to make it less
5:47 than an ideal lifestyle business. If you want to extend your revenue, oftentimes
5:51 you might add additional business models. So in the past I've done things
5:56 like consulting, advising, coaching. I enjoy those things to an extent but what
6:00 happens after time is you're trading your time for money and so there become
6:03 less and less hours in the day to invest in business models that are more
6:07 lifestyle first digital products, subscriptions, things like that. So
6:12 there's always a trade-off. And so what I would do in hindsight is say it's not
6:20 about rapid growth quarter over quarter, year over year. It's about building a
6:24 sustainable business that you enjoy that allows you to afford the lifestyle that
6:28 you want to live while still saving and investing for your future. That to me is
6:35 the most appropriate definition for me of a lifestyle business.
6:38 >> I love that. So the idea there is start with the target meaning the core
6:43 lifestyle maybe the ideal lifestyle the ability to save invest do whatever you
6:48 want to do for your family but get to a number that is enough in whatever that
6:53 means for you as whatever stage of life you are in design a business that can
6:59 succeed towards that goal. Is that a fair summary of it? >> It's a fair summary and you know there
7:04 are two ways to do it. One is to get as much money as humanly possible and then
7:08 burn out, right? Or the other thing that you can do is build a business that
7:11 grows slowly and sustainably over time that you enjoy running. And what I often
7:17 see these quote unquote sort of lifestyle folks, lifestyle business
7:22 folks go after is the former. And nothing is worse than thinking that
7:27 you're almost to whatever number that is, but dying to get there. And when you
7:32 get there, you recognize it's not enough. Right? The best thing that you
7:36 can do is say, "I could do this for the next 10 years." And if you can do that
7:40 effectively, if that's the attitude you have going into your business, you're
7:43 going to build a much healthier, much more fulfilling lifestyle business.
7:48 >> I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful. So, just give us a summary of I like to
7:51 speak in terms of flywheels. You and I are both Nathan Barry friends and and
7:56 fans. if you had to encapsulate your current business model and how it is
8:01 sustainable and how it is something you actually enjoy doing and how you've 8020
8:05 things into your zone of genius like just give us an overview a snapshot of
8:09 your current model and kind of how that flywheel works then we'll get more into
8:12 your offers and talk a little more about some of the strategic decisions you've
8:14 made. >> Totally. From a high level I have digital products and I have a paid
8:20 community and I have a newsletter with sponsors. That's from a high level. Most
8:26 where 90% of my revenue comes from my flywheels, right, for lack of a better
8:31 description, are really simple. Like so simple, I wouldn't even call them
8:35 flywheels. My my whole thought is content is the name of the game.
8:38 >> Yeah. >> And a good content system begins with
8:43 one good idea. >> So I'll give you an example. If I have a
8:49 good idea, I generally or or I think I hypothesize that it's a good idea. The
8:53 fastest way to get feedback from me is Twitter or X, right? And so I can just
8:59 post, right? It's very simple. Like you post on Twitter all day. It's different
9:02 than other platforms. You get really fast feedback, but once you understand
9:06 that something's a good idea, like turning that into a LinkedIn post, an
9:10 Instagram story, an Instagram post, a thread, like all the becomes really
9:15 easy, right? And then once you've done that, validating that that idea works
9:19 across multiple platforms is often a good indicator that it would be a great
9:23 newsletter. So all of my content comes from a few ideas. A and the goal of that
9:30 content is really to create discovery top of funnel, right? So I'm being
9:34 discovered by thousands of new people or tens of thousands of new people every
9:38 month, right? I want them to see my short form content as a means to
9:42 discovery. I want them to go from my short form content to my long form
9:46 content, which is why I send people to my newsletter, issues, articles,
9:50 playbooks, all those different things. And I want to do two things there. I
9:53 want to show off my expertise and establish authority. And by doing that,
10:00 I position myself as someone who can solve their problems, whether that's
10:04 building an audience on LinkedIn or learning how to build their first online
10:09 business. And then I have simple, cost-effective digital courses that
10:13 solve those problems. And so for me, it's discovery top of funnel. This is
10:16 like my flywheel for lack of a better description. It's it's expertise and
10:20 authority middle of funnel. And then it's understanding the challenges they
10:23 have and the solutions they're looking for bottom of funnel.
10:26 >> Put it to a reasonable price so it's accessible for most of the world and
10:31 then overd deliver. And if you can do those things, you create, in my
10:35 estimation, a word of mouth flywheel where people are so amped to go out and
10:38 say, "I had this problem. I bought this thing from Justin and it solved it." And
10:42 you want to look like a hero to your friends, you go out and suggest the same
10:46 thing. That's my my business model in a nutshell. >> I love that. And it is it is a flywheel
10:49 because I think the thing that makes it a flywheel is it is a closed loop. And
10:54 the the tail end of what you described there is what makes it such an effective
10:58 flywheel is the overd delivery because as someone consumes one of your
11:02 products, they're likely to consume more and they're very likely to refer other
11:05 people to you, share your content on these social media channels that you
11:09 dominate. And so you're building a virtuous cycle in the way that you're
11:13 delivering the experience, right? And I think as we get more into some of your
11:18 offers and why you introduce community, I think this would be a cool place to
11:22 point out I'm also a seven figureure solopreneur, right? And I have an
11:25 extremely different model in a sense and I have a very different approach to my
11:29 offers. Actually, it echoes exactly what you just said, right? I'm more in the
11:34 camp of a higher ticket group coaching experience because that's my unique
11:37 ability. It's what I love. I'm not a gifted writer, you know, like you are.
11:41 And so much smaller attention. you know, we hit seven figures with less than a
11:45 thousand people on an email list and less than probably 5,000 LinkedIn
11:49 followers. But that was my model and it's a more intensive individualistic
11:54 model in a sense that each client generates more revenue but have far
11:58 fewer clients and far far less exposure than you, but we still overd deliver and
12:02 we get a lot of referrals. And so I just wanted the listeners to hear you don't
12:07 have to be Justin Welsh in the sense of you know over a million you know
12:10 dedicated followers on social media to still have a seven figureure business.
12:14 That works great for Justin because his style is writing first broad-based
12:19 attention on a single uh topic and then you know your preferred delivery model
12:23 is courses and now community. So any reflection on that based on all the
12:25 different models you've seen out there to hit seven figures in as a soloreneur?
