Why 2,500 Subscribers Is All You Need For $1M

Summary

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The Startup Ideas Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Why 2,500 Subscribers Is All You Need For $1M

Host: Greg Isenberg
Guest: Jonathan (“Jay Ice Cream”)
Date: January 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into one of the most underrated tools for building a successful, scalable business: sales funnels. Greg Isenberg hosts Jonathan (“Jay Ice Cream”), a funnel expert and serial founder, for a candid, practical, and often humorous look into how even a small email list (think 2,500 engaged subscribers) can translate into a million-dollar business. Together, they unpack the mechanics of effective funnels, share stories from their own businesses, and discuss why most founders make funnel-building overly complicated or overlook it entirely.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Funnels Matter (00:00 - 03:00)

• Greg introduces the topic, emphasizing that building a sales funnel is foundational yet underappreciated in the startup world.
• Jonathan explains the “dirty word” reputation of funnels and how, when demystified, they are the key to predictable growth.

2. Personal Reflections, Transitions, and Setting Goals (03:10 - 13:30)

• Light-hearted banter about New Year's reflections and personal growth goals—including Greg’s humorous take on self-improvement.
• Jonathan shares his own transition story: stepping down as CEO of facilitator.com to become an advisor, splitting his company into three parts, and regaining headspace.
• Key moment: Jonathan describes the challenge of letting go and the risks of stepping away as a founder.
  • Quote: “It’s easier for me to assume the worst...but facilitator.com now is a well-oiled entity with all the funnels and everything.” (13:34)

3. Founder Identity, Letting Go, and Advisor Role (13:25 - 19:30)

• Both discuss the difficulty for founders in transitioning to an advisory role.
• The challenge isn’t just giving up control—it’s staying valuable without being overbearing.
• They swap stories of stepping in and out of leadership, drawing parallels in their respective journeys.
• Quote: Greg: “When a company is doing well, they don’t want me involved. They want strategic advice...but not me in the weeds.” (17:33)

4. Funnel Fundamentals: The Million Dollar Recipe (19:34 – 25:41)

• Jonathan shares that the basics of funnels are still the most effective.
  • Quote: “Most of the real basics work so goddamn well. Today, we can launch a product using basically just the same webinar...that’s still the multimillion-dollar recipe we’re reusing over and over.” (20:10)
• The simplest version: Build a list, drive them to a webinar, pitch the product, send follow-ups.
• The process is repeatable for coaching, info products, and even SaaS.

5. Step-by-Step: The 2,500 Subscriber Funnel (25:41 – 30:14)

• Jonathan walks through a specific funnel for his own 2,500-person “Unscheduled CEO” email list:
  • Invite list to a free live training (webinar) tailored to their interests.
  • At the end, pitch an in-person paid event or coaching.
  • Outcomes: Emailing a cold list yields very few sales; a webinar boosts conversion substantially.
• Quote: “If I do a live training...maybe 200 people turn up. I’ll get like 20 people buying tickets right there.” (26:39)
• He breaks down a typical webinar structure:
  • 20 mins: Personal story showcasing relatable struggles.
  • 10-15 mins: “Discovering the vehicle” — introducing the key solution.
  • Another 20 mins: Explaining how the solution changed the game.
  • Wrap-up: Offer two next steps—DIY (learn on your own) or fast-track (buy the product/event).

6. From Content to Cash: The Deeper Funnel (32:50 – 35:41)

• They diagram the funnel:
  • Email List → Free Live Training → Paid Live Event → High-ticket Coaching/Advisory/Equity Deals.
• Note: This structure isn’t just for info products; it can serve as a pipeline for high-value equity/partnership opportunities.

7. Applying Funnels to SaaS and Software (37:08 – 44:07)

• They discuss adapting these mechanics to SaaS startups:
  • Example: Using a “Challenge Funnel” (e.g., a 30-day ‘build your second brain’ challenge for Notion, in partnership with an influencer).
    • Free access starts the habit, group coaching enables engagement, a percentage become paying users.
• Quote: “A challenge can be a fun and useful way to get people actually into some routine...” (43:26)
• Even non-cheesy, high-profile brands use “stealth funnels” under the hood and benefit hugely.

8. The Importance of a ‘Warming Up’ Step (45:04–46:19)

• Jonathan’s advice: Don’t just email your list a sales link. Always include a warming-up step—webinar, info session, or challenge—to prime your audience.
• Real-world examples: Stanford’s info sessions, corporate challenge funnels, and more.
• Quote: “Most of the time, you need to have this middle step to get people warmed up and excited enough to actually spend their money.” (45:56)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Losing to a 94-Year-Old at Tennis:
  • Greg: “I lost the game to a 94 year old man. He absolutely destroys me.” (05:57)
• On Funnel Simplicity:
  • Jonathan: “The real basics work so goddamn well. Just email your list, send them to a webinar, follow up, and you can make millions.” (20:10)
• On Letting Go as Founder:
  • Greg: “When a company is doing well, they don’t want me involved...They want the strategic advice, but not me in the weeds.” (17:33)
• On Funnel Warmups:
  • Jonathan: “If you just email everybody or just post...It’s unlikely that it will work without this middle warming up step.” (45:13)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–03:00: Why funnels are overlooked, and why they shouldn’t be.
• 03:10–06:23: Humorous New Year’s goals and personal stories.
• 11:16–14:41: Jonathan’s transition out of day-to-day CEO, risk of “hands-off” gone too far.
• 19:34–21:38: How simple webinar-based funnels drive revenue.
• 25:41–30:14: 2,500-subscriber funnel, webinar structure, precise conversion numbers.
• 37:08–44:07: Challenge Funnel explained; adapting the approach for SaaS (e.g., Notion).
• 45:04–46:19: The absolute necessity of a warming-up/priming step.
• 47:25–50:25: Favorite products (“Fellow” kettle appreciation), lighthearted outro.

