John Nemz (Founder of Launches.io)
Jared:
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Hello everybody and welcome to the Kajabi Edge podcast where we talk to real entrepreneurs to give you an edge on Kajabi. I'm your host Jared Loman, vice president of Customer Experience and today I'm joined by my friend John Nemz. How are you doing today John?
John:
I'm doing great, thanks for having me on.
Jared:
We appreciate you being here. John, you are the founder of Launches.io. What's your elevator pitch? Tell us a little bit about what Launches.io does?
John:
Yes, so Launches.Io is a membership site for Kajabi users. So whether you are just starting out with your first online business or you've already got a successful 7 figure business, this membership site provides you with all the tools and resources you need to launch faster. So it's got templates for Kajabi, it's got launch plans, so regardless of what you’re trying to launch, it walks you through step by step what to do, how to configure everything and then all the templates match that specific launch plan and then it also has email scripts. So if you’re one of those people that you’re like “Ah I don't know what I need to write for the delivery email, for onboarding,” it's all there ready to go for you. And if you're kinda more successful and further along, well now you can just have your team train themselves and do all these without mistakes. You don't have to be watching them and making sure they do everything right.
Jared:
What I'm curious is - does this target people on any particular stage of the journey? Is this for seasoned professionals? Is this for people just getting up and running? Like who's your target audience?
John:
Yeah, any Kajabi user. It really started from I was doing a lot of freelance work with the Kajabi users and basically people starting off and then people who are already successful and they need help with their launches. And so I got the idea along the way like maybe I can take 95% of what I do for clients and package it up to where people who can do it on their own.
And so it's really designed for any stage of your journey. You just go in and you can do everything yourself or have a V.A or someone in your team go and do that for you.
Jared:
Okay very cool. Well let's take it a step back even further, where did you get started? How did you get kinda familiar with this industry? Where were you at kinda before Launches.io?
John:
Yeah so I started right outa college. I got a great education but I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So when I graduated I didn't have a job lined up. I'm like I'm gonna start something on my own and because I had no idea what I was doing, I failed a lot. It took me basically 7 tries with 7 different business ideas before I got something that worked.
And it was kind of like a roundabout way. Like after I failed so many times, I started working in the family restaurant and I started doing the digital marketing there and all this digital stuff was something that I was so interested in, and so I started getting result for the restaurant, next thing you know other restaurants want my help and I've got a restaurant marketing agency. So that was kinda like the springboard, I've got something that's working and did that for a few years ended up deciding to move into the digital product space and then I tried doing digital products had a bunch of failures there and then eventually figured out the secret and then started being more successful with different types of products online.
Jared:
Okay, so was it restaurant marketing that kind of led you to... like is that where you build your initial launches?
John:
Well, so this was back before we could do all this cool stuff with marketing. So this was right when the kinda like mobile websites were starting off and it was very exciting for restaurants to be able to have like a map that gives people directions to the restaurant. Like that was the big thing, doing text messaging,doing emails, the early stages of social media, so just like posting to your page that sort of thing.
So I went really deep into that and then I realized I don't actually want to do this, you know this agency business. I wanted something more like a digital product and so I tried to do different like membership sites and training and things like that on the restaurant space, but I think i was like a little too early and a lot of restaurant owners are a little more old school and a little more older so none of those ideas worked well. I had to transition into something a little outside the restaurant space.
Jared:
Sounds like the idea was to kinda get off the agency treadmill if you will.
John:
Yeah exactly. I was in that space and things were going well, but I found myself in the car everyday so since I was working with restaurants I'd be driving around Chicago on the Milwaukee areas just prospecting, meeting with clients and like I'd hit rush hour traffic 4x a day. I'd tell my friends and be like I get up 6:30, I hit Chicago traffic, I get in Milwaukee, I hit Milwaukee traffic, I drive around and then I hit the reverse - Milwaukee traffic and then Chicago traffic again. And that was just... that's tough, driving around all day being in the car. And I just didn't like that life. I like designing, I like creating. So I needed to move out of that sales role and do something a little different.