12:30 Yeah, I love to talk about the fact that the way that I built something is one of
12:36 a thousand different ways you can get there, right? And I would hate for
12:40 someone to copy my journey only to find out that my luck or timing is not on
12:44 their side, >> right? What I think about when it comes
12:49 to business is less about what's the step by step or the blueprint or
12:54 whatever you want to call it, right? and more how do you think about getting
13:00 better over time. So for example, the way that I ran healthcare companies from
13:05 a sales and marketing perspective is I always considered myself a
13:08 hypothesis-based sales leader. >> Yeah. >> So I formed hypotheses and my goal was
13:14 to either prove or disprove those as quickly as possible. And once I proved
13:19 something, the goal was to make it better over time. To me, that is how I
13:24 think about online business. There's a lot of forming of hypotheses. There's a
13:29 lot of listening to signal and to your customer. >> Yeah. And I think most people that
13:36 aren't having as much success as they want to have believe that they can just
13:41 do what I did or what you do or what someone else does without recognizing
13:46 that most of the success that we have comes from understanding our target
13:50 market, listening to the signals, listening to our customers, forming
13:55 hypotheses, trying things, and then proving or disproving them as fast as
13:58 possible. If you can do that effectively, you can build a community,
14:02 a cohort-based coaching program, digital products, a SAS tool, an AI tool. You
14:06 can you can do it as many things as you want as long as you figure out what
14:10 people want and how to get it to them. >> I love that. That's Yeah, it's a
14:13 beautiful summary. And the only little nugget I would add to that is it goes
14:16 back to the core question of what do you want? All of us have unique abilities,
14:21 right? And so I love facilitating. I I I love group coaching as a model. That
14:25 might be torture for someone else. then I have no interest in running a SAS
14:28 company, right? But that's because that's my thing. Your thing is writing
14:32 and you're really good at that craft and that art and the science obviously and
14:35 based in the way that you described it. And so that's my encouragement for
14:38 someone listening is you can lean into whatever your unique ability, your
14:41 interests are. And I really love what you shared earlier. What would you love
14:45 to do for 10 years? Like what sounds exciting to do for 10 years? Because a
14:48 lifestyle business shouldn't be drudgery, right? and copying someone
14:52 else's model a lot of times sets you up for drudgery because you're not actually
14:56 doing the thing that fulfills you and you know your unique god-given skills
14:59 and abilities. >> That's right. And you said something
15:02 there that just reminded me of something that I I like to tell folks that I think
15:06 is important which is I like to write >> and I didn't always like to write but
15:11 the better I became at it the more I liked it. Right? That goes with any
15:15 skill generally like you know playing sports is hard but the better you get
15:19 the more enjoyment you often have. So when I talk to people, they say, "What
15:23 should I do? Should I do video or writing?" Like is a common question I
15:27 get. And the answer is do whichever one you can see yourself doing for a long
15:31 time because you truly enjoy it. And then once you've chosen that, become
15:37 really epic at your medium of choice, right? So if you're going to write,
15:41 >> study great writers. Read books on writing. Write all day long, all the
15:46 time. Publish all of the time. Look at what works and what doesn't. study your
15:50 own writing. Like if you're going to do video, go study the best video creators.
15:56 Take a class, take a course. Like marketing is so important, especially
16:00 with AI right now, right? Like marketing becomes so critical because you you can
16:04 build so many things. It's your ability to distribute and market them. So like
16:10 spend an absurd amount of time trying to get good at your medium of choice.
16:14 >> Yes. I love that. That's awesome. A quick sidebar, not to come out of left
16:18 field, but as someone who's so gifted and prolific at writing and it's
16:21 something you love, is there a reason there's there's not a book or is there a
16:24 book coming because that would seem to be the natural culmination of those
16:26 skill sets. >> You know, it's been something that I've
16:31 been in talks for over two years. >> Okay. >> And if I had made the decision 100% to
16:37 write a book, we could do a contract, right, pretty pretty quickly. My
16:44 question is, would I enjoy the structure of writing a book for a premium
16:49 publishing house? There's no shade on a publishing house, and it's not meant to
16:53 be negative. It's not criticism. It's simply for the last six years, I have
16:58 had no boss, no due dates, nothing that I have to get done. And I know a book is a
17:06 painstaking, stressful, anxietyinducing experience. And I think that is something that I
17:14 need to grapple with. And then I think there's probably some self-confidence
17:19 challenges because I've written short form content for 6 years, but I don't
17:24 think of myself as a bookw writer. And so I think getting over that hurdle is
17:28 maybe one of the last remaining hurdles to get over. >> I love it. Well, thank you for the
17:32 transparency there and the and the mindfulness about I hadn't even thought
17:37 about that that like could committing to that and sort of having in effect a boss
17:41 kind of take the joy out of the writing that you love so much and now you have
17:44 the ability to write when you want about what you want and where you want and you
17:48 obviously give up some of the autonomy and the process of a book in the style
17:51 that you'd want to do which is hopefully you know a very popular bestselling book
17:56 under a publishing house so that makes a ton of sense super super insightful one
17:59 thing I wanted to touch on a little bit with you. So, we actually, you know,
18:03 officially met as I came in and I was blessed to be able to do a guest
18:07 training in the unsubscribe community, which is your paid community. And of
18:10 course, I came on and talked about podcast guesting and it was a wonderful
18:13 experience and really really wellreceived. I know that foundationally
18:17 and you've talked about different things that you've tried over time, but the the
18:21 real core of your product stack has been digital courses. You know, the content
18:25 operating system, LinkedIn, and then the creator MBA, which is the real big meaty
18:31 sort of mid-tier course. And also, you know, somewhat recently, you added this
18:35 unsubscribed community to your product stack. So, I'd love to hear sort of the
18:38 motivation behind that, the good, bad, ugly. What do you think about community
18:42 in the offer stack and where it belongs for these types of businesses that we're
18:46 running? So the idea behind unsubscribe was twofold. One is I believe with the
18:54 rise in and fast growth of AI being human first in the future is going to be
18:57 very important. >> And so I wanted to bring that human
19:02 element back into my business. And to give you a sense of of how I do that, we
19:07 do in-person events with our unsubscribed community. So, we've had
19:12 one in London and San Francisco and New York and Chicago and we're going to
19:16 Austin next month. >> Awesome. >> And it's just really meeting folks and
19:21 shaking hands, right? And really getting to know people at their core. And that
19:25 has been a cool experience. That's something that really energizes both me
19:30 and my wife. And then the other sort of side to it is it's a creative outlet for
19:35 me. I don't feel the pressure to write about business. I can write about
19:40 whatever I want. It's my newsletter about unsubscribing from the status quo
19:44 and that could take the shape of a business essay, but that could also take
19:48 the shape of an observation about, you know, something I saw at a restaurant
19:53 and I don't have to live up to any certain topical area, which I love. So,
19:57 for me, it's been about expressing creativity. I think as we move towards
20:05 fewer folks enjoying their social media experiments, AI, the average creative entrepreneur is
20:14 going to need some sort of community in their offer stack. Especially if you're
20:19 not someone with a million plus followers, I think that's going to be a
20:26 huge benefit in value ad. And so I didn't do it for that exact reason. I
20:30 did it more for creativity and just getting to know folks and making
20:34 friends, but I do think it will become important especially to that kind of
20:38 like mid-tier audience creator if you will. >> Yeah, I totally agree. And I started off
20:44 more content creation and coaching and what I've realized over the past say 18
20:48 months is really the core of our business is community, right? we've had
20:52 different versions of that and different ways to to access that community and I
20:56 get asked sometimes the question like what's the biggest asset of your
20:59 business right and it's like actually the community that we've formed and I
21:04 think that that will continue to become a more and more important moat against
21:08 you know our AI and I also think as as you hit on it is the most direct one of
21:13 the most direct ways that we can have that humanto human connection and curate
21:17 it right where you're actually getting to choose and select who you're in
21:20 community with and letting people opt into that experience versus opt out of
21:24 the status quo. So, I really appreciate that. And I guess also there's the the
21:28 aspect of it. It sounds like it wasn't a primary motivation for you, but
21:32 community is a very sustainable model in the sense of recurring revenue, right?