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Final Thoughts & Actionable Advice

• Start Simple, Stay Consistent: Even a small, well-nurtured list can outperform huge, unengaged audiences if you use the right funnel strategy.
• Always Warm Up Your Audience: Webinars, live trainings, and challenges are essential “middle steps” between content and purchase.
• Funnel Types Are Universal: The same toolkit works for info products, SaaS, in-person events, and even high-ticket advisory/partnership gigs.
• Don’t Neglect Your Story: Craft and refine personal or product stories as the backbone of your offers.

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Explore more startup ideas and funnel inspiration:
https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas

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“Don’t let anyone tell you how to drink your coffee. Especially not the funnel guy.”
— Greg Isenberg (50:45)

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Transcript

[A]

Right behind where I'm sitting, you can see this whiteboard and there's this funnel that Jonathan jaiscream goes through with us that's printed him millions of dollars. We go through exactly how to do it, why funnels matter. And honestly, I don't know why people sleep on funnels. It's kind of a dirty word. But today we're going to have a fun chat and just go through how to think about structuring a funnel that works for your business. So this means you're going to get more customers, you're going to create more sales, and it's just going to be a big friend for you to grow your business and give your business the highest chance of success. This is a fun conversation. Always with Ice Cream is always a blast. And let me know what you think in the comment section. I read every single comment. Hope you enjoy.

[B]

What's up, Greg?

[A]

What's going on? Could I call you Jay Ice Cream?

[B]

You can call me Jay Ice Cream. I mean, you're the only one who does it. But I like, that's not true, dude.

[A]

The comment section.

[B]

Always your comment section. And your people on X called me that.

[A]

But what does your girl call you?

[B]

John Ice Cream.

[A]

John Ice Cream.

[B]

Jonathan Ice Cream. She calls me Jonathan Ice Cream. Yeah, it's. I think I never intended it to be spoken out loud because it was my Xbox gamer tag. You know, it was one of those things where I was, like, trying different things and then I was just like, ice Cream. And then J Ice Cream became my Twitter name or X name, also my Instagram name. But I don't think anything else besides my original Xbox account.

[A]

And then besides from your whole identity.

[B]

Well, besides the fact that you noticed it or some. Or your audience noticed it literally 20 years after I did it. Like, no, there was, I think, like one person on one podcast. Maybe 10 years ago, a German podcast said in a very friendly and naive way, why is your name Jizz Cream? And I was like, oh, oh, no, it's J Ice Cream. And then that was the whole. Then there was 10 years of nothing. And then now you and your podcast.

[A]

That's perfect.

[B]

Yeah. So it's good. I'm keeping. I'm never changing it.

[A]

Great.

[B]

New Year, man.

[A]

Happy New Year. Good to see you.

[B]

Have you made any, like, do you over the holiday period do any sort of reflection thing or do you. What do you. Do you do anything like that?

[A]

I am a human being, you know, so it'd be weird if I did, like, zero thinking. Yeah, but like, I don't know.

[B]

No, but I mean, do you do like any extra reflection or do you. Yeah, you just, you just power down when you're not on this podcast and you're like waiting for the guest to appear.

[A]

The honest answer is I set three goals for the year and that's it.

[B]

What are they? You fuck tell us, then.

[A]

I'll tell you one of them. And it's not business related at all.

[B]

Grow a bigger pp.

[A]

I feel like smaller. Yeah, exactly.

[B]

You're like, how much of this will get cut out of the podcast?

[A]

We basically keep everything in.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So grow a bigger PP is number one. And what was number two?

[A]

Number three? Let me tell you a story. Actually, that happened to me this weekend. So I signed up for my first ever. Okay. So I make this resolution, get really good at tennis.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

Why? Because tennis feels like it's like part chess. Especially singles. It's like part chess. Like you're, you're, you. You know, you need to be really strong mentally and it's a really good cardio exercise.

[B]

Just like chess. Yeah, that's the part that's like chess.

[A]

It's like, yeah, exactly. So New Year's resolution, sign up to a tennis tournament. I'm really excited. I get there matches at 11am I see my buddy Corey is, is like there and he's like, dude, you know who you're playing? And I was like, no, he's like, you're playing Lee. And I was like, who's Lee? And he, and he goes, lee is a 94 year old man. Nice. So I'm thinking I'm about to just, you know, absolutely blow this guy out of the water. You know, here I am a extremely fit 35 year old. Spent the, you know, I have been practicing more and more, getting into shape and then I get to the court, 94 year old, and he absolutely destroys me. 1 020. Like I'm not getting any points on the board. Oh man, I'm literally, I can't even breathe. I'm sweating like profusely. There's not a bead of sweat on Lee's face.

[B]

Just completely beadless.

[A]

Just completely beadless. So then I see my friend Corey at the sidelines. He's like, oh, I forgot to tell you. Basically that like he's a, he won the like world champion or American championship for top tennis players 85 or older.

