First, I haven’t made this $1M yet. Today is all about how I think I can make it.

Second, there’s a lot of logic behind the plan you’re going to read about today.

You should be able to learn from this logic, and apply it to your own strategy.

That’s the point of writing this.

Sure, there’s a public accountability element, but it’s mostly for you, baby!

Remember, this newsletter didn’t even exist 12 months ago.

So, if I can generate $1M in only Year 2…

I think there’s something to be learnt from that.

So, with all that said, let’s get into it.

But first…

I’m focusing heavily on YouTube this year, and you’ll see weekly long-form videos and shorts appearing on the channel…

All aimed at teaching what you need to know to scale your online education business.

Here’s a recent video you might enjoy…

(And subscribe to the channel whilst you’re there!)

VIDEO: How to think like an 8-figure entrepreneur

Quick recap of 2023

In case you forgot last week’s review of 2023 in a haze of stale turkey and mulled wine, here are the key numbers from my first year of work:

• Email subscribers: 12,631 (55% open rate)
• YouTube subscribers: 545
• Twitter followers: 2,489
• LinkedIn followers: 2,954
• Total revenue: $175,461
• Total spend: $109,331
• Net profit: $66,130

(Note: I consider the total spend to be WAY higher than it should be as a proportion of revenue. I spent a LOT last year on getting the brand off the ground, and much of it was failed experiments. As I refine my ad spend, I expect the natural profit margin to increase substantially.)

From all the activity, here’s what went really well:

1. $10M Case Study - generated a tonne of buzz and referrals
2. Newsletter sponsorships - certain publications (not all) did really well. (Because I track, I know which.)
3. Content - My content is landing well with my audience. YouTube and Social are slow on growth, but having a real impact. (I know this because the right people tell me so.)
4. Revenue - 90% of the $174,461 I made last year happened with zero selling – all inbound requests.

For the full detail, read last week’s newsletter.

What does this mean for 2024?

First, take a second to look over the info above and ask yourself…

What would YOU do next, in my situation?
What would YOU prioritise and not?

(It’s a good asynchronous coaching opportunity.)

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Got some ideas?

Good.

Now here’s my take…

The high-level opportunity as I see it:

With $60k of ad spend and an email list of 12k, I generated $175k. But, I did it with virtually no selling. If I actually tried to sell, I should be able to 5-10X revenue from that same audience.

Make sense?

I thought so.

Now the only question is how to execute.

“Let’s Blow This Baby UP!”

You know me.

I’m all about building a business that aligns with your life.

Not mindlessly chasing bigger numbers.

That’s how I built StoryLearning to the point where I only work a few days a month in the business, leaving me free to be writing these very words right now, sipping on a flat white, looking over the ocean on a Friday morning:

(Sunny like this in January – hell yes!)

Point is, if you have a bunch of different things you want to do with your time on Earth, you need to make sure your business facilitates that – not restricts it.

Often, it’s just a case of reorganising how your business works.

In fact, just last week I was with an entrepreneur I’m mentoring who came to see me for a strategy day in Hobbitshire.

She has a LOT of stuff she wants to achieve in life, and needs her business to support that… not take up the 60 hours a week it currently takes.

We broke down her business and demonstrated how she can easily drive 7-figures of revenue with only a 1-2 hour daily commitment, thereby creating all the balance she’s seeking in one fell swoop.

All she needs to be able to do is stick to the plan!

Point is, by operating an online business, this is easily possible.

(It doesn’t sound fair, does it?)

So…

When looking at my results for 2023, and thinking what’s possible in 2024…

Top-of-mind is: This is fun! I don’t want to make it NOT fun!

The vast majority of marketers shouting on Twitter would be saying:

“How do we blow this baby UP???”

Me?

I’m not interested in blowing anything up.

Instead, I ask myself the question I use to guide all my business decisions:

“How do I continue to grow this to its full potential, while creating the balance I want from life?”