Jared:
Got it. So where did Launches.io kinda come into the picture? What happened next?
John:
Yeah so, Launches.io is actually pretty recent. So after I did the restaurant thing, my first like big success with the digital products was actually templates and software for Wordpress. So kinda similar to what I'm doing now but for a different platform. And so when I finally figured out like what the secret is - and that secret is build an audience and then validate with some basic offers right? Something simple.
But for whatever reason we don't wanna believe it could be that easy. We want to build out something huge and take forever to do it, but once I figured that out, I just kinda was in that space for a little bit. Unfortunately that business did not survive, my development partner didn't want to do it anymore so we had to shut down that business.
But I did a few more things and eventually made my way back to offering digital marketing services. I have done Upwork. I was doing it there and just gradually I migrated towards the online courses space memberships and for some reason I just started to get more Kajabi clients. And eventually I was like you know what, why don't I just work exclusively with Kajabi clients? It’s my favorite platform, it tends to be the easiest clients to work with and then I was just doing it for a while and then I saw the idea for Launches.io. And I was like you know I could help more people, I could build an asset out of this and help people with these resources.
Jared:
So talk to me a little bit about like some of the challenges and the hurdles that you've ran into, kind of getting this up and running? I know it sounds like you're kinda a seasoned pro in this space but what has been the biggest hurdle for you to get this up and running?
John:
Yeah, I'd say the biggest hurdle is the self confidence. So when I was younger, I was really passionate about everything online and just seeing the trends and watching where things were going, but I didn't believe in myself enough. And so I have these ideas and then I'd see “oh this is the future here is a big opportunity,” and then I would go to my friends or I'd go to the mastermind groups I was in or I'd go to the entrepreneur community I was part of and I'd share this idea and they'd slap it down. They’d say no,no no, that’s a bad idea and no one's gonna buy that, like do this instead. And I would believe them because they were more successful than me.
And so I kept doing that and I kept missing out on these opportunities like I'd see something and then years later it would be like a multi 7-figure business. I'd be like darn it! Like I was right there, why didn't I believe that I could be the one to do it? And I know, like that's a common thing. Like if you're listening to this podcast right now, like maybe you felt that same thing for like other people said that it was a bad idea.
But what I've learned is like everyone has a realm of expertise. So you know your industry well, you know your little markets’ place well, and so you see things that other people could never see. And so as I figured that out and I was like you know what because I see something doesn't mean that everyone else can see it, and just because someone else sees something it doesn't mean that I can see it. And so once I realized that I was like you know what I'm not gonna listen to people, I'm gonna go for it. If I fail, I fail but I don't wanna feel that regret of seeing something and not doing it because I was afraid, because I listened to someone else who I thought was an expert. You know I was listening to their advice.
Jared:
It always comes back to that validation doesn't it?
John:
Oh yeah and that's one of the biggest things that I always tell my clients is like the sooner you can validate a concept, the better. Like don't spend all this time building your masterpiece, validate interest right? Start with something free. See if people will sign up. If they don't, you think they’re gonna pay for something? Like probably not. Like start with free, then do a little cost product, like work your way up and validate interest in what you wanna do. Like that's the easiest way and it doesn't need to take years to do that, like you can do that in a few weeks.
Jared:
Yeah, for sure. And I mean validation is something that so many people skip and there are a million ways to do it. Like you can call up your mother, I mean call up a family member. If your own mother won't buy your product there's a pretty good chance that not a lot of people will. So it's one of the easiest steps you can take to really just begin to gain the understanding of product market fit. So maybe that's something we can zoom in on a little bit. Like how did you validate and how did you find or identify a product market fit for what you're currently doing?
John:
Yes! So out of everything that I've done that's been successful, with the exception of one project, everything was what I was interested in and was like a problem that I solved for myself. And I was like oh you know what the family restaurants. Okay, we need to do these things. This was hard. How can I help other people accomplish the same thing? You know with my previous template business, I wanted these things but I couldn't find it out there. So okay, let me partner with a developer to build this. And then now with Launches.io, it's every... it's all the struggles I saw with my clients. You know once our project is complete, what are they keep coming back to me for?