[B]

Holy crap.

[A]

Long story short, I'm literally like immobilized now. He like, I'm so like, I can't, I'M so sore and everything. He just, he destroyed me. I lost the game to a 94 year old man. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co founders, they're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing, how do you build an audience, how do you go viral on Twitter, all these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas or it's for people who have a startup but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So you can check out the link to StartupEmpire Co in the description.

[B]

That's really, I mean, does it give you this feeling of that's who I want to be? Like, I want to be that 94 year old man destroying 35 year olds.

[A]

It's exactly, it's exactly. I mean, I must admit we went into a tie break. So it was like it got close by the end. So I almost beat a 94 year old man.

[B]

If someone just starts the episode right here.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think that guy was really cool. Like he's, you know, I was talking to him, talking to him, he's like, yeah, I'm just, I love playing tennis, I play every day. And he's just doing his thing. Like that's goals.

[B]

You know what I think is amazing? You have, I think one of the, you know, one of the bigger podcasts out there in the startup world, whether you like it or not. And look at your background, the worst background whiteboard, which you've half ass written. This startup. If anyone's not listening to this on YouTube, you need to go look at how it's a testament to how people will do the wrong, will take the wrong message. They'll watch a popular podcast and they're like, oh, I get it. I need to have a really good mic, I need to have really good lighting. And there's your podcast with like 35,000 listens on YouTube alone. And you've got a really, I mean it's almost insulting. It's amazing. Like, is it, do you ever think, like, I need to, like I need to level this shit up visually or are you just like, ah, I did.

[A]

A round of in person interviews and the quality is really good. Like we did a really, really good job. We're releasing our second. I don't know when this is going to go out, but the second IRL video is going out today with David Senra, which by the way was probably one of the most life changing conversations I've had with anyone.

[B]

Cool. Like on what topic? What broad topic?

[A]

I want you to listen to it. Honestly. Yeah. But basically the reason why I was life changing was I think what's cool about David Senner, he's from Founders podcast. Do you know Founders?

[B]

Yeah, I've listened to it. It's great.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not as good as your podcast, obviously.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. So David, he studied all these billionaires and founders and stuff like that and he's just got these amazing like one line zingers and stories that go with everything.

[B]

I love when people have that. When they've got their like, you know, backlog of really cool quotes and anecdotes and all that stuff. I never have that. I mean I have it for all. Only really have it for my, my like very specific facilitation world.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When I do like my show and they're not like saved anywhere but they come out. But I have heard it's a really good idea. I heard this from Russell Brunson that it's a really good idea to have like your. He has, he calls it like story archive or something like of your best stories that you can tell. Apparently people do that when they're like media trained. Apparently.

[A]

Yeah. I forget who said it again, we suck at this. But it's like never show up to dinner without stories. Maybe it's Anthony Bourdain.

[B]

Well, showing up to dinner with really inappropriate, really long stories. But it's because no one told me the rest. Like what do you mean? Okay, I'll just learn some horrible. Did you hear about the guy who fell down the crevasse and died and had to eat his own legs? I've got a three hour story about it.

[A]

Don't go. Don't go for dinner with ice cream.

[B]

Do not go to dinner with me. It's bad. It's very bad. Well, I, I made a pretty big decision over the holiday period. I decided to step out as CEO of facilitator dot com.

[A]

Oh wow.

[B]

Fully I'm now. So basically last year, I think around September, we publicly launched a section of or so we've split. I split the company into three different companies actually. Obviously inspired by the way you did it with the holding company sort of thing. And so I Split it into facilitator.com, aJ and Smart Studio, which is the design studio. And then Partners, which is like where myself and my team advise other companies on really funnels and growing their company using funnels. And it just clicked with Laura and I, who run facilitator.com over the holidays. We were like, why don't we just advise facilitator.com the way we're advising other companies to grow? And we had a chat with one of the employees who seemed like the best fit to essentially take over. He said yes. And so for the last three weeks we've been advising facilitator.com the same way we're advising everyone else. And it's been a massive, massive change. Like out of being super reactive every day, into being a lot more, having a lot more headspace and a lot more time to think. Although, to be really honest, I don't know what to do at the time yet. Like, I'm kind of in a confused state where I'm like, okay, should I, what do I do? Should I read books? Should I meditate? Should I Boo hoo.

[A]

I know, literally boohoo.

[B]

Should I do fucking beat up a 94 year old man like Greg? No, but this, like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to make that the topic, but it's really, that's pretty huge because last year I was like hardcore fully operational across the three companies and now I'm more advising and it feels like a nice change of pace.

[A]

Okay, so are you worried at all that this person is going to drive the business into the ground?

[B]

I'm sure they all listen to this podcast. So I would say that I always assume, I mean for me, it's always easier for me to assume the worst. Like it's, it's, it would be stupid for me to assume that someone who hasn't had that role in the same way I, I've had the role of CEO for 14 years now and it's very challenging. I'm not worried that he'll run it into the ground because first of all, I'm the advisor and Laura is advising. So we can be very helpful along the way. But also facilitator.com now is a well oiled, well running entity with all the funnels and everything. So it just needs someone really who really knows the ins and outs of funnels and Dom who's running it. Hey, Dom is really good at all that stuff. So I think he's going to do a great job and yeah, I'm not worried about it being run into the ground personally. It's low on my worries list.