A subtle difference, perhaps.

But in my world, it makes ALL the difference.

It’s called alignment.

(We’re not blowing anything up.)

The Big Opportunity

So, with all this talk of alignment in mind, here’s how I see the opportunities ahead of me.

Given that I made $157k without any selling whatsoever, it stands to reason that I should be able to 5-10X this number if I started proactively selling.

Sound reasonable?

Let’s say 5X, to be conservative. So:

• Mentorship: $157,500 * 5 = $787,500

The other 10% of revenue came from my one digital product.

I ran one workshop and made $17,961 from it. (One launch, evergreen after that.)

Let’s say I ran one new workshop every month. I should be able to 12X that revenue number.

But again, let’s just use the 5X multiple, in case I miss a few, or some of them bomb:

• Workshops: $17,961 * 5 = $89,805

In total, then:

• Mentorship: $157,500 * 5 = $787,500
• Workshops: $17,961 * 5 = $89,805
• Total: $877,305

But…

My audience is now much larger than it was before. (Last year, I had zero audience. That’s where most of my budget went.)

So, I should be able to sell at least 50% more relative volume in 2024 than I did in 2023, no?

Let’s make it 20% more, again to be conservative.

That brings us to:

• Total: $877,305 + 20%
• Grand Total: $1,052,766

My projections here are obviously very back-of-a-napkin.

But I think more planning should be like that.

Most business plans are pure fantasy, simply plucking numbers out of thin air and dressing them up as reality.

Far better to just get started, put something out in the world, and humbly pay attention to what comes back at you.

IMHO, that’s the main thing I got right last year – simply getting one year of activity under my belt!

Anyway…

Let’s get back on track…

I think my numbers are also super conservative.

5X could easily be 10X.

But I always like to plan for the worst, hope for the best.

(Remember, happiness is the gap between expectations and reality.)

So, that’s the big opportunity as I see it.

But Wait! There’s More!

Fact is…

There are all kinds of other things I could add to the business tomorrow:

• Beginner-level programmes (e.g. start a business)
• Group coaching (e.g. grow your business)
• Continuity (e.g. paid newsletter)

And adding these would probably add 7-figures of revenue.

(I get a lot of requests for advice on starting new businesses, which is not something I plan to cover, as there’s plenty of stuff out there. Just go follow Noah Kagan or Justin Welsh for that.)

So I could easily add a whole bunch of stuff beyond the mentorship and the workshops.

But this is where experience kicks in.

Follow my logic here…

Right now, I have a super-lean business that is capable of generating 7-figures… of mostly profit.

If I start building a “real” business, with multiple revenue streams, then before I know it I’ve got team, infrastructure, etc…

With 50% of profit disappearing to overhead!

Not to mention the “personal overhead” of running a totally new business.

This paradigm is clear to me.

Both from my experience growing StoryLearning, but also from friends and mentors who have grown big personal brand businesses.

I simply don’t see the point of building out anything that requires any management or overhead, when the alternative is simply to create a highly profitable personal brand.

As a mentor of mine said to me:

“Don’t think of this like a business.”

And he’s completely right.

So I’m not.

I’m thinking of this as “The business of Olly”, which has the added advantage of being evergreen and permanent:

• No payroll
• No fixed costs
• Lasts… forever
• 100% recession proof
• Can scale up or down according to my preferences

So it’s lean, stable and deeply sexy…

Sorta like the opposite of Olly the human.

In terms of how this project fits into my life overall, it’s one of many things I’m up to…

• At StoryLearning, I have a big, stable, “traditional” online business.
• At Creator Empires, our success is tied to our many wonderful creator partners.
• At my new startup TeacherAI, we have an ultra high-growth company that’s a goddam rocket ship.
• And more besides

Candidly, from this newsletter, all I really want is a fun, reliable cash-generator, that I can do as little or as much of as I want.