21:35 Like one of the downsides of selling one-off digital products is they're
21:40 one-off purchases. And so, any thoughts on that as far as the trajectory that
21:43 this can build in a business from a recurring revenue standpoint? Yeah, I
21:49 think if I focused more intensely on it, I could continue to grow the recurring
21:54 revenue around the community. That's not really my goal with this. So, to me,
21:58 it's more just like if you want to be a part of this, here it is, right? There's
22:01 no I don't I don't promote it a whole lot. People find it and join it. I think
22:08 what it's doing for me is showing me the opportunity to create recurring revenue
22:14 through other means. So when I think about like sustainability and longevity,
22:20 I don't need my business to keep growing. I want to make sure that I'm
22:24 playing defense at this point in my life. Courses at some point will become
22:31 commoditized by AI. Not because I think AI does a good job of teaching people
22:34 the stuff they need to learn, but because they feel like they're being
22:38 taught the stuff they need to learn. And that in and of itself is basically the
22:43 same thing. So what my community especially on Substack has done is shown
22:49 me that people will pay to have access of some sort. So in the future if I want
22:55 to play defense I could create a paid newsletter with a very simple community
23:00 chat based around that and simply write for the rest of my life and probably
23:06 make a good enough living where I won't have any financial problems. Right? So,
23:11 I'm exploring that platform. I'm exploring that business model. But to
23:16 me, it's really an exciting preview of how I can use the platform to build
23:19 revenue. >> Yeah, I love that. Awesome. Well, any interview with a top creator would be
23:25 remiss if I didn't at least talk a little bit about podcast guesting. As I
23:28 mentioned, that's my area of expertise. It's the thing I often get invited into
23:33 other amazing communities to shed some light on and talk about, you know, in
23:37 researching for our interview. you certainly have done plenty of podcast
23:41 interviews, but I would say as a ratio compared to some of the other creators
23:44 that I follow, it's it's on the lower end and thank you for being here and
23:48 doing it today, of course. But yeah, what are your thoughts on that? You you
23:51 obviously heard my workshop. You run the unsubscribe community. You have access
23:55 to a lot of amazing top creators who many of which host podcasts, a lot of
23:59 them do the guesting thing. I just love your personal thoughts on how it fits
24:03 into your model. Is it something you think you want to do more of? Is it
24:06 something you're kind of allergic to? There's no right or wrong answers here.
24:09 You're not going to offend me, but I would love to get your thoughts on it.
24:13 >> It's not something that I'm allergic to. I think when I first I guess was in the
24:18 beginning of my journey and getting some traction, I was a fast growing creator
24:23 who lots of people wanted to chat with and I took that opportunity to have
24:28 those conversations. As I enter my sixth or seventh year of doing this, I feel
24:33 like more of like a veteran athlete, right? where like you maybe want to talk
24:39 to the press a little less and not not because you don't like it. It's just
24:43 more so I only have a certain amount of hours in the day to do my creative work.
24:48 I don't want to spend as much time doing work as I did when this journey was
24:52 getting started. I want to spend more time with my wife and our dogs. I want
24:56 to spend more time traveling. And frankly, like with an audience of almost
25:01 a million and a half folks, I can write something in 5 minutes that'll be seen
25:06 by 230,000 people on an impression basis, >> or I can spend an hour on a podcast that
25:15 might be listened to by 200 people. Now, that's not to say that those aren't
25:19 valuable listens. They absolutely are and play a different purpose than my
25:23 written content. But as I alluded to earlier, I'm not trying to grow my
25:28 business. I'm great where it's at. And even if it decreases a little bit, like
25:32 I'm totally okay with that. I'm in sort of the the less relevant stage of sort
25:38 of the creator journey and I'm okay with that. >> I'm curious when you say that because I
25:42 I know your background, we have some similar chapters of burnout and and
25:46 growth at all cost at times. I feel like I've settled down from that a lot
25:50 myself, but does it feel weird or do you think it would have felt weird five
25:53 years ago to say, "I'm not really looking to grow my business." That
25:55 strikes me as something that most people wouldn't say, and I really admire the
25:58 fact that you said it. But how have you internalized that to be able to say that
26:01 with a straight face, I guess. >> Listen, I have just as many worries as
26:05 the average person, if not more. I'm, you know, I inherited a financial
26:11 mindset from my dad where like, you know, I worry about that kind of stuff.
26:15 Like I think talking with with friends of mine, talking with adviserss, talking
26:20 with mentors, messing around with with AI has me feeling very confident about
26:25 my lot in life and and very fortunate. And I can do one of two things.
26:32 I'm sure there is a third option, but let's just boil it down to two. I can go
26:36 really hard. There's three things. I can go really hard and try and get that
26:40 enough number, which which I already said is not a good idea.
26:44 >> Yes. I can build a really sustainable business over over the next 10 years,
26:49 right? Or I could quit. >> I like those are basically the three
26:53 options, right? >> Option is an important one that people
26:56 should realize is always an option. >> Yeah. I don't want to quit and I don't
27:00 want to go as hard as I can for some imaginary number that probably won't
27:05 make me feel any better. So to me, the only option that's left is to do
27:08 something that I enjoy. And the only way that I'm going to enjoy that is if I'm
27:12 working a couple of hours a day and spending the rest of my time doing the
27:15 stuff I want to do with people I want to do it with. So that's really sort of the
27:20 how it boils down to how I think about growth. It might grow anyway, but if it
27:24 doesn't, it won't be the end of the world. >> That's awesome. I love that. It's a very
27:27 mature answer. Uh it's one that I'd say I've grown into adopting for the most
27:31 part, you know, a similar mindset. That's definitely a big takeaway for me
27:34 is hearing you say that and articulate so clearly why you can choose the second
27:39 option and feel really fulfilled in that decision. So as we kind of move to the
27:44 final chapter here because it's you know the time it is AI's come up as some
27:48 portion of almost every answer that that you've given. So, I'd love to just zoom
27:52 in a little bit on that and talk a little more about AI's role in your
27:56 business and sort of where you see that going in the creator economy and
28:00 solarreneurship. >> Maybe, you know, the pros, cons, how you
28:03 see to leverage it the right way. There's a lot of questions in there, but
28:06 sort of, you know, Justin Welch's take on AI in the age that we're in because
28:09 it's definitely not something that is going away. >> Let's start with the cons, right?
28:13 because I think the cons are pretty maybe common things that people will
28:18 talk about is I see it as almost potentially the death of creativity
28:23 which I don't love now I might find that that is in fact completely untrue right
28:29 but I don't know I enjoy listening to a band who wrote their songs and played
28:32 their instruments and has a journey and a and a story behind them I enjoy
28:37 reading a writer who who is a real person with real experiences and real
28:42 unique flaws I worry that AI will rob us of those experiences. But on the flip
28:47 side, the pro is that the more humanentric that you are, the more
28:51 unique your experiences are, the more you're going to stand out in that world.
28:56 There is sort of a an equal but opposite reaction to each one of these cons. That
29:01 is my biggest concern is that creativity becomes something that is no longer
29:04 valued. >> And I think creativity should be valued. I think the pros are as follows. I can
29:13 work a lot faster, right? Let me give you an example. If I don't know what to
29:17 write for my newsletter this week, I'll just drop a voice note into Claude and
29:20 chat through a bunch of things in my head and say like, connect these dots
29:25 and help me think of something to write about. Right? I've written 200 plus
29:29 newsletters, you know, and 4,000 pieces of social content, you know, so usually
29:33 I'm organically inspired through conversations or experiences in my life.