[A]

The hard thing to do, and I'm guilty of this sometimes because I'm in a similar role with late checkout is you might be working with a CEO and see that the CEO is making the wrong decision and you have to be like, are you, you know, you have to be kind of like out of it. Right? You can't just be don't do this or I would do this this way. And that's, that's the hardest part. That's going to be the hardest part of your role.

[B]

It's very, very difficult, Very difficult for me because we did hand, I did hand over the corporate side of my business just to, to a CEO a couple of years ago and they did eventually sort of lose track of it and, and it did pretty much crash and burn and had to be rebuilt. I obviously left it go a little bit too far because I was like, I just need to, I went so hands off that it actually went too far. So I, I try, I've tried kind of that approach where I'm like, okay, I'm going to be almost like ignorant of it. And now I'm taking, I think it was helpful for me to be, to have this partner's business where I'm an advisor to others so that I know how to advise while being checked out a little bit, while being like, I'm going to answer your question but I'm also not going to check up and see if you did it right or something. But yeah, I mean, look, so let.

[A]

Me get this straight.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

So let me get this straight. So you had a business, you had a few businesses, you started coming on the pod, you started wearing glasses like me, you started changing your business like me.

[B]

I had these glasses before I started this pod.

[A]

You started talking like me, you started telling the same stories that I tell. You started beating up 94 year old men like I do.

[B]

Hell yeah. I'm just like, you know what I said? I said one day when I woke up, I just said, I am Greg Euro Greg.

[A]

That's what people say in the comments. They're like, oh, are they brothers?

[B]

Oh, I have glasses that look really like. Do you have your like lighter colored glasses?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

All right, I'm gonna go get mine. Like these kind of.

[A]

I don't have them. I don't have those. I don't have those. But those look great.

[B]

They're like more like yours have shorter hair and Then, yeah. So, yeah, I, look, I have stepped out of the business a few times. That's why I like started my whole unscheduled CEO Persona and everything. But what keeps happening is like this thing of just when, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in or whatever that fucking meme is. So I do kind of end up getting pulled back into it. Do you not get pulled back into your companies?

[A]

Honestly? If you want to know the honest answer, yeah.

[B]

You're going to say no.

[A]

When a company is doing well, they don't want me involved. Yeah, like they, they, they honestly, like I don't have like the context that they might have. They, I, I shouldn't say they don't want me involved. They don't want me to like in the weeds.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

They want the strategic advice. They want, you know, access to connections. They want how would I do xyz, but they don't want, like I'm sitting in meetings and I'm asking like a million questions like that to them. Feels like I'm taking the wheel and that's not the deal.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's really hard to if, if you were the CEO and now you've given the role to someone else. If you get. At least if I'm in the room, it'll default to people feeling like my opinion maybe has more weight.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And so it's better for me to just simply not. And what's cool with Dom is like, he's also been like, yeah, you, like, we basically decided I'm not going to be in like the kickoff meetings, new product meetings, things like this. Actually, I, I made a pretty extreme decision as well, which is that I am no longer doing personal. So I was personally sometimes physically going and running large scale corporate trainings just because they bring in like quite a lot of money. Um, and I also decided in, in December, I'm not doing them anymore. Like full stop. I'm not traveling. So a lot of the big B2B corporate enterprise travel plans for 2025 I've handed over to the team. And that's something I was always kind of like scared of, I think because it's like, it's a little bit the Jonathan show, like the teaching facilitation thing, the way we do it at AJ and Smart. And now it's not the Jonathan show anymore. So.

[A]

The Dom show.

[B]

The Dom show, exactly. So, yeah, that's going to be the team running those. And so that's. Yeah, I'm really, really curious and Excited to see how it goes. But what's cool for your podcast is that now I've gone from, you know, focusing obsessively on, you know, a facilitator.com funnel and then like two weeks later going and helping another company with their funnel and whatever. Now it's like I wake up and I've got, we, I just do it on imessage because it's just so much easier. And I've got like five companies which we're helping with different funnels and different projects and pretty much what I've been able to or what I can pretty cleanly and clearly say. I started doing this kind of advising a couple of years ago, but now it's like really part of my actual day to day. It used to be a bit more like on the side. Most of the real basics work so goddamn well. Today, like 2025, we can launch a product using basically just the same webinar. Just email your list, send them to a webinar in that webinar, talk about the product, the end, send loads of follow up emails. Like that's still the multimillion dollar recipe that we're reusing over and over and over and over again. We've got two big launches coming up next week. We've got. Maybe you can like beep that. Will it get beeped out if I, if I want it to get beeped out?

[A]

Yeah, you just have to say what you want beeped out.

[B]

Yeah. So we're launching, so we're launching that next week and the like we're just doing webinar. So on Wednesday all the different lists that we have access to, including like some third party lists. And so we've been working with a couple of different leads and lists. So all of them push towards essentially a webinar funnel.

[A]

Okay, so we've bleeped out who those people are, but basically for the listener, there's someone who's launching a book, right. You're helping them with orchestrating the funnel to get as many people, as many people in their ICP to buy the book. There's another big podcast, big list that you're going to be working with to get even more people on it. How do you structure a deal with someone who has a big list or a bigger list? How does that even happen?