It's like “Oh John I forgot how to do this thing,” you know, “Could you get me more tutorials, could you give me more training,” or you know I've got one client who basically they contact me every 2 or 3 weeks and like “We need your help and let's do a Zoom call, walk us through this,” and almost every time it's like walking through the exact same thing and it's just because they were afraid like that maybe they forgot it, or that they were doing something wrong. So I thought okay, why don't I just create a product out of this, everything’s in here step by step and you can buy it.
So Launches.io is really the answer to a lot of the challenges I saw working with all these different clients in all different stages in all different industries. So like I'm excited to say like when I started telling my clients about all of this, they’re like “Oh yeah I can’t wait and let me know when it's live like my nephew’s gonna help me I'm just gonna give him access and he's gonna take care of this,” or I just need my V.A to do this. I don't have time to mess around with Kajabi like just I wanna off load it on to someone else.”
So I think like with this business, I'm very excited because there's already demand with just my clients and now opening it up to everyone I think a lot of people are gonna get a lot of value from this.
Jared:
For sure, for sure. So like the journey for you went from I wanna get out of traffic, I'm tired of stop and go traffic, I wanna work from home, I wanna have some freedom to now I want get off the agency treadmill and I want to productize something. What was the biggest indicator for you that said now is the time to do this?
John:
Yeah I think most recently I really enjoyed doing freelance work. I'm pretty decent at selling to clients and closing them so the bulk of my time if I'm only having to fund myself and not this giant team, I can spend most of my time doing the actual creation and design and the stuff that I enjoy doing. And when the pandemic hit there was just this huge flood of like everyone wanting to start an online business and especially with Kajabi. And so what I found was like I wanted to help everyone and I probably took on more client work than I could handle. And I just quickly became like overwhelmed, and stressed out and burned out and I was like this is not sustainable. Like there’s a limit to how many people I can help with just me.
And so that was kinda like the starting point. I said, “Okay, how can I help more people? What could I do?” I don’t want to do another agency, I need something where people can maybe help themselves. And so that’s kinda where the Launches.io idea came from.
Jared:
Got it. There seems to be diminishing returns when trying to scale out an agency because instead of actually doing the thing that you love, you find that you’re in a new position, you’re just managing the team or you’re managing subcontractors. And reality of it is you lose all of the elements of what you ultimately intended to do by even starting the agency in the first place. So tell me about, like how does Launches.io kind of, I guess, empowered you to focus more in on the stuff that you love.
John:
Yes. So I love doing designs so right off the bat I get to spend my time doing that. But as far as day to day life, it’s nice having the flexibility to work whenever you want, wherever you want. I was very fortunate that I was able to spend, you know, over the last 10+ years I spent about 5 years in Asia and about a year in Europe still running these different businesses but doing something I enjoy, which is living somewhere else, experiencing the culture, and traveling.
So now that I’m in the U.S. obviously with the pandemic going on, hopefully things will wrap up soon and things will open up but I can go out and do hiking, I can go to restaurants, I can do shopping the opposite time that everyone else does, right? So I don’t have to wait until the weekends.
And here’s a funny story. I love plants. I love decorating my apartment with plants. And so I was “Oh I’m gonna go to Home Depot and buy some more stuff.” And I don’t know what I was thinking but I went on a Sunday and there was like no parking spots left, there must have been a thousand people in Home Depot, and I was like “Oh I forgot this is like the normal world.” Because normally I go on like a Wednesday morning at 9’oclock and there’s maybe like 10 contractors there and it’s like completely open.
So that’s like one of the benefits, is that if you’re working opposite times than everyone else, you see a different reality in day to day life. So I’ve really enjoyed that part of it.
Jared:
What would you say...what do you anticipate would be some of the biggest challenges for you getting this up and running?
