habit bartel: Bootstrapping WP Academy: the inside story

By Marc on December 17th, 2012

Lifestyle Design School has been quiet for a long time.? The truth is that I just haven?t had time, as I was fighting for business survival.? The last few months, however, have brought in a series of extraordinary events at WP Academy, and I am ready to share the story.? This is the type of company-confidential inside information that you won?t see a lot on the web.? From my perspective, I am not just here to make a business, I am here to share the wealth (of information) and to build an entrepreneur community, so my sharing this is a no-brainer.? Also, it?s not likely at this stage that anyone is going to steal our business model or stage a hostile takeover .? So here goes.

This post ends with a call-to-action and an opportunity for you, so make sure you read until the end.

WP Academy has been running on a ?product launch? model: 3 times a year, we have been staging a major free webinar series, promoted through affiliates and reaching about half a million people (primarily a large Linkedin group).? At the end of each webinar we do a sales presentation for our $500-600 course ?WordPress for Business?.

I started this business in December of 2009 by sending out a mail to my friends and social network offering them a WordPress training course.? Ten of them enrolled in that first 4-session course at $99, and I was ecstatic.? The business grew from there, but still a long way from what I would be earning as an employee / contractor.? Due to a personal situation that allowed me to live very cheaply,? we were able to survive financially as we grew the business.

In June 2011 we found our first big affiliate and sold $15k of WordPress courses, which I described in an earlier post $15,000 in a week.? Things were starting to get interesting.? Helped by the obvious quality of our free training series,? by raving fans, and by additional affiliates, we kept on going.? In May 2012 we sold $45k of WordPress training, then launched our first digital product (the WordPress Learning Management System, now renamed to WP Encyclopedia), and sold another $25k of that.

Now I was really tripping, but you have to realize something.? $65k of gross income, repeated three times a year, in a company with about 35% profitability (there are big affiliate expenses, support & teaching assistant costs, etc), is basically a middle-class salary.? I was managing the entire business by myself, filling at least four roles: marketing, course production, finance, and web infrastructure (there was even a time where I was spending half my time doing website optimization ? the traffic had crashed our servers on several occasions, this needed to get handled and I was the only one qualified to do it).? I was running myself into the ground and this was becoming increasingly unsustainable. In our May 2012 sales cycle I finally took on two partners on a profit-share basis, with which we completed the beta version of WP Encyclopedia.? This was a triumph, the product is unique and extraordinary, and creating it used all my best skills as an instructional designer and systems integrator.? But because of the expense of additional partners, by August we were broke again. I ?pulled myself up by my bootstraps? and managed to pull off another huge production in late September 2012.? Mails going out to half a million people, our most ambitious free series ever, and sold? about $20k.? I needed twice that just to pay salaries.? I was ready to kill myself, as I was already pretty burned-out after 2 years of these non-stop product launches (we would end one sales cycle and immediately start the next one with no down time).

But what has happened since then is a miracle.? I did not renew my partners revenue-share for the fall session and was able to survive ? barely ? but I still had regular meetings with them and with our part-time instructors, strategy calls and status updates.? In other words, they were working for me for free, simply because they enjoyed working with me and saw the potential of the business.? Their energy, enthusiasm and suggestions/feedback kept me going.? I was running like an animal trying to figure out a way out of this impasse ? clearly, the ?product launch? style of marketing needed to change, but what to do?? Almost everyone else in the training business was using a membership model, but how can you use this to generate working capital and fund product development in the startup phase?? It?s a thorny problem indeed.