[B]

Well, I mean there's a couple, I think we have for this particular launch there's going to be like four different lists being tapped into. Sometimes it's just a favor. That's in this case what it is. Like, you know, we're friends or we've done something together before, and can we just, like, tap into your list and then we can do this other thing? It's actually all.

[A]

Isn't that, like, awkward, though? Like, I don't. I would feel awkward. Just. Yeah. Okay. Take off your sweater. Of course you're wearing black. Like, I'm wearing black.

[B]

I want to be more like you.

[A]

You literally looked at me and you're like, oh, my God. I. I don't look as much like Greg today. I need a. I can do this.

[B]

So I'm more like you again.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah. You never just ask someone, like, what's definitely not a good idea is to reach out to someone and say, hey, can I be on your list? We actually had an episode, I think you and I did an episode before holidays where we talked about this idea of just, like, asking people for favors and stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. You never reach out. Okay. If it's like, okay. I actually asked you about this exact book launch, and I didn't just say, hey, Greg, since I've been on your podcast already, let me just have access to your full audience and promote the book, right? I didn't say that. I asked you very, like, carefully, hey, Greg, is like, I have this. We're going to promote this book. We've got this book launch coming up. The person who wrote it is, like, in my opinion, great for your audience because this, this, this, this, this, this, this. Do you think there's any chance that this person could come on your podcast? I asked that, like, relatively carefully with no in my. At least, hopefully not from your perspective. I didn't have any assumption that you should just say yes. My assumption was it's an absolutely maybe situation. And that's if I really know someone. So if I really know someone, or if I'm. If I talk to someone a lot, like I've talked to you, then I might do a direct ask like that, but still very carefully. And if I don't know the person so well, for example, with Chris do, when we did our first promotion, I just said, hey, how much will it cost? Straight up. And often they'll just be like, I don't want your money. Let's just do it. Or they'll also realize, oh, well, our lists. Let me do something on your list, and I can do something on your list. Sometimes, though, it's worth paying someone $10,000 if they have a 1.3 million dollar person list. So it is a mix of those things. I would say you have to be very tactful and careful to not overstep boundaries.

[A]

Is your big insight overall that the basic funnel, the webinar funnel, is just.

[B]

What works today in my opinion. What, what makes the most money in the shortest amount of time is you've got a list. So ideally this won't work if you have zero list or you're like, this is not one of those situations that works from zero the way I'm describing it now. But let's say you have a list of 20,000 people or something you've been building up over years, or even honestly, 2,000 people.

[A]

Wait, you want to do something? Should we write it on the board? I've never done this.

[B]

Let's do it. So you've got a list of 2,000 people. Actually, 2,500 people. I've got my unscheduled CEO like blog, which I almost never post to, has around 2,500 subscribers, which is essentially nothing.

[A]

So you can't see it, right?

[B]

I can see it. Yeah, it looks good. It looks good. Yeah, it looks good. So what I will do is I'll invite those 2,500 people to a live training. So this is what I literally will do with this group. I'll give you an exact funnel that's coming up that I'm going to launch soon. So I'm going to invite 2500 people to a live training that I know will appeal to those people. So those people in my community, they kind of like talking about, how do you, how, how do you, how can you like be a CEO but also have like a normal life and all balance, family, whatever. I'll do some sort of training on that topic. Then in that training I will talk about the thing I want to sell, which in this case will actually be an in person event. That's three days. So I'll sell that in person event on that training. At the end of it, I'll say, hey, by the way, if you enjoyed this training, there's two ways you can go forward. One is read all these books. They're really amazing, they're really cool. Whatever number two is, come hang out with myself and my team in Berlin for three days and we'll do it in a hackathon style. If I just emailed those 2,500 people with the exact same information two people would buy, like I've experienced it multiple times. If I do a live training, a 90 minute live training in between, which is a webinar, like out of the, let's say 2500 people will get invited. Maybe 200 people might turn up. I'll get like 20 people buying tickets right there.

[A]

And then question of the call it 90 minutes. Would you say that it's 90% giving value, 10% talking about the offer, like, what's the breakdown?

[B]

The breakdown is structurally, I use the structure from Russell Brunson. Like 50% of the structure I take from Russell Brunson's book Expert Secrets. So that structure is basically. I'll just tell you the structure I'll use for this one. It's going to be, hey, everybody, here's what the last few years have looked like for me. And the last few years for me have been pretty stressful because loads of things have gone on in my life, blah, blah, blah. And I believe that that will touch on a lot of people's issues they're having as entrepreneurs. So I'll talk about sort of my story for, I'd say 20 minutes. I'll talk about the biggest learnings I've had in those couple of years. And from those biggest learnings, I'll distill down, like, what big things I'm going to do to move forward. And at the end of that, I'll say, then I'll start talking about the event or the thing or even the service. Like, this could even be a coaching service that would accelerate that learning for other people. So it's not even 20 minutes me, it's like 20 minutes my story. It's 10 minutes of me discovering something that has helped. So that's like, called the vehicle. I'm discovering the vehicle. So in my case, it could even just be funnels, because funnels can help me to not have to be owned by my business if I know I can switch something on and make money. So it's like 20 minutes, my story and the problems. 10 to 15 minutes. The vehicle. So me discovering the thing, that could even be meditation. That could be climbing. That could be whatever. Then it's like another maybe 20 minutes. We'll add it up at the end of using this vehicle and why it was so valuable and useful to me. Then I give people two options. You can go on the same journey I did by learning all these things. It will take you this much time. Or come hang out with me and you'll just learn it faster. That's kind of the two options at the end. Cool.