John:
Yeah. I think one of the big challenges that I face and that most people face is overcoming perfectionism. You know you want it to be perfect. And you want just right out of the gate to have it finished. And so with all my clients I always tell them “Don’t do that. You’re in your first version, what’s the minimum viable product”? And I’m facing that too. As I’ve been working on this, it’s like “Oh, if you really could put this in here, put that and I’ll start with all these templates and all of these launch plans.” And so I’m really trying to overcome that. And just like as I go, release instead of waiting for this big all of these at once and get feedback as I go.
And so one of the things I’m doing is with this membership, if you’re a paying member, you can make requests. So if you want something and it’s not in the membership, you’re like “Oh I want this template,” or “I want this new launch plan,” and I’ll prioritize and I’ll build it out. So it allows me to really build this out for the users, the ones that are actually leveraging all of these resources instead of me guessing and being like “Okay, we’re going to do all of these but I’m just going to put them out in the order that I think is best.”
Jared:
It sounds like you’re spending some time with your customers to understand their needs and designing the product to specifically meet their needs.
John:
Yeah, exactly. And the actual customers who stay and pay, right? Like you can build something for who you think is going to sign up but then the people who actually use it long term tend to be different, they may have different needs. So, really making sure that I work towards them because it is a membership, it is recurring and I gotta make those people happy for the long term.
Jared:
Sure. So talk to me a little bit more about how the membership site works? Are people getting access to a pool of resources by that recurring fee?
John:
Yeah. There’s a free tier where you get access to a template set called Foundation. It’s basically like a skeleton layout, it’s like a bare bones thing. So it’s focused more on the layout and then you style it and design it however you want. I originally started building this for myself. I was like “Oh man I am doing all of this client work and it’s basically the same types of pages. So let me create these starter templates and then I can customize it for the client.”
So if you wanted that, you can sign up and get all that, it’s free. I think there’s like 30+ page templates and they’re for a variety of different verticals and sales funnels and things like that. And then you also get 1 launch plan. So you can go through the step by step on how to launch one specific thing.
But then for the paid membership you get access to everything. And you can go through any launch plan you want and any template set. You’ve got all the page templates to execute that launch plan and then you’ve got the email scripts. So you just go in and you just choose “I wanna launch an online course, I wanna launch a lead magnet.” You go through and you just follow the steps and use the templates that are right there.
It’s a little bit different than most template market place. Or I think the normal template market place will give you a bundle of templates and is like “Here you go. Here’s instructions on how to use it but you’re on your own.” This is more based on objectives, right? So choose what you want to launch. And then choose the templates and go along that way. Does that make sense?
Jared:
Yeah. How do you begin to differentiate...what is it that helps the end users decide which launch template to pick?
John:
Yes. So I don’t want to be the person that’s giving them business strategy. I think a lot of people can get that anywhere, different podcasts, different courses. And I would say if there’s one vivid advice - build your audience first. So choose one of the lead generating launch plans first and do that whether it’s a webinar, or ebook, or cheat sheet. Do that first and then you could choose one of the paid - you know like, online course, membership, coaching, you know, something like that.
But yeah. Choose what you want. I’m not forcing you to do anything. You got access to it all. If something doesn’t work, okay try again with something else. Like you just keep going until you get it.
Jared:
Okay. And how do you actually go into designing these launch templates? Are they based on some type of I guess industry practices or principles?
John:
Yeah. So the page layouts are...it’s basically like what I’ve learned over the last 10+ years. Learning this myself with my own projects, working with clients, taking different online courses, going to conferences, things like that - studying what the most successful people are doing and really distilling that into okay here’s the ideal page layout. And then I’ve got different design styles. So it’s like okay I want something more luxurious or minimalistic or like corporate-y professional feel. Like you choose what you want.
And then what I’ve done is for the different launch plans and the templates, I give you a couple of different options. So maybe like there’s an online course sales page and you get 2 different versions. And you can say “Oooh I want that one better with my content,” or “This one’s better.” You can choose which one you want that fits you best.
