$1M/year wine club side hustle, 8M/month food blog, successful pandemic pivots.

Hey starters - happy Thursday!

This week, we're featuring 5 inspiring stories.

Starter Quote of The Week:

❝ You shouldn't be doing everything because you can't be the best at everything. And even if you are, you probably don't have time for it anyway."

- Charles Carette, founder of Bambox ($720K/year) tweet this!

#1: This couple launched a $1M/year wine club side hustle:

Alessandro and Lindsay started Roscoli Wine Club - a side project to their wine tastings in Rome.

In just three years, they've reached the 1,000 member mark with annual revenue of 1 million euros. 

Their secret? Consistent email marketing - they've grown their email list to 10K+ which has been their biggest source of lead gen.

Check out Alessandro and Lindsay's story here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to learn how to be more consistent with your email marketing? We break down a strategy to increase email marketing revenue 20% with a few small changes -> here.

#2: Maya started a food blog and reaches 8M monthly visitors:

Maya Krapmf started Wholesome Yum - a wildly successful keto food blog. 

In just a few years, she took her blog from 0 visitors to 8M monthly visitors and published a USA Today Best Seller cookbook. 

After getting motivated by her success using Pinterest, she opened up other social media accounts and her following took off from there:

Check out Maya's full interview here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to learn how to grow a Pinterest account to 2M monthly viewers? Check out the full scoop here!

#3 SIDE HUSTLE: How a simple Instagram 'relaunch' added thousands in new revenue:

Vivan Chen acquired Modern Innkeeper - a guest amenity kit for short-term rental properties. 

Before Vivian bought out the business, the previous owners sold exclusively on Amazon and had zero social presence. 

Vivian did a simple relaunch, and now does 100% of sales directly through the site with a huge focus on reaching her audience through Instagram:

Learn all about Vivian's relaunch and transition from Amazon here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to see 9 proven ways to grow your social media organically? We put together a full guide here!

#4: PANDEMIC PIVOTS: Adam recovered from an $85K loss in three days:

Remember our interview last year with Adam Tanaka, founder of Life and Limb Printing?

We just caught up with him and learned about the big changes made to the business this year.

They recovered from an 85% loss in March to a now 30% loss in revenue compared to the previous year. They plan to be profitable by EOY.

Here's what they did to restructure + rebuild:

• Focused on automation + efficiency with a much leaner team 
• Scrapped the cold calls/sales emails trying to sell customers on "needing apparel"
• Rely entirely on word of mouth marketing vs campaigns and crazy PR
• Created entirely new product lines to diversify revenue streams

Check out Adam's full recovery story here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to see 16 examples of small businesses that started during the pandemic (and are thriving today)? We put together a list for you here!

#5: This solo-founder makes $240K/year cleaning exterior homes:

We just published our interview with Nicholas Ciano, founder of Go Green Cleaning and Maintenance.

After getting experience in the corporate world (and getting a kick in the butt from his wife), he decided to venture off and start his own business in the industry.

In just four years, he's averaging $240K/year with 1 employee. 

Check out Nicholas's full story here!

#6: Are you ready to boost your revenue?

I want to give a shoutout to our long-time sponsor Klaviyo.

Using Klaviyo will open up a massive, untapped sales channel and bring you closer to your customers!

I'm a huge fan of the product (I use it for Starter Story and love the segmentation/drip features). I've also been able to collect so many emails using their website form integration - my list growing over 3k/month now 😲

Here are just some of the impressive businesses we've interviewed that use Klaviyo for email marketing and are raving about the product - all great interviews you should check out as well!

• Brumate ($1.1M/mo at 23 years old)
• Sheets & Giggles ($76k/mo in just 6 months)
• Beardbrand ($100k+/mo - 1.5M YouTube subscribers)
• Abs Protein Pancakes ($25k/mo passive income business)
• Xero Shoes ($460k/mo - featured on Shark Tank)
• The Longhairs ($30k/mo)
• Framed Tweets ($25k/mo)

Level up your email marketing with 👉 Klaviyo!

(And thank you for your support 🙏)

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Thanks for reading! See you next week.

- Pat Walls, Founder @ Starter Story

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