It’s no longer a myth that you can start a business that makes $1M a year, with literally zero expenses. If not zero, than at least next to zero.

I have a few examples for you here, then we will go over what they all have in common.

Sahil Bloom quit his job in private equity to build a following on twitter around personal finance/life. In only a few years he’s amassed nearly a million followers.

He began pushing a newsletter to his following not too long ago, and that’s when the money started rolling in.

In 2022, my tweets had over 1 billion impressions.

On careers, relationships, business, decision making, health, time, and more.

My 10 most popular pieces from the year:

— Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom) December 31, 2022

On a podcast he mentioned he makes $3-6K in advertising for every newsletter he sends. He sends 2 a week. I’ll leave you to do the math.

The best part is how incredibly simple his business is. Just social media to a newsletter to cash in the bank.

Justin Welsh has a similar story. After quitting his job in healthcare SAAS he start posting everyday on LinkedIn. That turned into an online community, newsletter, a couple courses, and startup advising that all together makes him over $1M a year. His self reported expenses land around $600 a month.

Today, my little one-person business crossed $3M in revenue.

It took 1,187 days, I ran zero ads & operate at a 94% margin.

Here are the 20 steps of my wild & strange journey:

Hope it's helpful to someone.

[🧵 thread]

— Justin Welsh (@thejustinwelsh) November 7, 2022

Those are great examples. But there is one everybody knows but many don’t realize how amazing it is.

The Joe Rogan Experience

No one knows the real number Spotify gave him to come on to the platform exclusively. But best guesses seem to be around $200M for a certain time frame. Let’s be generous and say the time frame was 10 years.

Given that dollar amount, and the fact that his podcast continues to grow with each episode, it can’t be that far off to say that the comedians podcast, run by no more than 5 people, is worth a billion dollars.

All these are extreme examples. But it’s not uncommon at all for people running similar business to pay their bills plus some.

And hey, making enough money to write some tweets all day, or have conversations about mushrooms while smoking cigars, doesn’t seem like a tough life.

So what’s the framework here?

1. They all applied strict constraints/limitations

Joe didn’t go off to start a business, or create a product (besides the things he invested in). All he did was keep podcasting.

Sahil just kept tweeting

Justin kept posting on LinkedIn

They didn’t get wrapped up in all the complicated things the could do. They kept it extremely simple. And because of that they were able to make the one thing they did better and better over time. And as it got bigger it got better. Then because it got bigger and better, it kept getting bigger and better. And bigger and better and bigger and better it got.

This brings us to the next point.

2. They focused on something that compounds.

Sahil’s journey on Twitter probably started like anyone else’s. Talking to crickets.

He probably got a new follower every 10 tweets or so. But as he got more followers, they engaged with him. And that meant each tweet went a little further. Soon it was probably a follower every 8 tweets, then 5, then 3, then 1, then… it starts going a different direction.

Each tweet brought a few new followers, then more than a few, then finally he says crazy shit like “I got a billion impressions this year.”

All their stories sound the same. The bigger they got the easier it was to grow.

It’s the exact same pitch you get from a financial advisor showing you how compounding interest in your investment account works.

3. They didn’t let their business expenses grow alongside their revenue.

Most businesses have expenses that grow alongside their revenue. In fact, when they want to increase revenue, increased expenses are implied.

But that’s not the case with these more modernized businesses. Their operational load doesn’t grow. They don’t hire new employees, increase ad spend, build unnecessary features, etc….

Instead, they focused on a model that scales, found a method, and kept applying the same inputs.

Conclusion

These examples are all extremely similar, but there are endless applications for the concepts in this email. It’s a growth model that could work for any business, and can be applied with unlimited creativity.

Beyond that, there’s nothing stopping you from getting started. You don’t need capital, you don’t need to live in a certain city, you don’t even need a particular professional skill (in the case of Joe).