Jared:
Okay. Who’s your target audience?
John:
Yeah. At the most basic level, Kajabi users. So anyone that wants to launch faster, that does not want to be stressed out by all the tech stuff and be unsure if they made a mistake or maybe they’re looking at like a blank page and like “I just don’t know what to write for the email.” Like that’s who this is for.
So if you want to go faster with Kajabi, if you want to start seeing results faster, maybe you don’t want to hire a big team, maybe you’re just a solo person right now, go in, just follow the instructions and start launching things. Or if you’re already successful, and you’re like “I spend too much time inside the Kajabi, I shouldn’t be doing this. I need to be doing these other things,” offload it to someone else on your team, have them login, have them just do everything for you.
Jared:
Got it. Let’s rewind just a little bit back into...like I wanna make sure we cover any other challenges...and if they don’t exist, then they don’t exist. I just don’t want it to sound too easy because I know that you know. You’ve been through these things. Like I wanna make sure that we get to any hurdles on the journey. Do you think...is there something there? Or am I digging for something that doesn’t exist?
John:
No, I mean I think there’s...I think anyone starting an online business faces similar challenges, right? I think one of the biggest ones that I’ve seen is like rushing to make money too fast. Words like, I’m going to build this thing and I’m gonna sell it. But you’re building a product instead of building a business. Because if you’ve just built a product and it fails and no one wants it, well guess what, it’s game over. You don’t have anything else. And then maybe you’re like “Oh I need to go switch over and do something else. Versus if you’re actually building a business, well almost every business has multiple products. So just because a product fails does not mean that the business fails. It just means that you need to try something else.
So I think that was the big lesson I learned, that’s what I see a lot with client work, is if you’re focusing on building the business you just start validating, you start testing different offers. And maybe a big thing is, instead of building out the product from the get go, is start smaller. Maybe do something like an online training where you make an offer for this training and this is a recording like 8 modules or something. Maybe make it a 4-week long program and you just do live training over Zoom and record it and that’s the product. And if people want it, great. If people don’t want it, okay, you don’t have to do the training, right. You didn’t spend all this time building this out. You can try something else.
Another one that I like, another strategy that I like is pre-selling. So, focus all your time on building out the sales page, testing out the offer, launching that. And then if people buy it, then you say great, in 4 weeks I’m gonna release module 1 and then drip it out over time. So you’re not, again, you’re not building all this out before you’ve got interest in it.
I messed up on that many times over the last 10 years. I didn’t do it that way and I see a lot of my clients make that mistake too. With all of my clients, I try to share my expertise and the things that I’ve learned and I’ve seen other people learn. But some people want to make the mistakes themselves before they believe it. So that’s always tough for me. As a contractor and advisor, it’s like “Please I’m telling you, I’ve never seen it work this way. Maybe it’ll work for you but why don’t we try something that’s more proven, right? Let's do this first and then we can try that other way. I don’t want you to give up after this first thing doesn’t work.” Because it’s highly likely that your first try is not going to be successful. It’s going to take a few iterations to figure it out.
Jared:
Yeah. For sure. That’s a...I think that’s a really good point. What happens... Let’s kinda get hypothetical. You already have a successful consulting business or agency building these templates. What happens if Launches.io...what happens if the Launches.io launch doesn’t work out? How do you overcome that?
John:
Yeah. So I mean I’ve always got the contract and the advice on that side of the business, and my membership can be part of that work. So far with a lot of my clients they’re interested in this. So it could be just one of those things that I sell to my clients or I can bundle it with someone else who has an audience or a membership and then they can add it on to theirs. So I’m not necessarily like selling it direct to people anymore, it’s kinda like a side product, if that makes sense at all
Jared:
Yeah. I mean it sounds like you already have an audience. Like you’ve already got a customer base who’s willing to buy and pay for these things. So like I guess, maybe rephrasing my question, what do you…what hurdles do you anticipate coming maybe you know post launch?