In mid-November I took a big leap of faith and took on my main partner again on a revenue share for the Christmas sales cycle.? This was bold ? nobody in their right mind tries to sell anything but consumer products at Christmas ? but I had an intuition that we could combine the best of the ?product launch? model (immediate cash benefits) and the recurring subscription membership model (continuity income) by offering ?Charter Memberships? with llifetime value at a very compelling price.? In the end , this is what we did.? We also did a major (and spectacular) website redesign and re-branding with the help of my new partner, Christopher Staser ? an extraordinarily talented individual, and our working synergy is simply incredible.? Basically, he saved my ass.? We are actually making good sales at Christmas ? go figure ? but what is even more important is that we have acquired a world-class brand and completely changed our business model in two and a half months.? This is truly ?innovation at the speed of light?.? Everyone here is buzzing now, as we are positioning ourselves to become the world-leader in a major publishing niche.? I am using my best skills as a product designer, instructional technologist and innovator to design our next product line (that is a very exciting one).? We are close to securing first-round funding (angel investors / friends) for this, and are planning another huge free webinar series in mid-February, which may generate enough money to bootstrap 100%, and if not, we?ll do second-round funding then.? I did my first investor presentation last week ? and was roundly shot-down, which is hard on the ego but good for business ? but there is really no question that we are onto something here.? I have had quite a few businesses, at least one of which failed spectacularly, but this is the first time that I am using my network and getting feedback / asking for support at every turn.? It?s also the first business in which I am truly operating from my passion (and genius) a large part of the time.

What is the moral of this story?? Ask for support and feedback at every turn.? And don?t ?give up 5 minutes before the miracle?.

?Nearly every business success has a back story of struggle, failure, wrong turns & disappointments.? But they listened, learned and triumphed?
? Cindy Ratzlaff

What?s next with Lifestyle Design School?

I don?t know.? I want to continue to be of service, but I need to know what you want and how I can help.? For this I am asking you to post to our Facebook page what you want to see happen for yourself in 2013 and what you need to make that happen.? Do we want to resurrect the weekly Mastermind call?? How can we create some kind of entrepreneur support community?? You tell me.

Cheers,

Marc

Join the program now

Do you want to take your internet business (and your life) to a new level in 2013?

Then subscribe below and wait to hear from me. I am looking for "conscious entrepreneurs" who are serious about developing a web presence for the purpose of discovering and delivering their gifts.

Quotes

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
But if I am only for myself, who am I?
If not now, when?"

-- Hillel

"What good is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?"

-- Jesus

"What good is it to gain your soul if you cannot feed your children? "

-- Mike Jay

"We can choose to make the success of all humanity our personal business. We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the World what our lives are really about. Each of us now has the opportunity, the privilege to make a difference in creating a World that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart. It is much more radical than a revolution, it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. You have the power to fire a shot heard around the World.

If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?"

-- Werner Erhard, 1979

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world?s deep hunger meet."

-- Frederich Buechner

"Describe the steps you would take, the gifts you would buy, the generosity you would bestow, the kindness you would offer, the enthusiasm you would have, the attention you would give, and anything else that appeals to you, if you were able to give yourself the things you want someone else to give to you.

NONE OF US WANTS TO GROW UP"

-- Cheri Huber

?This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, being a force of nature, instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy? I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as i live it, it is a privilege to do whatever i can. i rejoice in life for its own sake? Life is no brief candle to me, but sort of a bright torch that i got hold of for a moment and i want to make it burn as brightly as possible, before handing it on to future generations"

-- George Bernard Shaw ?Bright Torch?

"Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy."

-- Joseph Campbell

"If your mind is on the right path, it doesn?t matter how fast you go. If you?re on the right path, you?ll get there. Commitment keeps you on the path."

-- Steve Chandler

Throw away
Your begging bowls at God?s door
For I have heard the Beloved
Prefers sweet threatening shouts,
Something on the order of:
Hey, Beloved,
My heart is a raging volcano
of love for you!
You better start kissing me ?
Or else!"

-- Hafiz

"You don't need to get what you want if you can express what you want"

-- Strephon Kaplan-Williams

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

-- Mary Oliver

"When we act from our deepest convictions it is impossible to reach perfection."

-- Dee Hock

"The heart has its reasons that Reason knows not of."

-- Blaise Pascal

"Narcissism... suggests that what we need is not humility, especially the false kind that arises from the repression of ambition, but great dreams, high ideals, and pleasure in our own talents and abilities."

-- Thomas Moore

Source: http://lifestyledesignschool.com/2012/12/bootstrapping-wp-academy-the-inside-story/

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