My 2024 business model: no employees, no risk, no ceiling

Here's some key philosophy changes I've made this year as I build my business Winning Creative.

We are a technical and creative marketing services company, and the business is run by myself as the owner-operator with several contractors and partners that assist in execution of the products and services that I create.

Here is a visual of my business model:

Hiring vs automating

I've built my business around an agency model, but I never wanted to hire people. In fact, I've avoided hiring in my journey of a few short months and opted to automate instead.

Instead of taking on all the clients I have demand for and hiring to service that demand, I put people onto a waitlist and am taking my time automating out various roles that are involved in servicing each offering I create.

Investing my time into my own technical skill development and finding amazing partners on the tech side to help me execute custom AI builds and tech solutions has been critical.

I don't see value in hiring employees anymore. For me, the management cost will always be higher than the return I would get from someone with an employee mindset.

I'd rather partner with other people I consider to be equals with different contribution value to a particular deal or revenue stream that I'm building. This partnership model is advantageous because it's funded by mutual success and it creates mutual accountability. It also scares away people that don't want to bet on themselves.

I find the employment model to be dated if you are playing in the small business world. At larger scale, it is what it is.

There are only two types of roles that I find valuable to hire and may consider hiring in the future:

1) An equal thought partner who I can train to solve problems or manage tech implementations the same way I do (most likely).

2) An overseas contractor who I can book out full time at a lower rate than a US worker that will execute repeating tasks consistently for me.

I find computers to be more dependable than people when it comes to getting things done on time, and that is why my philosophy is such around hiring vs automation.

Creating products based on demand

This part is hard to replicate, but for some reason people just hit me up all the time with different opportunities and deals. I decide based on the following criteria if I will take something on:

1) It is a large problem but not so large that well funded approaches are attacking it

2) It is a problem for a "forgotten niche" (i.e. boring and technical problems)

3) It has high LTV, low maintenance cost, and low CAC

When something qualifies based on these criteria, I take it on, and I take on only one client in that space at a time. I solve the problem manually first.

As I solve the problem I build automations and integrations along the way. I figure out the tech stack required, make any necessary modifications, and then when the solution is fully automated (included client-side comms), I then allow one of the following two paths to occur:

1) Scale with current client (if there is a rev-share type of agreement)

2) Let word get out about this solution and onboard the waitlist of customers that builds organically

If a waitlist hasn't formed, the problem you're solving isn't meaningful enough.

Modularizing solutions

I take the IKEA approach to problem solving and building solutions. I won't implement anything that is too custom for a client. Instead I'll rebuild the tech stack as needed so that adding more clients is as simple as clicking "duplicate" on whatever software I'm using.

That means my onboarding cost goes almost to 0, and eventually my goal with each of the products/services I have is to automate onboarding, PM, and client comms with AI.

Surprisingly, this is all very doable but it requires amazing partners and aligned vision. I could never do this by myself. By sharing revenue with my partners, we all win together. I'm not trying to be greedy, I'd rather win with others, otherwise life would be too lonely.

I use Canva to diagram solutions and workflows, and basically everything I do starts with building out a flowchart of process and automations, including any conditional logic, and then I implement.

This is new for me as I never really had to do it before, but I find it gives me a super significant competitive advantage that others can't match in the industries I'm playing in due to my background in engineering and systems oriented thinking, in addition to a decade of experience as a business owner.

Compete with lazy competitors

I mentioned this already, but I like to play in super boring industries. Industries that get passed over, where the current incumbents have gotten fat and lazy from making a ton of money over 10-20 years.

These business owners have taken their eye off the ball 5-10 years ago, and their solutions are archaic and broken. The problems are too niche for venture funding, so there are no new, aggressive competitors entering these markets, and to understand these spaces, you have to have a significant amount of focus to be able to parse the jargon and mess of how these industries work, including regulations etc., and this scares off a lot of competition that is self-funded. Even if there are a few good players, the markets are big enough for many strong players to exist and there is a vacuum of these players.

I love playing in these worlds because it also accentuates my solutions that much more. My clients see the outcomes of what I build for them and they are so excited that I can bring them solutions they dream of having in their business.

This is only because after swimming in the big pond for so long, I went back to the small ponds as a much bigger fish.

In Summary

That's the nuts and bolts of my business model and strategy. I hope this line of thinking pushes you to think a little differently and squeeze more juice out of what you're doing day to day.

The future is coming every moment, we can either adapt and grow, or we can lose to the newcomers who are coming to take what we have built.

This is the game I love.