John:
Yeah. One of the things I’m interested in seeing is how long people stay with the membership, right? There’s no contract, it’s month to month, you get everything all at once. And so my gut feeling is people want to stay with this just like forever so they can keep referring back to the training and get these templates. But that may not be the case. People may just go in like stay for a month, get this launch and then cancel. And then maybe if they need help they’ll check back in a few months. Like that may be a possibility. I hope that’s not the case but that’s always possible that people will do it that way.
Jared:
Yeah. What are some things that you’ve learned by creating these processes that you’re maybe now applying to this launch?
John:
Yes. So I don’t necessarily want to call Launches.io like I’m not necessarily launching it. I’m just making it go live because it’s not a limited time launch or anything like that. It’s me slowly releasing it to different audiences.Some of my clients are successful and they’ve got big audiences and when I told them about it they’re like “Oh yeah, just let us know and we’ll promote it to our entire audience.” So I wouldn’t necessarily call that a launch.
Jared:
Okay. Fair enough, fair enough. I guess...what would you say has changed for you throughout...I don’t know if you’re in this phase yet. But just like throughout this entrepreneurial journey, I think you covered this a little bit - you now have the freedom - what else in your life has changed?
John:
Yeah, obviously the freedom, you know the money, not having to get a real job, You know that for me I never wanted that. I did work for a startup a few years ago for about a year. I saw and “Oh there’s a lot of opportunity in this space, I’ve always wanted to work for a startup,let me try this,” I was between projects. And one of the things that I found there, even though they hired me as Director of Marketing, I still wasn’t able to control everything, right? Like the marketing is tied deeply with the product and if I can’t influence the product that much there’s limits to what I can do with marketing.
And so I just got frustrated. I was like you know what I like being the guy who can make the decisions and I can move fast. And I think that’s one of the biggest skills that I have, is like, being resourceful and just executing really fast, and testing things. Of course I think it’s normal to kinda “Okay, this year our big goal is do this one thing,” and you can work all year and get there and be like “Oh no that didn’t go the way we wanted. Like what’s the back up plan?” And that kinda happened with this startup a little bit. I don’t want to talk too much about it.
But it’s like having that freedom to decide what I wanna do. You know, I’m making the decisions. I can choose where I’m gonna go, I can choose who I wanna work with. If I don’t want to do any advertising, I don’t have to do advertising. I can focus on partnerships or you know whatever. I’m not a big social media person. I don’t like it. Personally, I think it’s very dangerous. I used to do all that advertising stuff. And I was like “Oooh this is kinda scary. What’s possible?” For my business, I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in doing anything social media wise. It’s all like, let me partner with other people. Let me provide value to their audience. Let me provide more value through email. You join my list and I’ll keep giving you good stuff.
Jared:
That’s definitely something that I think is probably a common misconception or myth, or maybe even just one of those barriers that people run into in starting out is they think “Oh we gotta start off the PPC campaign and we’re gonna have to amass this…
John:
Well, now it’s Facebook ads right? All the gurus are like “Oh you need to do Facebook ads starting at $5 a day.” And it’s like “Oh come on.”
Jared:
Yeah. Exactly. Before you’ve even validated, before you have your MVP, you now have spent, you know, however much of a budget, on sending people to something that ultimately didn’t have that, you know, didn’t have product market fit.
So John, tell me, is there anything that you feel, like, any part of your story that we didn’t cover well or something that you feel we should zoom in on more?
John:
My previous template business you know, once that closed down, I was looking for the next thing to do and I just happened to be living in Bangkok, Thailand. And so after living there, considering myself an expat and less of a traveler, started building up a network and seeing different opportunities, I was like “Oh you know what, Thailand is a few years behind the US in online learning. Like maybe there’s an opportunity here.” And so I started reaching out to different speakers and different people and I was like “What if I created an online summit here?” And everything would be in Thai and be for the Thai audience but I brought together all these you know, smart people and create a summit. You know, something that was not necessarily done in Thailand before.