29:37 Sometimes it's just like I'm staring at a blank piece of paper. I need need that
29:42 help. Claude in particular is a very strong editor. It's really strong at
29:47 giving feedback. So, for example, I have a workflow where when I write my weekly
29:51 newsletter, I'll drop it in there and essentially grade it on a number of
29:57 criteria that make for a compelling newsletter. And oftentimes it'll come
30:01 back and say, "This stinks, right?" And like, and so then I have to fix it. But
30:07 that's a lot better than like hiring an editor or trying to edit my own stuff or
30:12 like my wife helps a little bit on that side. But it's been able to allow me to
30:19 see the errors in my storytelling in how compelling I'm being. And I love that
30:24 it's teaching me, right? So over time as I upload my newsletters that I write,
30:29 they're getting better because I'm learning essentially from the editor,
30:32 right? Which I think is is very very useful. Another way that I use AI in a
30:37 way that I think is a big pro, is simply data analytics. As someone who creates
30:41 an incredible amount of content, I do about I think 150 pieces of content a
30:47 month. It's great at spotting patterns. It's great at helping me form hypotheses
30:51 like we talked about earlier. It's great at telling me why something didn't work.
30:55 Generally, it's not always right, but it's generally, I think, directionally
31:01 correct. And so I use it to work faster to write and edit more effectively,
31:06 right? So it helps me really really take those newsletters to another level and
31:10 then to analyze all the data that I get from that. And I think that has been a
31:15 not just a timesaver but an improver of the effort that I make is now you know
31:19 it pays off more. >> Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And what I hear
31:24 there is not at all a replacement for your own creativity. Correct. an
31:28 amplifier, an optimizer, a thought partner in a sense for ideiation and
31:34 editing and review and and analytics. The other thing you the word that you
31:39 said is story. And so I feel like anytime I think about AI, I sort of
31:42 think of the other side of the coin as story and that AI can of course create
31:47 stories and make stuff up. But I think the thing that still attracts people to
31:51 us as creators and as people running online businesses is our own story,
31:55 right? It's our own authenticity, transparency, vulnerability, all the
31:58 things that go into that. What are your thoughts on just story and especially
32:03 it's interesting to me like to me story comes up naturally because most of my
32:07 content is longer form podcasting, podcast guesting, things like that. And
32:10 so story is a natural element when you're in this format. You've told
32:13 numerous stories, lots of great examples, but in short form, it feels
32:17 like it's easy to leave out the story or or miss the ability to integrate story,
32:21 I guess. So like what are your thoughts on the importance of story especially as
32:25 we look over the horizon at the emergence of AI? >> Yeah, I think in short form you know
32:33 stories are harder to tell. You can tease out a story very effectively and
32:37 lead someone to a piece of longer form content that does a does the story
32:42 better justice. But I also think if you're a good writer you can write a
32:47 short story in a pretty compelling fashion. I think what's the famous thing
32:51 like write a story in like less than a sentence and it's like
32:55 >> baby shoes for sale never worn I think is the the example right that's kind of
33:00 an extreme example but telling your personal stories is what separates you
33:04 in an age of AI and I'll give you an example so my wife and I were in New
33:08 York and I don't know when this podcast will be published but my wife and I were
33:14 in New York early October and she left her wallet in the back of a cab And she
33:20 was very distraught cuz we had a ton of cash we were paying our pets sitter, all
33:24 her credit cards, her license, a little note from me, like stuff she couldn't
33:28 recover. And like she was pretty sure it was gone. It was in New York City,
33:31 right? And I had like this really interesting >> thought that it would get returned from
33:36 a karmic perspective of I' I've actually returned two wallets in the last 10
33:39 years. I'm like, I'm going to get this wallet karma. And like it happened.
33:45 young guy found it, reached out to us on Facebook, helped get the wallet back.
33:49 And I was like, that's a really cool story. And here's the where AI and real
33:56 life and storytelling kind of bifurcate, right? So like I was like, that's a
34:00 compelling story. And there's something in that story as it relates to
34:05 entrepreneurship. I really struggled to figure out now I'm reverse engineering,
34:08 right? I'm starting with a story and trying to make it about entrepreneurship
34:11 instead of being like this is something that happened. But I thought there was a
34:16 good idea there. So the story was real. And then I started playing around with
34:21 with AI thinking, here's how I think about it a little bit as it relates to
34:25 entrepreneurship. Can you help me flesh this idea out a little bit more?
34:27 >> Yeah. >> And AI was able to do that really effectively until I had a story that was
34:33 number one true and number two really relevant to entrepreneurship. and they
34:37 asked me good questions and I filled in the blanks and I I got the
34:41 infrastructure of the story and then I was able to write it. And so that's a
34:46 really good example of like how your personal experience, you can't forget that, but you can use
34:54 AI to help you become better at pulling that beautiful story out. That's what
34:58 I'm publishing this upcoming Saturday. So like, you know, folks, if they're
35:01 listening to this, it'll probably be published already, but you know, that's
35:04 a good example of that in my opinion. >> That's awesome. That's a really good
35:07 example. Yeah, I like that. I'm sorry for, you know, Jennifer's panic in the
35:11 in the moment, but I I like that your your insight is like, hey, I've already
35:15 returned a couple wallets. Like, this is coming back. Like, I put it out. It's
35:18 coming back to us. And yeah, I could I can already I'm I'm looking forward to
35:21 the newsletter to see how this story plays out because that's a really good
4:05 we'll kind of get into and compare and contrast. So now knowing what you know,
4:09 if you were talking to, you know, Justin five, 10 years ago through this theme of
4:14 of lifestyle first, like how would you advise yourself to structure the
4:20 business model in a way that honors what you actually want? Because I think a lot
4:22 of times we start to follow someone else's example and we get trapped in
4:25 complexity because that's what we observe other people doing and we don't
4:29 stop and I I've been victim of this myself to really ask, well, what do I
4:33 want? what like what is this business for ultimately as it pertains to my
4:36 life. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that with the benefit of
4:39 the hindsight that you have. >> Yeah, I think the benefit of the
4:44 hindsight is that I believed that driving revenue growth month over month,
4:48 quarter over quarter, year over year would be the most important thing for my
4:53 business because that's an attitude that you learn in startups in startup land,
4:56 right? >> It turns out that's not that important. Like you don't want to fail. You don't
5:01 want your business to go from a million bucks down to zero, right? But the idea
5:05 is you need to make enough money to pay your bills, save and invest. And if
5:09 you're building an effective lifestyle business, the harder that you try to
5:15 grow your revenue, the more difficult it becomes to maintain it as a lifestyle
5:20 business. I'll give you some examples. So, if you're going to create more
5:25 content than like I just do written content. If I wanted to go into video,
5:29 I'd probably need to hire an editor, a script writer, someone who understands
5:33 YouTube. Everyone thinks that the answer to their problems is to hire or
5:38 outsource. Man, I've had teams of 150 people in my startup days and management
5:42 and employees come with a lot of headaches. That starts to make it less
5:47 than an ideal lifestyle business. If you want to extend your revenue, oftentimes
5:51 you might add additional business models. So in the past I've done things
5:56 like consulting, advising, coaching. I enjoy those things to an extent but what
6:00 happens after time is you're trading your time for money and so there become
6:03 less and less hours in the day to invest in business models that are more
6:07 lifestyle first digital products, subscriptions, things like that. So
6:12 there's always a trade-off. And so what I would do in hindsight is say it's not
6:20 about rapid growth quarter over quarter, year over year. It's about building a
6:24 sustainable business that you enjoy that allows you to afford the lifestyle that
6:28 you want to live while still saving and investing for your future. That to me is
6:35 the most appropriate definition for me of a lifestyle business.
