Starter Story Sunday Breakfast #7

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Updated: August 23rd, 2022

This is an archive of the Starter Story newsletter, which is read by 222K people every week.

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1. The orange juice 🍊

This niche YouTube channel makes $25K/month

Just like many others, this founder started vlogging as a passion project. Until one day a video started to pick up some traction and ended up generating over $50K.

That’s when he realized that he could make a living out of this passion and took a more professional approach to it.

The secret to reaching 120K subscribers? Unlike the pay-to-play models of Facebook or Instagram, YouTube wants to organically show good content to new audiences. Creating content that fits a need, opens a loop, and then keeps people engaged for long enough in the video. That’s why his videos are shown to hundreds of thousands of people that are not subscribed to his channel.

If you’re working on launching a YouTube channel or are trying to grow one, I’d recommend you to read this story.

2. The coffee ☕️

This brand recovered from a 40% revenue drop

The pandemic hit hard some companies, and this was one of them.

What did they do to bounce back? Their most risky decision was to shut down all ad campaigns. This is a trend we’ve seen growing lately. Relatively small companies feel like ads on all platforms aren’t performing as they used to, so they’re putting their money into producing their own content instead. And it’s paying off.

Investing in growing your own channels is always a good idea. Build and grow your assets.

3. The eggs 🍳

This very specific course generates $35K/month

What I love about this case study is that it combines two very attractive elements:

(1) Online courses: Very cheap to produce, teach and distribute. A product with very high margins.

(2) A very specific topic: Sustainability is trending. Companies are spending more money to be greener, and at the same time, it’s a niche topic that allows you to establish yourself as an expert figure and gain authority.

Starting a company that offers training to other companies and professionals sounds like a very big, expensive, and not very precise project. Launching a sustainability online course feels like something you could achieve with very few resources and start making money rather quickly (these founders did it in 3 months).

4. The toast 🥪

This business 2.5x'd its revenue with one simple tweak

A simple tweak that took a lot of thought: removing their free and cheapest plan.

The best part of this story is how the founder breaks down why they decided to do it. In short: you can’t please everyone.

The result? Reaching $2.8M in yearly revenue.

5. The pancakes 🥞

This founder had the easiest launch ever for his $50K/month business

In his own words, ‘it almost felt like cheating’. They reached $10K/month in just 30 days.

But the truth is, he’s completely downplaying all the previous work. It felt like something very easy because he’d been working for years in this space; developing different side projects and building an audience.

The key learning? Start building an audience as soon as possible. It’s a huge asset to have. Having an audience will give you a leg up every time you launch a product or a service. You won’t have to start from scratch by spending a fortune on ads. If you’re not working on anything, you can just keep them engaged with a monthly email or an occasional Youtube video.

Enjoy your Sunday, and have a great week ahead!

meet the author

David Bustos

Hey there! 👋 I'm David, and if you ever got an email from Starter Story, I probably wrote it. With a background in working with startups and writing, being part of this team is kind of a perfect fit for me.

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