We have bootstrapped Exit Five to $1M revenue. V1 of Exit Five: Paid Community V2 of Exit Five (now in progress): Community, Content, Events We're evolving from a community to media company. Instead of one product line, we'll have three. Starting with our first event in September. And there's some trends we're riding: 1. More companies are wanting to move money from Google + Meta and spend it with niche communities and influencers (we're doing that for B2B marketing). 2. We've built a small but powerful brand over the last two years; people from the community and various roles in marketing reach out weekly asking if there are opportunities to work together. I think we can build a great team of 3-10 people over the next few years. 3. Remote first. And we can do this all remotely - we run the business with Slack, Looms, and the occasional meeting. We'll eventually get to the point where in-person time is important, maybe once a quarter. But I've been really happy with how much we can get done with Slack and working asynchronously - on our own time, while balancing a healthy life with family, friends, fitness, etc. 4. Information overload. There's more content than ever. People don't need more content right? Another podcast? More webinars? Another newsletter? A focused media business like Exit Five gives people in this niche the ability to shrink their focus - instead of trying to keep up with 20 websites to grow your career you can pick one. As one member said on a call this week: "It's like LinkedIn on steroids but better because people aren't trying to drive engagement on here. They are commenting & posting because they genuinely want to help or get help with their marketing problems." Follow Exit Five if you're interested in working with us as a teammate, contractor, sponsor, or partner. Here's the business plan I drew up btw:
The number 1 thing I wish any of the podcasts did... was a regular breakdown of a company's marketing content and strategy. Chris walker did it once on DGL with gaetano early on, they did a breakdown of a website. was really great. I suggested multiple times, do more of that for more types of content, break my stuff down, my ads, my website. I'll be the guinea pig. I want the experts and audience to kick my ass and give me suggestions to improve... other things to try. I'd pay to be on that podcast weekly if there were others willing to get their stuff stepped in too. Like inkmaster but for marketing. just an idea for a possible monetization of your podcast offerings.
Mind if I 'steal' this business plan?
I love that after you used to post so much about building a growth engine as a soloprenuer and scaling it that you’ve now sung the praises of taking it to another level after strategic hires. Super valuable getting both perspectives to model!
Amped to see this take shape. And love the very simple biz plan. No need to over complicate. And much easier to know if you’ve veered off track because it’s so straight forward. If anyone is going to succeed with this model, it’s you and the E5 team.
#1 is a massive tailwind for E5 and it's just the beginning for how important that motion is going to be for tons of companies imo. Perfect timing for E5.
What tool did you use to mock up that complex business plan?
Legit Dave, was at SaaSopen today and we were like we all should go for exit five event
Which agency made this creative?
Fantastic. And that quote tracks with what I wrote about a year ago: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cbrockman_exit-five-1-community-for-b2b-marketing-activity-7072263408024215553-9L_j?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
SaaStr Annual 2024 is Sept 10-12 in SF Bay!! See You There!!
3moFWIW I would skip events as a core revenue stream if you can, but do them as a community-enabler. It becomes all consuming and unless you want to build an events company, it will distract you from digital and media revenue. Most smaller media companies will tell you events in the end have wrecked them, as appealing as the incremental revenue is in the beginning.