A Recovering Tech Exec

It's been a while since I've written to this newsletter group after writing for over 35 consecutive weeks. If you're wondering why you're receiving this, it's because you subscribed to my previous LinkedIn Newsletter called The Weekly Content Rundown.

While I enjoyed that project, it didn't align with the long-term vision for my life, so I stopped writing it about 10 months ago.

Now, I'm finally ready to continue writing, but about topics that I'm 100% passionate about, and that are aligned with my life's vision and interests: self-employment, side hustles, digital products, and lifestyle design.

I've decided to rename this newsletter A Recovering Tech Exec.

The Backstory

In mid-2019, I left my executive job at a hyper-growth startup in LA to work for myself. I had built it from $0 to over $50M in ARR and helped raise over $75M in venture capital. The problem?

I was totally burned out.

80-hour workweeks, stressful board meetings, the pressure of building a rocket ship from scratch. It was an incredible run, but one that took a massive toll on my mind, my body, and my relationships.

So, I walked away. Started over.

I wanted more freedom to spend my time how I wanted, where I wanted, and with whom I wanted.

The Plan

1. Start by building an audience online.
2. Use that audience to build a service business.
3. Service those customers well and document my learnings.
4. Turn those learnings into digital assets that make money 24/7.
5. Move my service-based income toward passive digital product income.

The Results

First off, I made a lot of mistakes. Wrong business models, wrong pricing, missed opportunities, etc. There were so many learnings over this time.

But I also had a lot of wins.

I grew my social media audience from 2,000 to over 70,000 followers and generated over 30M impressions on my content.

I went from a 5-day workweek to a 3-day workweek and maintained the same level of income as my previous executive role.

Getting to this point has definitely not been easy. But, all in all, it's been the best choice for me and my family. We are now living a much more intentional life.

A New Project

I want to share everything that I'm learning on this journey with anyone who wants to follow a similar path.

And I'm kicking off 2021 with a first project related to this new vision. A brand new online course that I've already started building in public.

The course is called:

Idea. Audience. Proof. Product.

The goal of this course is to help you formulate an idea, grow your audience, prove your expertise, and then build a digital product you can offer to customers online. In fact, I'm on a mission to help 10,000 people do just that in 2021.

I get so many questions around the mechanics of building online, that I decided there needs to be one resource to walk people through it all.

It took me over 12 months of planning and 15 months of executing to learn everything I needed to run a successful online business. This course will be 27 months of my learnings distilled down to 75-90 minutes of instructions showing you how to do what I've done.

I'll also be documenting my entire process of building the actual course. Showing you all of the behind-the-scenes of bringing a digital product to life in 30 days.

I'll share real revenue stats and hours invested in building and launching the course. If you follow along, you'll see a digital product created from start to finish.

What’s next?

Now it’s time to get down to business. For the next month, I'll be sharing the process of outlining, creating slides, recording, editing, marketing, and launching.

I hope to have you follow along and start to build your own income online in 2021. If you're interested in learning more about the course, you can visit me at my personal website.

Appreciate you taking the time to read this.

Cheers,

Justin