[A]

I'm actually going to erase it just because it's making it too complicated, the funnel. But I will include in the show notes of this, of this episode, notes from this Episode where people can go and access that.

[B]

I can tell you also, like, okay, we've got two webinars coming up for two different clients. They're always almost the same structure because they're always like, jonathan, but what do we do on the live training? And I'm like, all right, guys. So both are launching a new product and both are launching almost sequels to their previous product. So they had something in their. They're launching new things. So in both cases, I will say, first, talk about why you created the first product. Like, why did you create it? What problems were you having? What was the journey? Now talk about in the meantime, since you created that product, what were the things you realized about that product that are no longer working for you as you've developed and become better at what you've done? Cool. Talk about that for a while now. What are the things that you've discovered that have improved and helped you on the new part of your journey? And I'm going to give you an exact example in a second. And now talk about, well, there's a gap between the thing you've created and now the thing that you would need to have existed for you to get to this point, and that's the new product. An example is I'm learning. I'm doing climbing, bouldering. It's like a. Bouldering, whatever. Climbing, indoor climbing. That's probably the easiest thing that it's called. So I'm currently one year into learning indoor climbing, and I'm completely stuck. And what always happens when I get stuck is I try a million different things to get past that point. I. I'm currently watching loads of YouTube videos. I am this, this, this, this, this. But I have a very strong feeling what's going to happen is now I've booked a coach. This coach will probably be able to tell me, like, oh, yeah, no, you need to move your leg a little bit like this and this and this and this and that will have, like, completely short circuited the entire process of learning. Like, me doing it by myself might have taken another year for me to go up one grade with a coach. It might take me another two weeks to go up one grade. And so if I were telling the story, if I were later trying to sell coaching, like, for climbing, for some reason, I would just tell the story of if I was the coach. I had this client who was stuck on grade 5B. Don't laugh at me if you actually know climbing 5B. For six months, he tried all of this. He bought new shoes, he kept spending Loads of money on it. Eventually he was giving up. He wasn't having any more fun with it. Then we met and I realized actually it was just this one thing. That's why it's better to get a coach sometimes than trying to learn everything yourself. Webinars are just always about showing this gap between where you think your audience is, where you'd like them to be, and because you're usually there where they want to be, what needs to go into this gap to bring them over there as fast as possible. And webinars are mostly that in a nutshell.

[A]

Okay, let's finish this funnel. And then after we finish this funnel, I want to talk about is this. When I think of funnels like this, I think of info products. And you know me, I'm more of a software guy. So can you use funnels like this to spin up apps and spin up SaaS products and sell via webinars? We can talk. Yeah, we can talk about that at the end. But I want to finish this funnel.

[B]

Okay, so this funnel is basically list to live training to paid live event paid.

[A]

You charge for it?

[B]

No. Well, the live training is the webinar that's free. But then I sell them a live event or so. Like there's two arrows coming off the live training. Actually a paid live event. And actually there's an arrow after this, which is one on one coaching. Okay, actually, let me tell you then, this one on one coaching is actually more like advising with a cut of profit. So that's like how it works is someone listens to my podcast or reads my blog, they come to a free training. Then some of them come to a paid event. Then some of those people who have companies that are making over a million end up being part of our partners program where we take a cut of their business. So it's like it's a funnel. It's a. It's also not a common funnel you people use for almost a getting a cut of someone's company process.

[A]

You people? You talking about Americans here? What do. What are you. What are you saying?

[B]

Did I say you people?

[A]

That's what I heard.

[B]

I don't even remember what I said. No, I said it's not a. It's not a funnel that people commonly think of when it like. I actually can't remember what I said.

[A]

Actually, you said you people. I don't know if you're talking.

[B]

You people. That's what I meant. That's what I meant. You people. Yeah, but it's like people don't Generally when someone's thinking, oh, I want to start a business, I want to be an advisor and take equity in companies, they're not thinking, that's the exact type of thing people would think funnels doesn't work for. But it does work very well.

[A]

So I actually, to me, that's like the most interesting piece of that. This whole funnel, to be, to be honest. Like the, I mean, isn't that similar to Alex Hermosi's funnel? Like he ultimately partners? I mean, actually he does. He has this funnel, now that I'm thinking about it, I think so, yeah.

[B]

I, I don't know so much. I know he takes like. I actually don't know exactly what his funnel is, but I'm sure it's also highly optimized for whatever is at the end of that funnel.

[A]

I also know that he is. And what was a Russell Brunson guy.

[B]

Yes. And I'm sure he has more than 2,500 subscribers.

[A]

Yeah, I think what he does is he sells paid IRL events in Las Vegas. I think it's $5,000 or something like that. And then he buys pieces of companies.

[B]

So like literally takes ownership in the company. Yeah, I mean, that's also really smart because what I like about that is you get to test out whether this person is worth being your advisor or not. You get like almost like a free, a low cost trial of them being your advisor. So like this is my very small funnel for getting advisory gigs, basically.

[A]

Okay, that's cool.

[B]

You asked About SAS or SaaS software as a service funnel. I mean, I think this is just a class. This is just a very basic, fundamental way of selling things. It's doing a demonstration of the thing you have, but like actually thinking of Alex Hormozy, he has this product called Skool S K O O L. And that's a software. Would you consider that software as a service?

