Growing to $6.8M and 1M followers in 5 years

Justin Welsh left the startup world five years ago to become a solopreneur, living life on his own terms. Since then, he has amassed a million followers and made nearly $7M. If you’re wondering how he did it, I was too.

I caught up with him to get the details. Turns out, it’s a lot simpler than most of us make it. 👇

Burning out and starting over

James: You’re making many millions per year. Where did this start?

Justin: I worked in startups, helping to build two companies past a $1B valuation and raise over $300M in venture capital. Then, in 2019, I burned out hard.

James: So what did you do?

Justin: I decided to walk away from my high-paying executive job.

James: Bold choice.

Justin: But I had a hypothesis — that attention was the new currency and would play a major part in my success as an entrepreneur. I believed that building an audience online would be an incredible asset.

So before leaving, I started building my brand on LinkedIn. And the results were pretty phenomenal.

James: Do tell.

Justin: In just six months, I grew from zero followers to over 20,000 and used that to build a pipeline of qualified consulting clients.

Then, I walked away from my job and started my own consulting business.

James: Then what?

Justin: Over the last 5 years I've moved from a consultant and advisor to a creator-entrepreneur helping other people follow in my footsteps.

James: And how’s that going for you?

Justin: I’ve made $6.8M+ in business revenue at a 90% profit margin and helped 30,000+ people build better brands and businesses online. My products have been rated 4.98 out of 5 stars with over 1,000 testimonials. I'm really proud of all of that.

James: Not to mention a healthy following.

Justin: 550K+ people are following my journey on LinkedIn and 480k+ on Twitter. And I have 215k+ subscribers on my weekly newsletter.

James: What’s the revenue breakdown?

Justin:

• The LinkedIn Operating System:$2.571M

• The Creator MBA: $1.612M

• The Content Operating System: $1.178M

• The Monthly Templates: $409K ($25k MRR)

• The Saturday Solopreneur (newsletter) Sponsorship: $282K

Solopreneurship via systems

James: Solid five years. And you did all that flying solo.

Justin: Yes, I am a one-man business. Someday I may grow out of it. But right now, I love it.

Like anything it has its ups and downs, but I believe the pros greatly outweigh the cons.

James: What are the pros?

Justin: The pros are that I am not responsible for anyone except for me and my family.

I don't have employees. I don’t have to hire, train, or fire. I don’t have to manage. I don't have to worry about people getting sick or needing leave. And I don't depend on anyone's quality of work.

There is no weak link. It’s just me.

James: And the cons?

Justin: You have to do more work.

James: So how do you do it all?

Justin: Systems and processes are your best friends as a solopreneur. And time management is key.

The great thing is that my business runs on content. And content works for you while you're not working yourself. That's why I love a content-driven business.

Wake up, publish your content, interact with your audience, interact with your friends, write a newsletter. And then the day is over.

James: You make it sound simple.

Justin: I wish there was more to it. I wish there were more specifics. But for the most part, a content-driven business just requires content.

That's it.

Don't build a burnout business

James: You burned out hard at your previous job. How often do you burn out as a solopreneur?

Justin: I don't really burn out because I've designed a business that doesn’t burn me out.

James: You’re making that sound really simple again.

Justin: Well to me, burnout isn’t about working too hard. It’s about loss of control.

So I make sure I control everything in my business.

James: Hence solopreneurship.

Justin: Yep. Now obviously, I don't control things like how the algorithms work or whether or not people read my stuff. There are certainly uncontrollables in any business. But everything that I need to do and accomplish is relatively controllable.

So I don't burn out.

James: And that’s it?

Justin: Also plenty of breaks, plenty of vacation, plenty of sleep, plenty of time with family, plenty of time with friends, and plenty of time with hobbies.

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Don’t overcomplicate it

James: I'm sensing a theme of simplicity.

Justin: I think business is a lot more simple than most people make it out to be.

That doesn't mean it's easy. It's anything but easy. But the building blocks are relatively simple to put together.

James: Break it down for me.

Justin: You need to understand your market and the challenges that people are facing, and you need to know how to solve those challenges faster, better, or more affordably than the other options in the market.

If you have those things in place, you need to make your ideal prospects (people who have the problem you can solve) aware of you and your business.

I know that this is an oversimplified version of business, but it highlights the basics that so many people ignore.

James: So why are we overcomplicating it?

Justin: I think it’s a form of procrastination. People take something simple like creating content and they read books about it, listen to podcasts, pay for coaches, buy courses, whatever.

And they never start.

None of those things are bad, in and of themselves. But at some point, you have to just get started. The stuff that will really drive your business forward is all learned after you start.

James: For sure.

Justin: Marketing and sales are great examples. I see so many multi-step funnels with if-this-then-that personalization and segmentation. And those can be good. But building them can also stop people from moving the ball forward.

James: What’s a better option?

Justin: One form. One lead magnet. One sequence. One offer.

The simpler it is, the easier it will be to analyze and iterate effectively.

Then, once you've made that funnel as good as it can be, maybe then you get more complicated.

Just don’t start with the complicated option.

Growth is simple

James: Is that how you grew your business?

Justin: Yep. I didn't need to do all of the complicated marketing tactics that everyone told me I'd have to do. No money on ads or complicated sales funnels, email sequences, or webinars.

