The Pointlessly Complicated Path to $2.3M in Revenue

Tommy Griffth writes…

In 2012, I started a dorky side project, teaching weekend classes on how to get more traffic to your website from search engines.

In 2017, the side project became a real business. It has since grown 15x, with 50,000+ customers and $2.3M in revenue in 2022.

I accomplished this by consistently choosing the incredibly difficult and pointlessly complicated option, every chance I got.

Tommy’s business is ClickMinded, “a library of digital marketing SOPs, templates and online courses for marketers.”

But it’s been tough getting it to this point 😩

Over 4 years, we spent all of our time and hundreds of thousands of dollars implementing a number of different complicated business models, complicated marketing schemes and complicated management structures.

Tommy goes on to list many of the things they tried, such as…

• Selling to big companies
• Creating their own SaaS
• Hiring a PR firm
• Acquiring other businesses

Ultimately they righted the ship by simplifying their business model down to…

1. Figure out the thing your customers actually want
2. Sell them that thing

And their marketing was simplified down to…

1. A Facebook ad
2. A landing page
3. A low cost product that everybody buys
4. A higher cost product that some people buy

Simple, but not easy.

Might you be pointlessly complicating things in your own business? 🤔