This episode is a bit different. A little over a year ago, I listened to a podcast between Jonathan and Jason Fried, the co-founder of Basecamp/37signals. I had known Jonathan for a while, and I’m a big fan of Jason Fried, but the episode was very different — it was almost like a therapy session. Jonathan had reached out to Jason for some general business and life advice, and instead of keeping it private, he decided to publish it. At the time, I got a ton of value out of it.
So in almost a “déjà vu” moment, I’m doing something similar here, but with the roles reversed: Jonathan giving the advice, instead of asking it. We recorded this a couple weeks ago when I was trying to figure out where to take Project 33. Given that Jonathan had built a large agency but then also pivoted into other, more scalable offers (he’s the CEO of AJ&Smart and facilitator.com), he felt like the perfect person to ask for advice.
And if you’ve seen any of my recent stuff on LinkedIn, you might’ve seen that I pivoted the podcast and launched my advisory firm thormeier.co A good chunk of that was kicked off and inspired by this conversation.
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We discuss:
* Why I’m the one getting coached this time
* Four ways to get a dream out of your system and “the tiniest announceable version”
* The agency/offer ladder: from DIY (do it yourself), to DWY (done with you), to DFY (done for you)
* 25% close rate: anything higher means you’re too cheap
* “If you have to sit down and do 10 hours of work to be successful, then you’re just doing stupid s**t”
* How to make a 500-listener podcast worth $100k
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Show Notes:
Connect with Jonathan
Jonathan’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-courtney-4510644b/
AJ&Smart: https://ajsmart.com/
Facilitator.com: https://facilitator.com/
The Unscheduled CEO podcast: https://www.unscheduledceo.com/
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Connect with Finn:
Finn’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/
Thormeier.co - Founder Brand & LinkedIn advisory: https://thormeier.co/
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Mentioned in the episode:
Nat Eliason’s essay on de-atomization: https://www.nateliason.com/blog/de-atomization-is-the-secret-to-happiness
Built to Sell by John Warrillow: https://builttosell.com/
Sprint by Jake Knapp: https://www.character.vc/sprint
Skool: https://www.skool.com/
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