[A]

Yes, absolutely.

[B]

I mean, they're using the classic Challenge Funnel to fill up school and get people creating new schools and paying for new schools all the time. And they use a webinar at the very top of that Challenge funnel.

[A]

Okay, explain what a classic Challenge Funnel is.

[B]

It's, it's one of the most common types of funnels and it's actually kind of genius. Um, a lot of. So the structure of a Challenge funnel is basically you ask someone to join a 30 day challenge and this could be like a challenge to lose weight. Once I explain this, you'll see them everywhere. It could be to lose weight, it could be to like get all your taxes organized. It could be getting your first customers. Whatever it is. There's, there's lots of 30 day challenges or 10 day challenges that you've probably seen before. And how these are used is most of the time they're free, but sometimes you actually have to pay for them. Like $100 for a 30 day challenge. It's like every single day you have live coaches helping you with the challenge. So let's say it was a pick, like a software that we would try to fill up. And I'll just come up with an example.

[A]

Notion.

[B]

Notion. Okay, so the 30 day challenge for notion is we are going to. Okay, I'll come up. All right. Notion is for anyone listening. Notion is like a note taking, kind of organizational note taking app.

[A]

Is that for anyone who's listening? They know what Notion is.

[B]

They know what Notion is. All right.

[A]

My mom is listening. This audience is with it, you know.

[B]

Okay, so I am. So Notion hires me to just get way more customers. Right? But they don't want to. They want. They've tried everything. They're like scraping the bottom of the barrel of their return on investment and ads. And I'm like, all right, we're going to do Challenge funnel. Here's what's going to happen. At the start of January, you're going to do these ads which are going to be about helping people build their second brain. And it's not even going to mention Notion. It's just like how to build your second brain. And we're going to team up with Tiago Forte, the guy who wrote the second brain book. And what we're going to do is a 30 day challenge. We're going to try to get as many people signed up as possible. It's going to be free, plus a free trial of Notion and a free 30 day trial of notion. And over the next 30 days, for a couple of hours per week, Thiago and multiple different people who are very good at this topic are going to help, like hundreds of people in your audience and thousands of people from Facebook in this mass challenge to help them build their second brain using Notion. Every one of them gets a free trial of Notion. Of course, they can cancel very easily. Do you believe some people? Number one, lots of people will learn how to use Notion who never had any reason to use it. Number two, lots of people will get a lot of excitement and fun out of it and actually build something valuable for themselves. Number three, you're going to get a shitload of people now paying for Notion after that Point. So a challenge funnel is simply letting someone use your product, creating a fun challenge around what do you think some people might want to use that product for? And then X amount of people don't cancel after the free trial because they want to actually use the product. That's a challenge. Fun. They're used all the time. You just don't see them because they're not. They don't call it challenge funnel.

[A]

Yeah. And I think the ones that work the best are when people are most susceptible to the challenge. Right. So like you know, January, New Year, you know, people think about weight loss, 30 day weight loss challenge, for example.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Would work better in January than in August.

[B]

Yeah, totally. But I bet I could come up with a challenge funnel for every month of the year. Yeah, I think if you just kept giving me different pieces of software and different times of the year, I could create a challenge funnel for them regardless. But I mean it's obviously easier when it's. The January is so easy. But building a second brain, you could almost do any time of the year. Like spring cleaning could be another topic for, for a lot of people. Um, and then there's probably products like I am now currently advising. Uh, it's going to be obvious. A product. I'm, I'm currently advising a product which I'll just say the name of it to you just so we, we know what we're talking about. Like. Yeah, something like that. Anyway, it's a, it's a product that teaches you something over.

[A]

You want to, you want us to blur.

[B]

Yeah, please, please block that out. Yeah, that would be very important. Actually the reason is it's like an NDA to the max for now. But this product is sim is a very simple challenge. They say, they tell me we need to increase our monthly active users by 100% by the end of the year. And so for me, like a challenge funnel is a great way to start a project like that because you just get this massive influx of people and especially it's. So I'll ask them. They said they have like 40,000 people on their list. And I'm like, okay, so how many monthly active users do you have? We have like, I don't know, 500. I'm like, okay, so we've got. Most of the people on your list have not been activated yet. And in many cases it's because they don't really know why this product is really useful. And a challenge can be a fun and useful way to get people actually into some routine of using the product and Then they don't want to and some of them won't want to not use it anymore. Then I like it. Challenge. Funnels are great. I don't do enough of them. I mean, we don't do enough of them at AJ and Smart because they're like, kind of hard to set up and a little bit tricky to run, but they're very explosive from a growth perspective.

[A]

Yeah, I like it a lot. I think that in like Silicon Valley startups, let's say, they don't use things like that as often as they should.

[B]

It's just because it's mostly most of these things are used in really cheesy products, you know. But sometimes you see these products, like crossing from cheesy into non cheesy and like cool. Like AG1 was kind of one of those, you know, it was more on that funnelly side of things. Right now it's like a cool thing, but like I showed you also during Black Friday, a lot of very cool and hip products use funnels. They just, you just don't realize it because they're kind of behind. They like, they look nicer basically.

[A]

Right. That's the dream. That's the dream. That's where you want to get to. What else? What else? Is there anything else you want to talk about today?

