Zero to $60k in 90 days: Launch plan for my new venture
Yes. You read that headline right.
I am launching a new business.
Content Allies (Since writing this post I have pivoted to building a podcast production service)
After 18 months of building a productized Linkedin Lead Generation service up to ~$60k in MRR, I've decided that it's time to start a second business.
In a future article, I will dive more into this decision, why this business, and why I am not just scaling Lead Cookie larger than it is today...
But for this article, I am going to focus on sharing my new venture and my 90 day plan to generate go from zero to $60k in collected revenue.
And over the next 90 days, I am going to be sharing the journey and updates along the way as we strive toward and hit this $60k collected goal in Q1 of 2019.
Introducing Content Allies
For any of you reading this, you know that I have been blogging, podcasting and putting out content for years.
Yet at many points in that journey, I have gotten frustrated and stopped.
And to be honest, the reason was never writers block... I always had stuff to write or share.
The real challenge I hit with staying consistent in my content was finding quality assistants to help with all of my content processes.
The act of publishing this blog to my website, and then getting it uploaded and sent out to my email list... That would take me at least 60-90 minutes AFTER I wrote the article.
The act of getting a podcast uploaded to my website, iTunes and then sharing it out on social... That would also take another 60-90 minutes.
The simple act of sharing my content on social... It seems small but it's something I would often not do because and thus I would minimize my impact...
As a content creator, I LOVE creating content.
But I hate everything else.
And so I would try to hire people hourly on Upwork to help me...
And then they would flake out or leave.
Or I would be too fed up and not want to train them.
So I would just stop publishing...
That pain is what lead me to creating Content Allies.
Content Allies helps B2B companies launch revenue generating podcasts.
Imagine if you created a piece of content, and then the rest was taken care of...
You write the article, and it goes live up to your website.
You write the newsletter, and it automatically gets scheduled out to your list.
You record the podcast, and it appears on your website and iTunes.
You record the video, and it shows up on Youtube with all of the proper settings and description.
I know this is valuable for content creators, because I have created this system first for myself.
Content Allies enables me to do the following:
Run a Daily Blog that is syndicated out to Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, and my website
Publish Articles Weekly, and automatically share them via all all social channels
Publish a Podcast Weekly, and automatically share via all social channels
And so now that I have solved this problem for myself, I am bringing this solution to others.
The Target: Zero to $60k in 90 days
Ok, so I have a slight confession here. It's not "exactly" zero...
I've been working on Content Allies behind the scene for about a month and a half, and currently we have $621.50 in monthly recurring subscriptions...
Most of these are beta customers who I took on at a loss just to validate that the system works and to start to build our operations.
But $621.50 to $60k in 90 days isn't as sexy of a headline... so I opted to just round down.
And to clarify, I am aiming for $60k of collected revenue in 90 days.
While we have a monthly recurring revenue model, I anticipate that MRR is not the best metric to chase at this moment because I know short term promotions and pre-selling future months will be a big part of hitting this $60k revenue target.
The Launch Plan: Top 3 Marketing Channels
Over the next 90 days, I am focused on 3 primary marketing channels as ways to gather new customers.
Content
Communities & Influencers
Cold Outreach (Via Linkedin and Email)
Content
Needless to say, content is going to be a big part of the marketing and promotion strategy for Content Allies.
And so in Q1, I am going to be leveraging the personal brand I have already built at Jake-Jorgovan.com and increasing the volume and quality of content that I put out.
I have two themes for Q1 content:
Sharing the journey of building up Content Allies and lessons learned along the way
Share The Lead Cookie Content Playbook
Over the past few months, I published a series on my blog called "The Lead Cookie Sales Playbook" and it has been a HUGE hit. I have gotten more engagement and comments on that series than most of the other content I have written.
Simply put, all I did was just share the actual processes and inner workings of our Lead Cookie sales playbook that I wrote internally.
As I come to a close on that series, I am going to move into a second series on Content.
You see, almost 35% of our revenue at Lead Cookie comes from content. And that wasn't by chance. I was very intentional with my content strategy.
So over Q1, I am going to share more of what we did for content for Lead Cookie and the processes behind it.
Guest Blogging / Podcasting
In addition to on site content, I am going to be seeking some guest blog posting opportunities which ties directly in with my Communities & Influencers strategy listed below.
