I'm Building My 4th Media Business. Still, I've Been Surprised at These 4 Things.
Just because you've grown a business once, doesn't guarantee you can do it again.
Four things that were different or unexpected for me this time around with They Got Acquired 👇
1/ Hiring great writers was harder and more expensive than I expected.
I've hired writers so many times, I figured I had the process down.
But this was a tough combo:
✅ Business background
✅ Journalism background
✅ Creative chops
It took months to build an arsenal of freelance writers.
2/ Tools change quickly in the online business space.
What's avail now is totally different than what I relied on just a few years ago.
It takes time to learn new tools, but it's worth it.
New ones I'm using this time around:
✅ SparkLoop (for acquiring email subscribers)
✅ RightMessage (for segmenting email subscribers)
✅ Airtable (for tracking deals)
3/ Building & selling lean, profitable online businesses is 🔥 right now.
A few years ago, some people were doing it, but not enough to prop up a niche media company.
Now, the timing is right. There's an underserved market of founders starved for guidance on how to sell.
4/ My business & life experience = seeing things differently.
I now bring the experience of scaling another startup. So it felt awkward to go back to doing everything myself while I slowly built a team.
I had to find a new balance around bootstrapping.
All of these unknowns are why it's both exciting and scary to build from scratch again.
Just because you've done it once doesn't mean you'll be able to replicate that success.
The key is believing, even when you can't see a clear path forward, that you will figure it out.