And I thought this was gonna be easy right? Cause I had all the skill sets to be able to do this. But when I started actually working on it, a project that I thought would take 6 to 8 weeks took almost 4 months and I was like busting my butt. Because I couldn’t do everything right? I needed an assistant. I needed a translator. Like I had… when I would reach out to people, it had to be through her. We’d sit down and we would be like translating a conversation, trying to get people on board and then educating them on how to do this big launch and sending up the affiliates. And we set up...like I wanted this to be really good right? Being the outsider, being the foreigner, like I didn’t speak Thai, I didn’t know the culture, like this had to be good or no one would take this seriously. And I wanted to minimize my presence and I wanted to maximize like all the experts.
And so...I said okay, we rented a studio, we built out a custom studio set, we got like a video team and an audio team. We spent a ton of money trying to make this the best it could possibly be. In the end it was successful. We had about like, well, 52 Thailand’s top speakers, trainers, authors, business owners, people who like they should have never said YES to me. Being the outsider with no experience, I’m like “Why did they say yes?”
And I think it boils down to just having a vision. Like being really passionate about helping Thai people, giving them something that didn’t really exist before. And so I think that’s why it was successful. But boy was it hard. Doing this in another language and another culture, right? Things that are obvious to us now are not obvious there, right? Like email marketing is not, you know at that time was not a big thing, right? You know online payments with credit cards were not how people bought things online. It’d be bank transfers and it wouldn’t be like an automated thing. You’d have to do Facebook messenger chat or a different chat app. And you’d be talking to people and there’d be live selling involved for these different online products.
So there’s so much to learn and then the whole like saving face culture which is...it’s a big deal. Like you don’t want to mess up there and get people upset at you. You know they can cause problems. It was a huge learning experience. But yeah. So if anyone’s thinking about doing business in another country, like really think about it. Like if you don’t have direct experience there, if you don’t speak the language, it’s going to be tough.
But if you can speak the language, if you’re from there, I think there’s untapped opportunity. Because it’s probably a few years behind the English speaking market. And even if you don’t...if you’re not an expert like I didn’t want to be the expert for this summit, you can go around and find the top people and bring them to your events, or your online course, or your online school, or whatever it is. I think there’s big opportunity there.
Jared:
Yeah. No doubt. I mean I think that’s kinda an inspiring point, maybe even relevant to the head of this podcast is that the reality of this is, you know, as a company nobody necessarily needs to hear about what Kajabi has to say. But the true stories are coming from people like you. The people who are actually in the...you know, in the weeds, on the field, making a difference, making things happen. So I think that’s a great inspirational point to a lot of our listeners because I think people often probably run into that challenge of “I don’t have the expertise, I don’t have the right, you know, information.” But the reality of it is as long as that information is out there, and sometimes it’s just assembling the right information and bringing the right people together to create something of value. So, that’s a really cool story.
John:
Yeah. And I found, like in my experience, there’s so many people who are experts, authors, you know whatever, that are afraid of the internet. Like they don’t even want to mess around with any of that. They see the opportunity but they’re like “Oh no,I couldn’t do that myself.” And especially some of the older people who have...you know, if you want to look at just authors, some big name authors that are really successful but they never really went online. Those are prime people to partner with. You can set up like an equity share, or a revenue share, some sort of steel structure like that, and you just handle all the tech stuff for them.
And Kajabi, like Kajabi does everything! What you need...Kajabi, a domain name, and an email provider. Like with those 3 things, you can have a multi million dollar business. Like bring in the expert and you just handle everything. So I think no matter where you are, like, there’s opportunity online and a space. Just pick something and go and try it out.
Jared:
That’s cool. What are your thoughts on...do you feel as though passion…like do you have to pick an area that you’re particularly passionate about?