Lead Magnet
In February, I am aiming to launch and build a cornerstone piece of content for Content Allies. I did this with Lead Cookie with our How to guide to Linkedin Lead Generation. This article has been a MASSIVE driver of revenue and is still one of our top content pieces almost 18 months after it was published.
So in February, I will build a similar cornerstone piece of content for Content Allies.
Communities & Influencers
Finally, I am going with a tactic that is a bit more grass roots and difficult to scale. I am going to become insanely active in roughly 10 communities where the ideal customers for Content Allies hang out.
Let me be clear, I'm NOT going to join these communities and just blast out a promotion for Content Allies.
Instead, I am going to join these communities, answer questions, add value and become a part of the community.
In that process, I will also interview the community leaders on my podcast called Working Without Pants.
And my goal with doing this is twofold.
By engaging with the community leaders, I may find opportunities to speak to their audience via webinars or presentations
Through engaging one-on-one in the communities, I learn my markets and will attract people to me and my offers
This one is harder to scale down the line which is why I am going to do it today. It is going to force me to have real conversations with people, which once again will get me better in tune with my target market so that I can scale our marketing down the line.
Cold Outreach
For the past several years, I have specialized in outbound marketing. It's time to use those skills now to build up my own new venture. To do this, we will use two channels.
Linkedin Lead Generation via Lead Cookie
I am shifting my Linkedin outreach away from generating leads for Lead Cookie and instead toward customer feedback and outreach for Content Allies.
At the moment I am using the "Market Research" approach that I teach in my article on 7 Linkedin Frameworks that Generate Results.
Basically, instead of pitching people, we are reaching out and asking for feedback. As a result, I have been able to refine the messaging significantly already, and gather several interested leads after just a couple weeks of running outreach.
The goal with the outreach is simple.
Gather feedback, and hopefully pique someones interest enough to convert them into customers.
Cold Email Outreach
Several months ago I wrote a guest blog post for PersistIQ on A step-by-step framework to streamlining your entire cold email process.
Well, I am taking that entire process now and scaling that up for Content Allies. We are using a similar "market research" style approach with our outreach which has already been producing some great results and feedback.
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While cold outreach may generate some sales, I actually don't believe it is going to be our biggest driver here in the first 90 days. To be honest, we don't have the social proof and case studies that will build trust with totally cold leads.
But regardless, I love focusing on cold outreach from Day 1 for one other reason...
Feedback.
You see, when you show your new business to your friends and colleagues, they all tell you it is great and wonderful.
But when you show it to someone totally cold, you hear the brutal truth.
People buy, or don't buy, and they don't care about your feelings.
And so if you can get a cold outreach funnel that converts, even just a little bit, then you have nailed an awesome value proposition and offer.
I teach more on this concept in an article I wrote on How to test and validate your value proposition fast with outreach.
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So those are my top 3 marketing channels for this next 90 days. I am sure I will find some places to promote this, or one off tactics that may give Content Allies a boost, but I am focused exclusively on these 3 channels for the next 90 days as I want to go deep instead of wide with my marketing.
Hitting the finish line: My plan to ensure we hit the $60k target
Over the next 3 months, I am going to be doing a ton of work to promote Content Allies and sign new customers.
But to be honest, $60k of collected revenue for a brand new business in the first 90 days is still hard.
Even if we finished out in March with $25k+ of MRR, we wouldn't hit $60k of collected revenue because we would be scaling up to that in January and February.
That is why I am planning on doing a huge March promotion.
This will be a one-time limited offer to existing customers and new prospects to purchase a bulk quantity of Virtual Assistant support at a discounted rate.
This would basically pre-sell someone to working with our service for the next 6 months.
They would pay cash now, and in return receive a massively discounted rate.
I picked this tactic up from Russ Perry through the Content he puts out in his Creative Syndicate group. Early at Design Pickle, they ran a campaign to get 6 months of Design Pickle for $1,000 which was a MASSIVE discount from their $370 per month price point.
That generated $32k of revenue for them in just a 7 day promotion.
So in March, I will be running a similar promotion and offering this deal to all existing customers of Content Allies, and everyone on my email list.
Follow along on the journey
Over the next 90 days, I am going to be sharing this journey as I build up an entirely new business from scratch. I am going to document it, teach it, and share as much of it as I possibly can with you.
My goal is to be as transparent as possible as I can in this process and share it all along the way.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
Sign up below if you want to be updated on the journey and see all of the tips tricks and insights I share along the way.