Life update: I started 2 new businesses

Where to start, where to start. My goodness, I feel like we have soooo much to catch up on.

If you’re new here, hi I’m Jay Yang. When I was 15, I googled “how to make money online” then proceeded to fail for a year straight. So I decided to work for people who make money online. 5 years later, now I make money online.

Okay cool, we’re caught up. 😁

I’m in Miami right now with my cofounder working 12 hour days.

In the last month and a half, we scaled our first business to $124k in contracted revenue in 8 days before pivoting and contracting another $165k in new revenue for the new business.

Why pivot?

Our first business (a fractional head of content agency) pretty quickly hit capacity and we realized it would be difficult to recruit, train, and retain heads of content. (We would’ve needed to find people who could help our clients win on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, AND YouTube… rough). Also the offer was a bit vague and hard to make guarantees because we were mainly advising (not day-to-day executing).

So we pivoted to a done-for-you (DFY) fractional content department for X and LinkedIn. That way, we could make guarantees and risk reversals because we controlled the inputs. We also pivoted away from serving clients with education businesses and more toward venture-backed founders and executives. We signed 2 whale clients in the tech space (names you would recognize). We are going for the biggest and best in the game.

What we’ve realized is every business has a main constraint. For agencies, it’s a people constraint. Once you hit scale, your business will pretty much always be constrained by that problem. So the faster you can speed run your way to that problem, then attack that constraint from every angle, the faster your business will grow.

(Aka generate initial demand, spin up funnel, create sales scripts, dial in fulfillment workflow).

Said differently:

We started demand constrained (meaning, we had no customers). So we made a few pieces of social media content, validated the offer, spun up a quick landing page, application form, and funnel. Then we became supply constrained (meaning, we couldn’t handle more customers), so we dialed in the fulfillment workflow by mapping out the entire client journey then using AI agents to automate most of the tedious ops (will share more on this soon, I’m so deep into AI right now).

I had a lot of limiting beliefs around starting a DFY agency. I thought that agencies don’t scale, but there’s no evidence-backed reason for that belief. Just because most agencies don’t scale doesn’t mean ALL agencies don’t scale. Daniel Iles is a great example of that - he’s at $5m/mo. Most ghostwriting agencies get stuck because they don’t understand business and ops, and they can’t recruit, train, and retain great writers.

So we knew if we could solve those two big problems, we would quickly scale past all the other agencies. We think we have a unique advantage because my business partner and I both understand business scaling, theory of constraints, and can think systematically.

I have a huge brand for client acquisition and for recruiting writers. I sent out a hiring post on X and LinkedIn and got 102 applications in 24 hours for a client in the gaming space. Imagine how many applications we’ll get for a founding head copywriter who will be working directly with me.

My business partner is amazing at leading and training high performing teams, so we are going to run our writing team like a high performing sales team. The market is also super hungry for this type of service. So all of those competitive advantages combined lead to a pretty nasty and hard to beat business.

We have just been ripping on all cylinders. Played Padel for the first time this week (it’s like pickleball with walls). I hate sucking at things. It was fun though, I definitely want to play more.

Taking a ton of sales calls, getting lots of reps at the discovery portion of the sales call (getting clear on current pain, ideal future end state, frustrations and blockers). That way, when we pitch we can tie everything to things they’ve stated in the disco.

Something else we’re learning a ton on the process side: always delete/remove. If you’re not adding stuff back, you’re not deleting enough. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Make the sales call script more concise. Make the funnel simpler. Make the offer easier to understand. Everything.

In the long run, if we can get my business partner and me out of day to day fulfillment where all we do is lead generation and high level strategy, this business will be incredible. Just think of all the different ways we can promote this business. Warm outreach to network for referrals. Affiliate program for current clients. Social media content on all platforms. Podcast funnel. Host dinners with CMOs. There is so much opportunity.

It’s fast paced. It’s controlled chaos. It’s overwhelming in the best way. I keep trying to remind myself… this is the fun part.

Until next week,

Jay “Heads down building” Yang

Author of You Can Just Do Things & Work With The Best

Ps. Apologies if this email was a bit more “business-y”. Heard from a few readers that they wanted more live updates on what’s happening in my world. Well… I’m in full business mode right now. Not really thinking about much else. Hope it’s cool to see my evolution over the years :)

Pps. I ideated, scripted, designed, and published this IG carousel with Grok Bot. Pretty cool!

Ppps. I just posted my New York trip vlog on YouTube. Expect to see me meet other high level entrepreneurs, give a talk to high schoolers, break my deadlift PR

Pppps. What questions do you have about my business? Reply to this email, maybe I’ll turn some of them into future newsletters

Leonardo da Vinci on why inaction is a sign against potential:

“Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. So we must stretch ourselves to the very limits of human possibility. Anything less is a sin against both God and man.”

A great reminder from entrepreneur Justin Welsh:

“Be careful not to become impressive to strangers and unavailable to your family.”

How to choose your ICP without guessing:

Look at your past clients and ask 3 questions:

1. Who pays the most?
2. Who stays the longest?
3. Who do I enjoy serving the most?

Where all three overlap is your ICP.

Then align your content, messaging, and funnel to only speak to them.

Walk like you just go the best news of your life. Talk like the world is listening. Move like life is rigged in your favor. Energy is magnetic. And confidence bends reality.

How to build a no-brainer offer:

Think in 3 vectors of value: speed, risk, and ease.

Can they get results fast, with low effort on their end, and with low perceived risk?

I recently helped someone fix their offer.

Their pitch:

"Give us $10,000 and we'll reach out to 5 people a month for you for a year."

Not compelling. What happens if it doesn't work?

We changed it to:

"Give us $10,000 and we'll book you 5 qualified meetings every month for 90 days. Or we work for free until we do."

Basically the same service. But far more valuable offer.

You can grab your copy here.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Stanley

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