6:38 >> I love that. So the idea there is start with the target meaning the core
6:43 lifestyle maybe the ideal lifestyle the ability to save invest do whatever you
6:48 want to do for your family but get to a number that is enough in whatever that
6:53 means for you as whatever stage of life you are in design a business that can
6:59 succeed towards that goal. Is that a fair summary of it? >> It's a fair summary and you know there
7:04 are two ways to do it. One is to get as much money as humanly possible and then
7:08 burn out, right? Or the other thing that you can do is build a business that
7:11 grows slowly and sustainably over time that you enjoy running. And what I often
7:17 see these quote unquote sort of lifestyle folks, lifestyle business
7:22 folks go after is the former. And nothing is worse than thinking that
7:27 you're almost to whatever number that is, but dying to get there. And when you
7:32 get there, you recognize it's not enough. Right? The best thing that you
7:36 can do is say, "I could do this for the next 10 years." And if you can do that
7:40 effectively, if that's the attitude you have going into your business, you're
7:43 going to build a much healthier, much more fulfilling lifestyle business.
7:48 >> I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful. So, just give us a summary of I like to
7:51 speak in terms of flywheels. You and I are both Nathan Barry friends and and
7:56 fans. if you had to encapsulate your current business model and how it is
8:01 sustainable and how it is something you actually enjoy doing and how you've 8020
8:05 things into your zone of genius like just give us an overview a snapshot of
8:09 your current model and kind of how that flywheel works then we'll get more into
8:12 your offers and talk a little more about some of the strategic decisions you've
8:14 made. >> Totally. From a high level I have digital products and I have a paid
8:20 community and I have a newsletter with sponsors. That's from a high level. Most
8:26 where 90% of my revenue comes from my flywheels, right, for lack of a better
8:31 description, are really simple. Like so simple, I wouldn't even call them
8:35 flywheels. My my whole thought is content is the name of the game.
8:38 >> Yeah. >> And a good content system begins with
8:43 one good idea. >> So I'll give you an example. If I have a
8:49 good idea, I generally or or I think I hypothesize that it's a good idea. The
8:53 fastest way to get feedback from me is Twitter or X, right? And so I can just
8:59 post, right? It's very simple. Like you post on Twitter all day. It's different
9:02 than other platforms. You get really fast feedback, but once you understand
9:06 that something's a good idea, like turning that into a LinkedIn post, an
9:10 Instagram story, an Instagram post, a thread, like all the becomes really
9:15 easy, right? And then once you've done that, validating that that idea works
9:19 across multiple platforms is often a good indicator that it would be a great
9:23 newsletter. So all of my content comes from a few ideas. A and the goal of that
9:30 content is really to create discovery top of funnel, right? So I'm being
9:34 discovered by thousands of new people or tens of thousands of new people every
9:38 month, right? I want them to see my short form content as a means to
9:42 discovery. I want them to go from my short form content to my long form
9:46 content, which is why I send people to my newsletter, issues, articles,
9:50 playbooks, all those different things. And I want to do two things there. I
9:53 want to show off my expertise and establish authority. And by doing that,
10:00 I position myself as someone who can solve their problems, whether that's
10:04 building an audience on LinkedIn or learning how to build their first online
10:09 business. And then I have simple, cost-effective digital courses that
10:13 solve those problems. And so for me, it's discovery top of funnel. This is
10:16 like my flywheel for lack of a better description. It's it's expertise and
10:20 authority middle of funnel. And then it's understanding the challenges they
10:23 have and the solutions they're looking for bottom of funnel.
10:26 >> Put it to a reasonable price so it's accessible for most of the world and
10:31 then overd deliver. And if you can do those things, you create, in my
10:35 estimation, a word of mouth flywheel where people are so amped to go out and
10:38 say, "I had this problem. I bought this thing from Justin and it solved it." And
10:42 you want to look like a hero to your friends, you go out and suggest the same
10:46 thing. That's my my business model in a nutshell. >> I love that. And it is it is a flywheel
10:49 because I think the thing that makes it a flywheel is it is a closed loop. And
10:54 the the tail end of what you described there is what makes it such an effective
10:58 flywheel is the overd delivery because as someone consumes one of your
11:02 products, they're likely to consume more and they're very likely to refer other
11:05 people to you, share your content on these social media channels that you
11:09 dominate. And so you're building a virtuous cycle in the way that you're
11:13 delivering the experience, right? And I think as we get more into some of your
11:18 offers and why you introduce community, I think this would be a cool place to
11:22 point out I'm also a seven figureure solopreneur, right? And I have an
11:25 extremely different model in a sense and I have a very different approach to my
11:29 offers. Actually, it echoes exactly what you just said, right? I'm more in the
11:34 camp of a higher ticket group coaching experience because that's my unique
11:37 ability. It's what I love. I'm not a gifted writer, you know, like you are.
11:41 And so much smaller attention. you know, we hit seven figures with less than a
11:45 thousand people on an email list and less than probably 5,000 LinkedIn
11:49 followers. But that was my model and it's a more intensive individualistic
11:54 model in a sense that each client generates more revenue but have far
11:58 fewer clients and far far less exposure than you, but we still overd deliver and
12:02 we get a lot of referrals. And so I just wanted the listeners to hear you don't
12:07 have to be Justin Welsh in the sense of you know over a million you know
12:10 dedicated followers on social media to still have a seven figureure business.
12:14 That works great for Justin because his style is writing first broad-based
12:19 attention on a single uh topic and then you know your preferred delivery model
12:23 is courses and now community. So any reflection on that based on all the
12:25 different models you've seen out there to hit seven figures in as a soloreneur?
12:30 Yeah, I love to talk about the fact that the way that I built something is one of
12:36 a thousand different ways you can get there, right? And I would hate for
12:40 someone to copy my journey only to find out that my luck or timing is not on
12:44 their side, >> right? What I think about when it comes
12:49 to business is less about what's the step by step or the blueprint or
12:54 whatever you want to call it, right? and more how do you think about getting
13:00 better over time. So for example, the way that I ran healthcare companies from
13:05 a sales and marketing perspective is I always considered myself a
13:08 hypothesis-based sales leader. >> Yeah. >> So I formed hypotheses and my goal was
13:14 to either prove or disprove those as quickly as possible. And once I proved
13:19 something, the goal was to make it better over time. To me, that is how I
13:24 think about online business. There's a lot of forming of hypotheses. There's a
13:29 lot of listening to signal and to your customer. >> Yeah. And I think most people that
13:36 aren't having as much success as they want to have believe that they can just
13:41 do what I did or what you do or what someone else does without recognizing
13:46 that most of the success that we have comes from understanding our target
13:50 market, listening to the signals, listening to our customers, forming
13:55 hypotheses, trying things, and then proving or disproving them as fast as
13:58 possible. If you can do that effectively, you can build a community,
14:02 a cohort-based coaching program, digital products, a SAS tool, an AI tool. You
14:06 can you can do it as many things as you want as long as you figure out what
14:10 people want and how to get it to them. >> I love that. That's Yeah, it's a
14:13 beautiful summary. And the only little nugget I would add to that is it goes
14:16 back to the core question of what do you want? All of us have unique abilities,
14:21 right? And so I love facilitating. I I I love group coaching as a model. That
14:25 might be torture for someone else. then I have no interest in running a SAS
14:28 company, right? But that's because that's my thing. Your thing is writing
14:32 and you're really good at that craft and that art and the science obviously and
14:35 based in the way that you described it. And so that's my encouragement for
14:38 someone listening is you can lean into whatever your unique ability, your
14:41 interests are. And I really love what you shared earlier. What would you love
14:45 to do for 10 years? Like what sounds exciting to do for 10 years? Because a
14:48 lifestyle business shouldn't be drudgery, right? and copying someone
14:52 else's model a lot of times sets you up for drudgery because you're not actually
14:56 doing the thing that fulfills you and you know your unique god-given skills
14:59 and abilities. >> That's right. And you said something
15:02 there that just reminded me of something that I I like to tell folks that I think
15:06 is important which is I like to write >> and I didn't always like to write but
15:11 the better I became at it the more I liked it. Right? That goes with any
15:15 skill generally like you know playing sports is hard but the better you get
15:19 the more enjoyment you often have. So when I talk to people, they say, "What
15:23 should I do? Should I do video or writing?" Like is a common question I
15:27 get. And the answer is do whichever one you can see yourself doing for a long
15:31 time because you truly enjoy it. And then once you've chosen that, become
15:37 really epic at your medium of choice, right? So if you're going to write,
15:41 >> study great writers. Read books on writing. Write all day long, all the
15:46 time. Publish all of the time. Look at what works and what doesn't. study your
15:50 own writing. Like if you're going to do video, go study the best video creators.