One day, I posted on LinkedIn and shared a link to an article I had written. The article talked about a problem my audience had and linked to a product I had built to solve it. 24 hours later I had $4,000 in sales.

So, I kept writing articles that talked about problems and positioned my products as solutions. That's it.

James: Let's dive deeper into your content marketing.

Justin: So I do a few things. I write social media content for top-of-funnel discovery.

I write articles and newsletters for middle-of-funnel marketing.

And I make sure those articles are SEO-optimized, again for top-of-funnel discovery.

That is all the marketing that I do.

James: Tell me about your SEO process.

Justin: I pay people to create article briefs. So they go out and do a bunch of keyword research, then come back and tell me what the low-hanging fruit is. And then they create an article brief that I can write against.

I'm not interested in people writing on my behalf. So they do this complicated SEO technical work, and then I deliver the writing in a format that I believe will rank well.

When I'm done, they'll go through it and tell me to change a word here and there for SEO.

James: You're quite prolific. Do all your content ideas come from these briefs?

Justin: They come from what's happening in my life. They come from customer conversations. They come from conversations with creator friends. They come from questions being asked in my community.

James: Your community?

Justin: Every time someone signs up for my newsletter, they go through a simple survey and I learn a lot about what people want to solve in their businesses.

So that's where a lot of ideas come from. I also have a content matrix. Topics that I talk about, plus styles and structures that I know work, and I just sort of mix and match those things.

James: Interesting.

Justin: Then I repurpose a lot. I've learned to say one thing a thousand different ways versus saying a thousand things one way.

Growing your following by listening

James: How important is your following in your marketing?

Justin: It's critical. Having over a million followers across three platforms is a massive distribution advantage.

That’s why I spend most of my time growing a top of funnel audience on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. And recently, Threads too.

James: When you get to this point, are you pretty much guaranteed success with whatever you launch?

Justin: My following doesn't guarantee success. I can still choose the wrong product or solve the wrong problem.

But it certainly makes success much more likely when I launch something that I know my audience wants. Especially when they've told me about the problem and that they're looking for a solution.

James: So how did you grow your following?

Justin: I started by choosing one primary platform — LinkedIn. I chose LinkedIn because back in late 2018, I was writing about SaaS healthcare businesses.

So I created content for LinkedIn every day. And my timing was good because LinkedIn really wasn't used as a creator platform back then, so I stood out.

James: Then what?

Justin: As my following grew, I kept an eye on my direct messages and comments. And over time, I realized that people were less interested in healthcare SaaS and more interested in how to grow an audience.

So I took that as a signal inside of all this noise and I doubled down. I started talking about social media growth.

James: Okay.

Justin: And as people got interested in that, they started asking me about how I was monetizing. So I started talking about that.

I really went on a journey that was guided by my audience.

They told me what was interesting to them. I created content to solve their problems, answer their questions, and give them the guidance they were looking for.

James: Smart. Then you started on Twitter?

Justin: I started on Twitter in 2021. I’m currently roughly 900 days in, posting daily.

James: Same approach?

Justin: Yeah, at first, I replayed the hits. I took things that I had learned from LinkedIn and did them again.

Then I figured out the differences between the two platforms and wrote a bunch of content. And I exploited what worked well.

Analysis and iteration. That's how I grew my following.

James: So what’s the silver bullet?

Justin: I don’t think hacks or tricks actually work.

James: Darn.

Justin: But it’s pretty simple.

James: Go on.

Justin: Let's assume that most indie hackers are building interesting things.

The only thing they have to learn is how to take what they're doing, what they're learning, what they're building, and put it into a vessel. Then share it with the world.

James: Okay.

Justin: But that's where most people fail — the vessel. They think that if their project is interesting, people will read about it.

That’s not how it works.

James: Why not?

Justin: People actually have to become experts in the medium of their choice. So if you want to write about what you're doing, you have to become a great writer.

You have to package those interesting things and deliver them in a way that is compelling and interesting. If you can't do that, you won't succeed.

James: You’ve clearly mastered it — people love your content. What is the secret sauce?

Justin: I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe I have a hypothesis. I think people like my content for four reasons:

1. I have a focus on being a good person. So I don't troll. I don't engage in arguments. I'm not cruel or mean. I'm not nasty or divisive. I try to approach this creator space in a kind and friendly way.

2. I’ve created a narrative that resonates really deeply in modern society. People are burning out. They're tired. They're stressed. They're anxious. I talk about building and designing an intentional life — building your life first, and then building a business to support that.

3. I support other small creators. I support people who are building businesses.

4. I try to surprise people. “Surprise and delight.” That’s my mantra when it comes to communication and support.

The concept of “enough”

James: Any parting advice for indie hackers on this path?

Justin: Start by designing your perfect life.

What would you do every day, every week, every hour? How often would you work? How often would you see friends? How often would you take part in hobbies? How often would you travel? What do you need to earn and how do you need to spend?

Look at the things that actually bring you joy. Not the things you can show off with. Or the things you’ve been told you want.

Design your life. Then make business decisions based on that life.

James: Love it.

Justin: Then, be cognizant of the hedonic treadmill. If you spend more as you get more money, you just put yourself in golden handcuffs.

James: Where can people find you?

Justin: You can find me on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Threads. My newsletter is The Saturday Solopreneur. And I write articles here.

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