$9M/year selling mattresses online + The most advanced NFT system in the world

Dear starters,

Pat Walls here, creator of Starter Story. 

This last month, we’ve been heads down, building something new... 

It’s called the Growth Database - and we're so excited to finally share it with you. 200+ growth playbooks that successful businesses are using today and built a database with the best marketing strategies that are proven to grow your business.

1. Real data: How much does each strategy cost? How difficult is it to get started? How long will it take? What are the key things to get right? We break that down for you. 
2. Real-world examples: We show you real businesses putting these strategies into action. Learn from the best.
3. Proven strategies: Many of these strategies are what helped us grow Starter Story to 900K readers/month.

Get full access to the Growth Database with both our Premium and Premium Plus memberships.

$9M/year selling mattresses online

After working for the Big Three auto companies in Detroit for 10 years, Joe started an ecommerce business selling appliances online. This was a long time ago (the website was created with Yahoo! Store), and he was able to start dedicating just a few hours per week. 

While working his full time job, he was able to grow the business to $20K/mo. Then he dedicated completely to US-Mattress and the company’s revenue skyrocketed to $750K/mo.

With technology being so easy to use and so affordable, nowadays is super easy to start an ecommerce.

If you want to personally search for the perfect supplier or manufacturer, we’ve collected the best in the categories of CBD, clothing, makeup, watches, stationery, and more.

However, if you want an easier option to start Miguel created a $25K/mo platform that allows individuals and businesses to sell online without owning any stock, so you don’t need to worry about sourcing suppliers.

Once you got the product, you can sell on an established marketplace such as Etsy, eBay or Amazon; create your own online store using super simple tools like Shopify, Squarespace or Wix. Or combine both! (Click on each platform to find many success stories and learn from their experience).

Check our comprehensive guide on how to start an ecommerce business to get even more insights on this topic.

💰 Start a profitable business

Learn from real people sharing real stories. The struggles, the wins, the good and the bad. 

How do people get inspired and find great business opportunities? How do they get their 10 first clients? What challenges do they face at every stage and how to overcome them?

Get unlimited access to 2,000+ case studies, 3,000+ business ideas and 200+ proven growth strategies for $79/year (just $1.51/week) using the code "MAY21". This is the best deal we've ever had.

​Or, get even more with our Premium Plus membership for $199/year and you will additionally gain access to the Lean SEO course (sold separately for $249) where I share how I've grown Starter Story to over 900K monthly visitors.

(all of our plans are billed yearly)

$75K/mo helping companies create podcasts

Content Allies isn’t Jake’s first business, in a previous post he wrote about the journey of building up Lead Cookie, a $75K/mo Linkedin lead generation company.

He went through about 3-4 pivots in Content Allies before I landed on the podcasting niche.

He knew he wanted to do something with content marketing, but it took a lot of failed attempts before I landed on podcasting.

• First, they did Linkedin content as a service.
• Then they ghostwrite as a service.
• Then they tried to be a generalist content marketing agency.
• And eventually, they realized podcasts were the perfect fit for us and our best clients.

These are the 5 strategies that have worked well to attract customers:

1. Network - A lot of early customers came from his personal network.
2. Podcast - They launched a podcast to interview B2B executives. They practice what they preach and this had lead to over $100k in new revenue.
3. Blog posts - Jake wrote an article on his personal blog which has a great domain authority and it quickly started to rank on Google and attract leads.
4. Referrals - Current customers are already referring us to new ones!
5. Partnerships -They’re the official podcast partner of the SaaS Connect Conference.

If you’re still not convinced on how big business a podcast can be check these starters that we’ve talked to in the past:

• Kurt Elster makes $9K/mo hosting The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. Plus, he gets a ton of leads for his Shopify development agency.
• Like Jake, Jeremy started a $20K/mo podcast production and strategy agency.
• Launching a podcast was one of the biggest wins that helped Badger Maps grow their SaaS business to $270K/mo.

Making $60K/mo thanks to phone sales

We spoke to Lucy a while ago when she shared how they got 10K customers in 18 months with their ecommerce. And that’s the name of her newest venture, 10K Customers.

She has developed a 12-month program to help people build multi-million dollar companies in different niches such as witchcraft, designer shoes, cashmere, skincare.

She started pitching and selling the program before she ever started working on it. I love this kind of hustle, there’s no better way to validate your business idea.

Her playbook to acquire customers?

1. Facebook ads campaign
2. Killer phone call

In her words “having done an ecommerce business myself, helped hundreds of clients grow their product companies, AND having grown a successful company, I know how to make money - whether on the phone or the internet - and I can tell you which one I’d choose if I had to make $20k in a week.”

"Employee appreciation is essential. Without acknowledging the work your employees make, you have no one to market your brand. You will be nothing without people who support you and your vision.”

Shannon Imler, Founder
Ice Cream Factory ($400K/mo)

How we accidentally built the most advanced NFT system in the world

Last year Bruno formed RMRK, a standard to build NFTs on Polkadot and Kusama and his team developed singular.rmrk.app as the minting and trading UI for the ecosystem. Throughout their development journey accidentally built the most advanced NFT system in the world. Right now, the volumes are around $1 million per month, which is a lot given that the Singular UI project itself is only a month old. Their revenue is $30K per month right now, projected to be around $500K annually by the end of 2021.

A super impressive project in a very hot space right now.

Additionally, check these links if you want to become an NFT broker or want to see more examples of NFT-related successful businesses.

Pivoting from a cheap flights website to a money-saving browser extension

I also wanted to highlight the story of Ju and his cofounders, who started a journey building a cheap flights website and had to pivot. Fortunately, they found a great idea: a browser extension like Honey but specifically for flights.

It’s very interesting to read how they ideated and built their first prototype, hit the market and realized there wasn’t a demand for their product. It’s inspiring to have access to this process from the inside because it’s quite common to be in that position and it’s important to know that there’s always a solution. You just need to be in the right mindset.

And I think they did a great choice, the extension/plugin space is full of opportunities. It doesn’t have to be just a browser extension, it can work on any major platform which popularity you can profit from:

• Preetam and Sankalp developed a $29K/mo WhatsApp plugin for Shopify
• Laura runs a $7K/mo lightweight project management tool for WordPress (Here’s a very detailed guide if you want to create your own WordPress plugin business)
• Ajay is the founder of GMass a $300K/mo extension that makes it easy to send email campaigns using Gmail
• Alex and the team of Gikken build their whole $18K/mo business around extensions. Their most popular creation is a translation extension for macOS

Opportunities

RMRK ($30K/mo NFT system) is looking to hire people in the following roles: content and marketing, technical writer, community manager, designer, accountant and business development and growth.

Content Allies ($75K/mo podcast production service) is hiring podcast audio editors, content writers (articles & show notes) and podcast producer.

LV8 ($12K/mo digital marketing agency) is hiring a senior web developer and a social media marketing manager.

Delicious Denver Food Tours ($30K/mo) is hiring food tour guides.

DEMAN Übersetzungen ($365K/mo) is hiring SEO-oriented French and German texters.

Adrenaline Offroad ($45K/mo) is looking for someone to handle their customer service (Instagram & Email) on the weekends.

WorthPoint ($500K/mo) is hiring freelance writers.

Crossnet ($190K/mo) is hiring people for sales and marketing in Australia & Europe.

Meraki Design House ($15K/mo shoe brand) part-time content creator to grow their presence on TikTok.

P.S. Huge thank you to Klaviyo - our exclusive sponsor at Starter Story. By using Klaviyo, we've grown our email list to 70K and added thousands of dollars in revenue per month through email marketing. Get Klaviyo today!

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