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The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
602: (Solo) What I Learned From Alex Hormozi’s $100M Book Launch
00:13:35
Everyone saw the headlines—but the real lessons from Alex Hormozi’s $100M book launch are in the planning, positioning, and pre-launch. In this episode, I break down the fundamentals you can lift straight into your next product launch or Black Friday promo: how to think like a founder (not an influencer), engineer your unit economics, and turn months of value-led content into a movement people want to be part of—before you ever make the ask.
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- [00:02]
Nathan Chan
Hey, Founder fam.
- [00:03]
Founder Community Host
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- [00:27]
Nathan Chan
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- [00:29]
Founder Community Host
They spend, which is an insanely good return on investment. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code. Founder50. Just head to omnisend.com founder without the.
- [00:44]
Nathan Chan
E to get started.
- [00:45]
Founder Community Host
All right, now let's jump back into the show.
- [00:49]
Nathan Chan
Hey guys, Nathan here. Welcome back to another solo episode, founder to founder. These are short, bite sized episodes where I share everything that I'm learning as I build Founder I've been building over the past 10 plus years. So I've got a ton of gold to share with you. And today I want to talk about what I learned from watching Alex Hormozy's book launch, that $100 million launch.
- [01:12]
Podcast Narrator
Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
- [01:26]
Nathan Chan
So he basically broke the Internet over a month ago now and for those who haven't seen it or saw what he did, it was basically a theatrical masterclass on how to do a product launch. And I want to break down everything that I learned, things that we'll be taking away, and also some really good fundamentals. Like he really just mastered the fundamentals. So I interviewed Alex a couple of years ago, super smart guy. And honestly when I interviewed him, I didn't know that he would become as big as he is now. Like, he is like, you know, one of the most well known seen entrepreneurs online today. And all credit to him. What he did with that book launch was super impressive. So the first lesson that I want to share with you is you want to launch like a founder, not an influencer. And what do I mean by that? Building that book launch, you can see he left no detail spared. Even he had the green people, like with the green costumes because the book was green. I saw so many different ad creatives. It was clear that they were testing so many different ad creatives to work out what ads actually worked to get the creative super dialed in. I thought it was really strategic. How not only did he have a Live event around the book. Like Steve Jobs would, you know Steve Jobs, a typical Apple style event to launch and reveal a new product. Not only do you do that, but to make the paid advertising work. He had the VIP session, so they were liquidating the ad spend. So the unit economics working. I thought that was genius. The long tail value that that Guy created through YouTube email podcast in the lead up, the follow up funnel to capture email subscribers. Like he provided a lot of value before he actually got to the pitch. So what was really cool was it wasn't flashy, it was engineered. And most influencers just post. He planned it out and this was so well planned, so well executed. And he wanted to prove a point, right? He wanted to prove a point. The $100 million models. He actually showed all the tactics and actually proved that he did $100 million launch, which was absolutely crazy. You know, the fact that he used the upsell, the one click upsell for anyone that purchased, I think it was a couple of hundred books. So it was a very, very smart, architected, engineered launch. And it was really incredibly planned out. I also thought that it was so clever that he planned out the whole book series around this book being the final book for the series. He had to do this book to make sure it lined up with everything else. Because the last book he sold all these programs and then he gave it all for free if you just get the book. So I thought it was very, very, very clever. So he was thinking and planning and strategizing well in advance. He knew he was gonna do exactly this two, three years ago. The second lesson I learned is, is the best launches aren't about the product. Now, I know that might sound quite counterintuitive, but when you think about it, I keep going back to the Steve Jobs analogy. People get so excited. It's something that you should be excited around. There's anticipation. People love to be delighted and people, they love to buy, but they hate to be sold to. And it wasn't a sales event, it was a performance. And there was so much excitement and people were waiting to see, I wonder what Alex does next. When I went, I didn't go to buy. I went to experience something. I went to see how like a true master of their craft was going to actually promote this book, sell this book. And it was really, really clever and well done. And I think when it comes to any event that you run, any promotion, any launch, you want to make it an experience for people. Obviously you want to, you know, promote your product, but you want people to be excited and you want to build anticipation. And that's what the best launches do. Like you think like how Steve Jobs used to do the Apple stuff. People were excited to see he had next for them. And people would line up once they knew what was coming, they would line up out the front of Apple. There were people be camping. How many people do you know camp out the front of a retail store to buy something? That's how crazy, that's how gangbusters he made people go right to buy a product. So what happened was off the back of this launch, the first launch that Alex did, when he did his book launch, his brand exploded and his list grew and then deal flow increased. And this had so much more than just selling a product. He built a lot of goodwill in the marketplace. He built a lot of trust, he built a lot of authority. So when he came to his third launch, he built up so much goodwill that he was able to actually sell. If you think about it, his first two launches, he didn't sell anything, he just sold a book. And this time round, to make the money that he made, he had to sell the book. Bulk buys. And then he had his special coaching upsell, which I thought was really, really interesting, really, really clever. The next lesson that I learned was the power of pre launch, but more so the depth of the pre launch and the infrastructure. So most people, they might do a pre launch