15:56 Take a class, take a course. Like marketing is so important, especially
16:00 with AI right now, right? Like marketing becomes so critical because you you can
16:04 build so many things. It's your ability to distribute and market them. So like
16:10 spend an absurd amount of time trying to get good at your medium of choice.
16:14 >> Yes. I love that. That's awesome. A quick sidebar, not to come out of left
16:18 field, but as someone who's so gifted and prolific at writing and it's
16:21 something you love, is there a reason there's there's not a book or is there a
16:24 book coming because that would seem to be the natural culmination of those
16:26 skill sets. >> You know, it's been something that I've
16:31 been in talks for over two years. >> Okay. >> And if I had made the decision 100% to
16:37 write a book, we could do a contract, right, pretty pretty quickly. My
16:44 question is, would I enjoy the structure of writing a book for a premium
16:49 publishing house? There's no shade on a publishing house, and it's not meant to
16:53 be negative. It's not criticism. It's simply for the last six years, I have
16:58 had no boss, no due dates, nothing that I have to get done. And I know a book is a
17:06 painstaking, stressful, anxietyinducing experience. And I think that is something that I
17:14 need to grapple with. And then I think there's probably some self-confidence
17:19 challenges because I've written short form content for 6 years, but I don't
17:24 think of myself as a bookw writer. And so I think getting over that hurdle is
17:28 maybe one of the last remaining hurdles to get over. >> I love it. Well, thank you for the
17:32 transparency there and the and the mindfulness about I hadn't even thought
17:37 about that that like could committing to that and sort of having in effect a boss
17:41 kind of take the joy out of the writing that you love so much and now you have
17:44 the ability to write when you want about what you want and where you want and you
17:48 obviously give up some of the autonomy and the process of a book in the style
17:51 that you'd want to do which is hopefully you know a very popular bestselling book
17:56 under a publishing house so that makes a ton of sense super super insightful one
17:59 thing I wanted to touch on a little bit with you. So, we actually, you know,
18:03 officially met as I came in and I was blessed to be able to do a guest
18:07 training in the unsubscribe community, which is your paid community. And of
18:10 course, I came on and talked about podcast guesting and it was a wonderful
18:13 experience and really really wellreceived. I know that foundationally
18:17 and you've talked about different things that you've tried over time, but the the
18:21 real core of your product stack has been digital courses. You know, the content
18:25 operating system, LinkedIn, and then the creator MBA, which is the real big meaty
18:31 sort of mid-tier course. And also, you know, somewhat recently, you added this
18:35 unsubscribed community to your product stack. So, I'd love to hear sort of the
18:38 motivation behind that, the good, bad, ugly. What do you think about community
18:42 in the offer stack and where it belongs for these types of businesses that we're
18:46 running? So the idea behind unsubscribe was twofold. One is I believe with the
18:54 rise in and fast growth of AI being human first in the future is going to be
18:57 very important. >> And so I wanted to bring that human
19:02 element back into my business. And to give you a sense of of how I do that, we
19:07 do in-person events with our unsubscribed community. So, we've had
19:12 one in London and San Francisco and New York and Chicago and we're going to
19:16 Austin next month. >> Awesome. >> And it's just really meeting folks and
19:21 shaking hands, right? And really getting to know people at their core. And that
19:25 has been a cool experience. That's something that really energizes both me
19:30 and my wife. And then the other sort of side to it is it's a creative outlet for
19:35 me. I don't feel the pressure to write about business. I can write about
19:40 whatever I want. It's my newsletter about unsubscribing from the status quo
19:44 and that could take the shape of a business essay, but that could also take
19:48 the shape of an observation about, you know, something I saw at a restaurant
19:53 and I don't have to live up to any certain topical area, which I love. So,
19:57 for me, it's been about expressing creativity. I think as we move towards
20:05 fewer folks enjoying their social media experiments, AI, the average creative entrepreneur is
20:14 going to need some sort of community in their offer stack. Especially if you're
20:19 not someone with a million plus followers, I think that's going to be a
20:26 huge benefit in value ad. And so I didn't do it for that exact reason. I
20:30 did it more for creativity and just getting to know folks and making
20:34 friends, but I do think it will become important especially to that kind of
20:38 like mid-tier audience creator if you will. >> Yeah, I totally agree. And I started off
20:44 more content creation and coaching and what I've realized over the past say 18
20:48 months is really the core of our business is community, right? we've had
20:52 different versions of that and different ways to to access that community and I
20:56 get asked sometimes the question like what's the biggest asset of your
20:59 business right and it's like actually the community that we've formed and I
21:04 think that that will continue to become a more and more important moat against
21:08 you know our AI and I also think as as you hit on it is the most direct one of
21:13 the most direct ways that we can have that humanto human connection and curate
21:17 it right where you're actually getting to choose and select who you're in
21:20 community with and letting people opt into that experience versus opt out of
21:24 the status quo. So, I really appreciate that. And I guess also there's the the
21:28 aspect of it. It sounds like it wasn't a primary motivation for you, but
21:32 community is a very sustainable model in the sense of recurring revenue, right?