John:
Maybe. So I know for like all the projects that I worked on that failed, it was something outside of my realm of expertise or realm of experience. And everything that I did that was close to me worked. Because I was more excited about it, I understood it better. But then if we look at that summit in Thailand, you know, I wasn’t an expert there. But I was really passionate about the technology, and the systems, and the marketing side, right? Which is why I keep going back to this world over and over again. I was excited about that and then it was also like “Oh I’m passionate about helping Thai people learn these sorts of things.
So I think that was enough to be able to move the project forward even though I didn’t necessarily know all the topics. And the topics were basically everything. It was personal development, business, health, it was kinda like a range of things. So I just found the expert, got them excited and well, it worked. That’s the simplified version. I was...I don’t want to say it was hell but it was like a really difficult project to do. It pushed me past my breaking point, if I can say that. Like I would never do something like this again. It was just so hard.
Jared:
Yeah. No doubt. And I think that’s something that a lot of people...especially in the early stages, you get somewhat lost in the excitement of the idea. But the reality of it is, it’s hard work. No matter what it is that you’re doing, there’s work associated with ultimately achieving success.
John:
Oh yeah. And I see it all the time with my clients. You know, usually it’s someone who’s an expert or you know they’re good at what they do but then moving online and it’s this whole other world. And you’ve gotta either learn this whole new world of expertise or you’ve gotta bring someone on board who knows this. Because it doesn’t carry over exactly, right?
If you sold services or anything online or actually physical products and then you try to do it digital, the strategy of growing that business is different. At least from what I’ve seen with some of my clients. It’s like they’ll want to do something and I’d be like “No, that’s probably not going to work. Like, let’s do this. Build the audience first. I know you don’t do it normally like you run ads but like let’s do it this way first. Let’s try this.
So regardless of where you’re starting off, you can do it. You just need to put in the time. You know, find the resource whether it’s Launches.io, or Kajabi’s you know free training, or blogs, or podcasts. I mean the information is out there, just pick something and then start putting stuff into the world, right? You won’t know if it’s gonna work until you do it.
And I think the best way to build expertise is through experience, right? There’s so many people that buy courses and are like “I did the course, I checked everything off,” and it’s like “Well, let’s see what you did?” “Well, I didn’t do anything yet.” And it’s like “Why not? There’s nothing real here.” You’ve gotta put it out to the world and then you’ll know, you’ll get feedback. You’ll see things like “Oh maybe this doesn’t work for this industry. Maybe I need to do it this way.”
I think regardless of where you’re starting out just get out there start testing things, playing around. You know, Kajabi’s a very easy platform compared to others so you know it shouldn’t be too difficult to assemble things. And again, like if you need help, come to my site, you know there’s free stuff that you can use and you can take advantage of that if you want.
Jared:
Well that’s perfect. That segues well into...for anyone listening how should they get a hold of you? How do they find you?
John:
Yeah. Just come to Launches.io. So you can sign up for the starter plan, get the free templates. You know if you do that and you go “Oh I like this,” sign up for the paid plan. You get access to everything and it’s month to month, stay as long as you want. And the best part is there’s a 14-day money back guarantee. So try it out. If you don’t think it’s a game changer, it doesn’t help you launch faster, if you don’t think it’s the best thing in the world, just cancel, let me know, and I’ll refund your money. So there’s no risk.
And if you’re one of those people listening to this podcast and you’re in kinda like this space of online courses and digital marketing, and you think this might help your audience in any way, you know, reach out to me, I do have an affiliate program. You could just sell them my stuff, you know get 50% commission and you don’t have to build out all of these on your own. So I’m happy to help in whatever way. If you just want to reach out to me and talk, if you want to buy my stuff, use the free stuff, whatever. Like I wanna be a resource for you.
Jared:
I love it. Well, thank you John so much for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, pleasure learning from your experience.Really appreciate you joining.
John:
Yeah, definitely! Thanks for having me on.
Jared:
Very good. Well, for anyone listening, thank you so much for joining us here. Please don't forget to leave us a review so we can share this with more and more entrepreneurs just like you. Until next time, we will see you all next week on the Kajabi Edge podcast.