and they might do like maybe two weeks, four weeks of pre launch content. He did literally like six months, six months of daily pre launch content. So he grew his YouTube, his podcast, his social media audience for such a long time in preparation for this particular launch. So he'd be building his personal brand for three years before he even considered really selling anything beyond a book. And he did the repetition of the core concepts around skill, character and belief. And then he had strategic partnerships and placements. And to be honest, we were actually supposed to interview him. We never ended up happening because couldn't find a time to actually go overseas to interview him in person. But I was supposed to interview him in prep. So the interviews that he did beforehand, he really made that buildup so strong and he left no stone unturned. So this was not an over overnight success he'd been building and he cashed in on all this goodwill that he'd been building for the past three years. And so that pre launch, it happened well before he was just even talking about the book. Six months ago, it happened the moment that he used to say, my name is Alex Hobosi and I've got nothing to sell you. And then over time, he stopped saying that, if you notice. He stopped saying I got nothing to say because he knew that eventually, after a good couple of years, he would sell his coaching and he would do that hundred million dollar launch. Now, the other lesson that I took away from this is you don't need a lot of followers to have a successful launch, right? Because let's be honest, not everyone has Hormozi's budget, team or production value. But that's not the point. The point is you want to package your ideas with clarity and really try and find out what ideas work and to get that cut through. So when you're kind of putting out content for your brand, you want to use social media and your organic channels as really kind of a testing ground to see what angles work, to see what hooks work, to see what stories work, to see what messaging works. So then over time, you can build up a big book of stories, a big book of methodologies, frameworks, and things that, you know, get cut through and angles and hooks. So then when you do go to do perhaps a Black Friday promotion, you already know what's working and you can just pull it all through and have a massive promotion versus trying to work it out on the fly. Another thing that he did was he led with value. And that was a big part of the prelaunch. He built so much goodwill, so much trust in the marketplace that when it came to this launch three years later, that's how he was able to do $100 million, like $100 million in literally couple of days. It's crazy. Another thing that he did, as well as he showed up, he was super consistent. And when I think about founder and what's taken the brand to where it is now, it's that consistency, just showing up every single day, relentlessly serving. And that's what he did. He put out so much content. And I remember as well he talked about when he first started getting into the content game, he spoke to a few people that were doing really well and they're like, you need to up your volume and it's so true, right? But it's not just content at scale, it's quality content at scale. And he was able to do that in a very, very, very big way. So the thing is, even if you have like 500 people on your email list, obsess over the value, serve first and ask later, use every touch point you have to build belief, but make it about them, not the product that's really, really really important and just try and serve and build that trust. So a good example is one of our students, Tori, Tori Gill. So she launched her E commerce brand. She's a founder plus member. She launched her e commerce brand, son and daughter. We've done an interview with her, you know, make sure you go check it out. Incredible interview. And she made close to a hundred thousand dollars in three months. And the way that she was able to do that was before she launched the product. She built so much goodwill, she had her wait list, started putting out content, she started speaking to people. She was building so much trust that when she launched like I think in the first week she made like $5,000. It was crazy. These are some of the things you can take away when you're building your pre launch. You don't need a large audience, you don't need a large following. She didn't have that, but she had an incredible launch and now her business is absolutely booming. We're probably going to get her back for another episode one year later. So she launched on Boxing Day, December 26th. It's almost been a year and she has a million dollar plus business now, which is absolutely crazy. But it all came off that incredible launch. Building a great product and then building that momentum along the way, which is what she's been doing. So the launch isn't about the size of your audience, it's about the relationships you have with the people that are in your community. So guys, I've launched a lot of things over the years. Many different courses and programs at founder. We've done a Kickstarter launch, we've raised close to $200,000. We've done massive program, we've done million dollar loans, we've done so many different things. And my reminder and takeaway for you guys is it's all about the fundamentals. But mostly and first and foremost it's about not polish positioning. And you will have an incredible pre launch, incredible Black Friday if you get the positioning right. Alex didn't sell a book. He created a category and that's what you have to take away. He created a movement. He made it about his community. He didn't make it about a book because let's be honest, who wants to buy 300 books? What are you going to do with 300 books, right? It wasn't about the books, it was about the movement, it was about the offer. He put together an incredible offer but most importantly, he made it about the people and he really, really, really focused on playing the long game and the positioning and he created that category. So, guys, I hope you found this episode valuable. For those of you that are doing a big Black Friday Cyber Monday, I hope you took away a few tips and you know he had an incredible offer. Make sure your offer is incredible. We'll add a link below this show so you can listen to the interview I did with Alex a couple of years ago. If you would like more help with your e commerce brand, we are running live workshops and training on how to have an incredible Black Friday. You can sign up just go to founder.com forward/trial. We have live workshops, we bring in experts. We have some incredible training on how to have an exceptional Black Friday. If you want to do an epic launch, we're here to help you. So go to founder.com forward/trial and I'll speak to you soon.