If I can run this for the next decade and pull $1-3M in cash off the table each year… I’ll be as happy as a dog with two tails.

How I’ll execute

With all that hot air out the way, let’s talk about how I’m going to actually do this all.

Time to get down to specifics…

1. Content

Purpose: Build my online presence & authority

• Newsletter - One long-form newsletter every Friday. This is the beating heart of the brand.
• YouTube - Two videos a week on YouTube - one LF, one SF
• Social media - I’ll continue to build my audience on Twitter and LinkedIn

2. Sponsorships

Purpose: Accelerate audience growth

Two things here.

First, I’ll double down on sponsorships for the publications that performed well last year, and cut the ones that didn’t.

Second, I’ll continue to look for fresh partnerships through list-swaps or similar.

Most of my ad budget will go on this.

3. Workshops

Purpose: Channel audience attention

My intention is to run one live workshop every month on different topics.

No idea what these topics will be yet, but they will be very specific and tangible.

Expect these to be sold right here on the email list, probably at the end of each month.

The purpose of the workshops is to give the right kind of person the opportunity to get off the fence and spend some dedicated time learning with me.

4. Mentorship

Purpose: Revenue & impact

If my audience keeps growing, and people convert into the live workshops, the value I’m able to provide should naturally lead to increased interest in working with me:

I think of the workshops like a focusing piece…

attention > value > reciprocity

This growth should happen naturally, (since I did ZERO selling last year), and simple email campaigns as follow-ups to the workshops should be enough to crystallise this.

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Simple, right?

That’s intentional.

Has to be simple…

Simple gets done. Simple scales. Simple is fun.

How much will I need to spend?

I want to keep this really simple.

On the face of it, I should only have to spend the same amount as 2023 in order to bring in the higher revenue amount.

Because – according to my theory – there was 5-10X revenue left on the table.

However, to invest the same as 2023 would be totally arbitrary.

Is there growth potential beyond 2023 levels?

Sure as heck there is.

So, any spending plan needs to both capture existing demand and build for the future.

In cases like this, I like to think in broad principles and keep things really simple.

There’a no need to overcomplicate things.

And so my basic intention is to:

Reinvest 30% of all revenue back into growth.

Uncapped.

The way I see it, if money keeps coming in, by definition there’s more potential out there.

So I’m just going to take 30% of everything that comes in, and reinvest it into advertising.

My fixed costs are quite defined:

• video team
• social team
• VA
• software

I don’t want any more fixed costs in the business, so that 30% is going to go directly into ad spend – newsletter sponsorships, social ads, whatever else takes my fancy.

Conclusion

After a surprising 2023, here’s the plan for 2024:

5X the previous year’s revenue by proactively selling and leveraging a growing audience base.

Here’s how I’ll do it:

• Content: Continue with a strong focus on the newsletter and YouTube videos to build online presence and authority.
• Sponsorships: Double down on successful publications and seek new partnerships.
• Workshops: Run one live workshop every month on various specific topics.
• Mentorship: Capitalise on the growing interest in one-to-one mentorship.

If things work out as I expect, I should hit exactly $1,052,766.05.

No more, no less 🙂

But this isn’t happening in a vacuum.

My goal is to create a lean, scalable, and enjoyable business that aligns with my lifestyle and personal life, avoiding unnecessary overhead and management complexity.

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So… Obnoxious? Braggy? Crass?

Hope not 🙂

Moving forward, I don’t plan to provide a rolling commentary on the business

Most likely, it won’t be till January 2025 that I give an update.

Despite what you read here, I’m not a fan of building in public.

(More on that in a future newsletter.)

So, from next week it’ll be back to our regular programming.

Now, how about you?

What are your plans for 2024?

Whatever they are, I hope you’re excited for the year ahead, and I wish you a big helping of success over the next 12 months.

I’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines…

Hopefully sprinkling in a bit of gold dust into the mix.

Until next week.

Namaste,

Olly