21:35 Like one of the downsides of selling one-off digital products is they're
21:40 one-off purchases. And so, any thoughts on that as far as the trajectory that
21:43 this can build in a business from a recurring revenue standpoint? Yeah, I
21:49 think if I focused more intensely on it, I could continue to grow the recurring
21:54 revenue around the community. That's not really my goal with this. So, to me,
21:58 it's more just like if you want to be a part of this, here it is, right? There's
22:01 no I don't I don't promote it a whole lot. People find it and join it. I think
22:08 what it's doing for me is showing me the opportunity to create recurring revenue
22:14 through other means. So when I think about like sustainability and longevity,
22:20 I don't need my business to keep growing. I want to make sure that I'm
22:24 playing defense at this point in my life. Courses at some point will become
22:31 commoditized by AI. Not because I think AI does a good job of teaching people
22:34 the stuff they need to learn, but because they feel like they're being
22:38 taught the stuff they need to learn. And that in and of itself is basically the
22:43 same thing. So what my community especially on Substack has done is shown
22:49 me that people will pay to have access of some sort. So in the future if I want
22:55 to play defense I could create a paid newsletter with a very simple community
23:00 chat based around that and simply write for the rest of my life and probably
23:06 make a good enough living where I won't have any financial problems. Right? So,
23:11 I'm exploring that platform. I'm exploring that business model. But to
23:16 me, it's really an exciting preview of how I can use the platform to build
23:19 revenue. >> Yeah, I love that. Awesome. Well, any interview with a top creator would be
23:25 remiss if I didn't at least talk a little bit about podcast guesting. As I
23:28 mentioned, that's my area of expertise. It's the thing I often get invited into
23:33 other amazing communities to shed some light on and talk about, you know, in
23:37 researching for our interview. you certainly have done plenty of podcast
23:41 interviews, but I would say as a ratio compared to some of the other creators
23:44 that I follow, it's it's on the lower end and thank you for being here and
23:48 doing it today, of course. But yeah, what are your thoughts on that? You you
23:51 obviously heard my workshop. You run the unsubscribe community. You have access
23:55 to a lot of amazing top creators who many of which host podcasts, a lot of
23:59 them do the guesting thing. I just love your personal thoughts on how it fits
24:03 into your model. Is it something you think you want to do more of? Is it
24:06 something you're kind of allergic to? There's no right or wrong answers here.
24:09 You're not going to offend me, but I would love to get your thoughts on it.
24:13 >> It's not something that I'm allergic to. I think when I first I guess was in the
24:18 beginning of my journey and getting some traction, I was a fast growing creator
24:23 who lots of people wanted to chat with and I took that opportunity to have
24:28 those conversations. As I enter my sixth or seventh year of doing this, I feel
24:33 like more of like a veteran athlete, right? where like you maybe want to talk
24:39 to the press a little less and not not because you don't like it. It's just
24:43 more so I only have a certain amount of hours in the day to do my creative work.
24:48 I don't want to spend as much time doing work as I did when this journey was
24:52 getting started. I want to spend more time with my wife and our dogs. I want
24:56 to spend more time traveling. And frankly, like with an audience of almost
25:01 a million and a half folks, I can write something in 5 minutes that'll be seen
25:06 by 230,000 people on an impression basis, >> or I can spend an hour on a podcast that
25:15 might be listened to by 200 people. Now, that's not to say that those aren't
25:19 valuable listens. They absolutely are and play a different purpose than my
25:23 written content. But as I alluded to earlier, I'm not trying to grow my
25:28 business. I'm great where it's at. And even if it decreases a little bit, like
25:32 I'm totally okay with that. I'm in sort of the the less relevant stage of sort
25:38 of the creator journey and I'm okay with that. >> I'm curious when you say that because I
25:42 I know your background, we have some similar chapters of burnout and and
25:46 growth at all cost at times. I feel like I've settled down from that a lot
25:50 myself, but does it feel weird or do you think it would have felt weird five
25:53 years ago to say, "I'm not really looking to grow my business." That
25:55 strikes me as something that most people wouldn't say, and I really admire the
25:58 fact that you said it. But how have you internalized that to be able to say that
26:01 with a straight face, I guess. >> Listen, I have just as many worries as
26:05 the average person, if not more. I'm, you know, I inherited a financial
26:11 mindset from my dad where like, you know, I worry about that kind of stuff.
26:15 Like I think talking with with friends of mine, talking with adviserss, talking
26:20 with mentors, messing around with with AI has me feeling very confident about
26:25 my lot in life and and very fortunate. And I can do one of two things.
26:32 I'm sure there is a third option, but let's just boil it down to two. I can go
26:36 really hard. There's three things. I can go really hard and try and get that
26:40 enough number, which which I already said is not a good idea.
26:44 >> Yes. I can build a really sustainable business over over the next 10 years,
26:49 right? Or I could quit. >> I like those are basically the three
26:53 options, right? >> Option is an important one that people
26:56 should realize is always an option. >> Yeah. I don't want to quit and I don't
27:00 want to go as hard as I can for some imaginary number that probably won't
27:05 make me feel any better. So to me, the only option that's left is to do
27:08 something that I enjoy. And the only way that I'm going to enjoy that is if I'm
27:12 working a couple of hours a day and spending the rest of my time doing the
27:15 stuff I want to do with people I want to do it with. So that's really sort of the
27:20 how it boils down to how I think about growth. It might grow anyway, but if it
27:24 doesn't, it won't be the end of the world. >> That's awesome. I love that. It's a very
27:27 mature answer. Uh it's one that I'd say I've grown into adopting for the most
27:31 part, you know, a similar mindset. That's definitely a big takeaway for me
27:34 is hearing you say that and articulate so clearly why you can choose the second
27:39 option and feel really fulfilled in that decision. So as we kind of move to the
27:44 final chapter here because it's you know the time it is AI's come up as some
27:48 portion of almost every answer that that you've given. So, I'd love to just zoom
27:52 in a little bit on that and talk a little more about AI's role in your
27:56 business and sort of where you see that going in the creator economy and
28:00 solarreneurship. >> Maybe, you know, the pros, cons, how you
28:03 see to leverage it the right way. There's a lot of questions in there, but
28:06 sort of, you know, Justin Welch's take on AI in the age that we're in because
28:09 it's definitely not something that is going away. >> Let's start with the cons, right?
28:13 because I think the cons are pretty maybe common things that people will
28:18 talk about is I see it as almost potentially the death of creativity
28:23 which I don't love now I might find that that is in fact completely untrue right
28:29 but I don't know I enjoy listening to a band who wrote their songs and played
28:32 their instruments and has a journey and a and a story behind them I enjoy
28:37 reading a writer who who is a real person with real experiences and real
28:42 unique flaws I worry that AI will rob us of those experiences. But on the flip
28:47 side, the pro is that the more humanentric that you are, the more
28:51 unique your experiences are, the more you're going to stand out in that world.
28:56 There is sort of a an equal but opposite reaction to each one of these cons. That
29:01 is my biggest concern is that creativity becomes something that is no longer
29:04 valued. >> And I think creativity should be valued. I think the pros are as follows. I can
29:13 work a lot faster, right? Let me give you an example. If I don't know what to
29:17 write for my newsletter this week, I'll just drop a voice note into Claude and
29:20 chat through a bunch of things in my head and say like, connect these dots
29:25 and help me think of something to write about. Right? I've written 200 plus
29:29 newsletters, you know, and 4,000 pieces of social content, you know, so usually
29:33 I'm organically inspired through conversations or experiences in my life.
29:37 Sometimes it's just like I'm staring at a blank piece of paper. I need need that
29:42 help. Claude in particular is a very strong editor. It's really strong at
29:47 giving feedback. So, for example, I have a workflow where when I write my weekly
29:51 newsletter, I'll drop it in there and essentially grade it on a number of
29:57 criteria that make for a compelling newsletter. And oftentimes it'll come
30:01 back and say, "This stinks, right?" And like, and so then I have to fix it. But
30:07 that's a lot better than like hiring an editor or trying to edit my own stuff or
30:12 like my wife helps a little bit on that side. But it's been able to allow me to
30:19 see the errors in my storytelling in how compelling I'm being. And I love that
30:24 it's teaching me, right? So over time as I upload my newsletters that I write,
30:29 they're getting better because I'm learning essentially from the editor,
30:32 right? Which I think is is very very useful. Another way that I use AI in a
30:37 way that I think is a big pro, is simply data analytics. As someone who creates
30:41 an incredible amount of content, I do about I think 150 pieces of content a
30:47 month. It's great at spotting patterns. It's great at helping me form hypotheses
30:51 like we talked about earlier. It's great at telling me why something didn't work.