[B]

I mean, all I'm doing is making funnels. I'm trying to think, is there any other? Like, honestly, if you have a list and if you've ever. Okay, if you're someone who's listening to this and you have a list and you have maybe a blog, whatever it is, you have some content thing and you've ever tried to make an event or sell something and it just didn't work. If you just emailed everybody or if you just posted about. Shouldn't have worked. It's unlikely that it will work without this middle warming up step. And I think this warming up step can be a challenge. It can just be a training. Call it like, places like Stanford use something called info sessions. If you go to their website where you can sign up for a session where they'll show you what it's like to do their courses and whatever the executive education courses, I think we expect people to just buy our thing just because we mentioned it or email them. Whereas most of the time I think in practice you need to have this middle step to get people warmed up and excited enough to actually spend their money. And for me, that's where webinars challenges, these types of things come in.

[A]

Beautiful episode.

[B]

I don't Know if I have anything else that's perfect.

[A]

No, I think that's great.

[B]

I'm really sorry for all that beeping that I'm asking for. I know that's probably annoying for your team, and I don't want to be fake mysterious. It's just that I know now that my clients listen to this podcast because. Alan. Hello, Alan. One of my clients was like, oh, I was listening to Greg's podcast and you mentioned me, and I'm like, oh, shit.

[A]

Yeah, no worries.

[B]

Apparently your podcast isn't a secret.

[A]

Despite how low budget my studio looks, I love it.

[B]

I love that you even started writing on it and everything. I love it.

[A]

I'm like, is this marker gonna work that I got at the dollar Store?

[B]

I think it looks amazing, dude. It's beautiful. The Startup Ideas Podcast. Look at how well even the. The. You kind of. It feels like you wrote Startup Ideas Podcast and then you kind of realized there's a the and added that in later.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Is that awesome?

[A]

Oh, my God, I forgot the name of my own podcast.

[B]

I'll end it on one question for you. Not that I can end your podcast, but seemed like you were about to end it. Do you have a favorite product of 2024 or most useful?

[A]

Yeah, for, you know, people. The pod know. I like to sip. You know, I'm a siper a lot. I like the. It's called. It's a. I'm sure a lot of people know about it. The fellow. Fellow products. Brand.

[B]

I love. I have. I have so many fellow products. Yeah, I love them.

[A]

So they have a kettle. I don't have the fan. Like, there's one kettle with, like. Here. I can share my screen.

[B]

I'm pretty sure I have the exact kettle you're about to show.

[A]

I don't think so. No, I don't think so.

[B]

I have that.

[A]

You probably have this kettle.

[B]

I do, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I do.

[A]

I knew it. You're so European.

[B]

Is that the loser one?

[A]

No, no. There's the European one, which is the EKG electric kettle. And then there's the American one with like.

[B]

What do you mean European and American?

[A]

I'm kidding. I'm actually joking.

[B]

It's because it's like e. It's all fancy in European.

[A]

Yeah. This is like this. Look at it. Look how fancy that spout is. A thin spout. And look how I love it. Look how like, to the point. This spout is chunked. Chunked out. So this one has been really great because just being able to set it to. I Want it at this 175 degrees Fahrenheit or whatever it is. Yeah, is. Is a no brainer. Oh, it looks like they even have refurbished, refurbished ones. You can get one for 132 bucks.

[B]

Fuck that. Don't buy those.

[A]

The ones that don't work. No, but I mean, honestly, it's not worth it.

[B]

Yeah, you gotta have a fresh one. I like the white looking one, but it doesn't fit in with all my other fellow stuff. They also have very nice water bottles.

[A]

The fellow crew water bottles. Really like are.

[B]

I have this Carter Curry water bottle. I've got two of those. They have this. Did you see their new coffee maker?

[A]

Yeah, I want to buy it, so I'm gonna get. I really want to get it.

[B]

The owl. Aiden. Whatever.

[A]

Let's look at it for a second. Is it Aiden Cocktail maker?

[B]

Aiden. So I have a mocha master and I love how it looks, but this seems cool.

[A]

This looks so cool.

[B]

I know, it looks so cool. Do you use milk in your coffee?

[A]

I do use milk in my coffee.

[B]

So I like, for years didn't use milk because it, you know, it's. You taste everything and everything and it's like all fancy but I get such bad heartburn, like acid reflux when I don't put milk in. So now I'm like, these machines are kind of pointless if you're going to use milk.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because that's what fancy coffee people say. You don't even. You're just tasting like the milk then.

[A]

No, first of all, even, even if you didn't even drink the coffee. Looking at this machine every day is a vibe.

[B]

It's absolutely a vibe.

[A]

So that's number one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Number two, don't let anyone tell you. People listening. Don't let anyone tell you how to drink your coffee except for me. Don't. Especially a funnel guy. Don't let the funnel guy tell you.

[B]

Funnels are a big part of coffee. Making you put it down a funnel and then have you seen this beauty?

[A]

Yeah, that's the.

[B]

The op X Y.

[A]

So that's to make music.

[B]

Yeah. It's so great. Wait, I don't know how much you can actually hear.

[A]

We can hear it. Perfect.

[B]

Oh yeah. Really?

[A]

Yeah. Let's do much, much to my chagrin, we can. Okay, we gotta end the podcast. Thank you for listening, everyone.

[B]

Three hours.

[A]

It's been fun. Later, dude.

[B]

All right, Greg, see you later, man.