30:55 Generally, it's not always right, but it's generally, I think, directionally
31:01 correct. And so I use it to work faster to write and edit more effectively,
31:06 right? So it helps me really really take those newsletters to another level and
31:10 then to analyze all the data that I get from that. And I think that has been a
31:15 not just a timesaver but an improver of the effort that I make is now you know
31:19 it pays off more. >> Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And what I hear
31:24 there is not at all a replacement for your own creativity. Correct. an
31:28 amplifier, an optimizer, a thought partner in a sense for ideiation and
31:34 editing and review and and analytics. The other thing you the word that you
31:39 said is story. And so I feel like anytime I think about AI, I sort of
31:42 think of the other side of the coin as story and that AI can of course create
31:47 stories and make stuff up. But I think the thing that still attracts people to
31:51 us as creators and as people running online businesses is our own story,
31:55 right? It's our own authenticity, transparency, vulnerability, all the
31:58 things that go into that. What are your thoughts on just story and especially
32:03 it's interesting to me like to me story comes up naturally because most of my
32:07 content is longer form podcasting, podcast guesting, things like that. And
32:10 so story is a natural element when you're in this format. You've told
32:13 numerous stories, lots of great examples, but in short form, it feels
32:17 like it's easy to leave out the story or or miss the ability to integrate story,
32:21 I guess. So like what are your thoughts on the importance of story especially as
32:25 we look over the horizon at the emergence of AI? >> Yeah, I think in short form you know
32:33 stories are harder to tell. You can tease out a story very effectively and
32:37 lead someone to a piece of longer form content that does a does the story
32:42 better justice. But I also think if you're a good writer you can write a
32:47 short story in a pretty compelling fashion. I think what's the famous thing
32:51 like write a story in like less than a sentence and it's like
32:55 >> baby shoes for sale never worn I think is the the example right that's kind of
33:00 an extreme example but telling your personal stories is what separates you
33:04 in an age of AI and I'll give you an example so my wife and I were in New
33:08 York and I don't know when this podcast will be published but my wife and I were
33:14 in New York early October and she left her wallet in the back of a cab And she
33:20 was very distraught cuz we had a ton of cash we were paying our pets sitter, all
33:24 her credit cards, her license, a little note from me, like stuff she couldn't
33:28 recover. And like she was pretty sure it was gone. It was in New York City,
33:31 right? And I had like this really interesting >> thought that it would get returned from
33:36 a karmic perspective of I' I've actually returned two wallets in the last 10
33:39 years. I'm like, I'm going to get this wallet karma. And like it happened.
33:45 young guy found it, reached out to us on Facebook, helped get the wallet back.
33:49 And I was like, that's a really cool story. And here's the where AI and real
33:56 life and storytelling kind of bifurcate, right? So like I was like, that's a
34:00 compelling story. And there's something in that story as it relates to
34:05 entrepreneurship. I really struggled to figure out now I'm reverse engineering,
34:08 right? I'm starting with a story and trying to make it about entrepreneurship
34:11 instead of being like this is something that happened. But I thought there was a
34:16 good idea there. So the story was real. And then I started playing around with
34:21 with AI thinking, here's how I think about it a little bit as it relates to
34:25 entrepreneurship. Can you help me flesh this idea out a little bit more?
34:27 >> Yeah. >> And AI was able to do that really effectively until I had a story that was
34:33 number one true and number two really relevant to entrepreneurship. and they
34:37 asked me good questions and I filled in the blanks and I I got the
34:41 infrastructure of the story and then I was able to write it. And so that's a
34:46 really good example of like how your personal experience, you can't forget that, but you can use
34:54 AI to help you become better at pulling that beautiful story out. That's what
34:58 I'm publishing this upcoming Saturday. So like, you know, folks, if they're
35:01 listening to this, it'll probably be published already, but you know, that's
35:04 a good example of that in my opinion. >> That's awesome. That's a really good
35:07 example. Yeah, I like that. I'm sorry for, you know, Jennifer's panic in the
35:11 in the moment, but I I like that your your insight is like, hey, I've already
35:15 returned a couple wallets. Like, this is coming back. Like, I put it out. It's
35:18 coming back to us. And yeah, I could I can already I'm I'm looking forward to
35:21 the newsletter to see how this story plays out because that's a really good
35:25 hook. So, Justin, I really appreciate your time. Again, I know this isn't
35:28 something that you spend a lot of your creative juices doing, but I feel like
35:32 we've touched on some topics here that are going to be very evergreen, very
35:36 useful, very motivational and instructive for people who are on this
35:39 journey building a seven figureure solarreneurship based business. And I'm
35:43 just really grateful for you. I'm grateful we've gotten to know each other
35:46 and that you took the time and space to be here. So, as we close out, like where
35:50 should people go? They want to go take that next step with you. I know you've
35:52 got kind of numerous places we could send them, but what's the best next step
35:55 for people? Yeah, there's a couple different places. They can go to
35:59 justinwelsh.me. If they're interested in learning a little bit about the community that I
36:15 theunscribed.co. And that's it. You know, that's where you can basically learn most about what
36:20 I do. And I appreciate you having me on, man. You're a good interviewer. and I
36:23 thought you asked great questions and I appreciate you help pulling some of that
36:26 stuff out of me because you can only be a good guest with a good host.
36:29 >> Absolutely. Well, I appreciate that and hopefully there's some good fodder from
36:32 this interview for a lot of future newsletters and LinkedIn posts. So, just
36:38 welsh.me the unsubscribed.co. Definitely want to check those things
36:41 out and get on the Saturday solarpreneur newsletter when you do that as well. So,
36:45 Justin, thanks again, man. You're a gift to me. You're a gift to our audience,
36:48 our community. Thanks for being here and looking forward to staying in touch with
36:51 you and seeing where these next chapters
$

Why This 7-Figure Founder Works Just 2 Hours a Day with Justin Welsh

@JustinWelsh 36:53 16 chapters
[solo founder and bootstrapping][content creation and YouTube][productivity and workflows][marketing and growth hacking][e-commerce and conversion optimization]
// chapters
// description

Justin Welsh shares the hard-earned lessons from building a seven-figure solopreneur business after burning out as a startup executive. Instead of chasing endless growth, Justin reveals why simplicity scales and how he built a sustainable lifestyle business generating millions through digital products, community, and strategic content creation. Learn why he works just 2 hours a day, his hypothesis-driven approach to business experiments, and how AI amplifies (not replaces) creativity. Justin get

now: 0:00
// related videos (5)
Two Ways To Come Up With Business Ideas
[community building and audience growth][market research and validation][revenue model and pricing strategy]
→
Episode 2 - Building a SaaS to $1k MRR
[community building and audience growth][market research and validation][revenue model and pricing strategy]
→
Building a SaaS to $1,000 MRR - episode 3
[community building and audience growth][market research and validation][revenue model and pricing strategy]
→
Someone Will Get Really Rich Doing This
[community building and audience growth][market research and validation][revenue model and pricing strategy]
→
Episode 1 - Building a SaaS to $1k MRR
[community building and audience growth][market research and validation][revenue model and pricing strategy]
→
// actions
← back to terminal open on youtube → @JustinWelsh channel →
// tags
[solo founder and bootstrapping][content creation and YouTube][productivity and workflows][marketing and growth hacking][e-commerce and conversion optimization]