Own Pain Startups

Jay Papasan and Gary Keller launched 'The One Thing' book with a concentrated, strategic month-long campaign that sold 27,000 copies in a single week, exceeding their 20,000-copy best-seller threshold. They leveraged three core channels: their internal network of 4,300 real estate agents, an email list of 35,000+ subscribers built on permission-based marketing, and 35 live training events across locations that reached approximately 16,000 people. The book achieved sustained growth year-over-year with sales up 43% in July and 26% annually, driven by word-of-mouth and timeless content strategy rather than short-term promotional tactics.

Morgan James Publishing is a hybrid traditional/self-publishing house founded by David Hancock that focuses on entrepreneurial authors. The company publishes approximately 135 titles per year from over 5,000 submissions, with a business model that pays authors 20-30% on physical book sales and 50-50 splits on ebooks. Notable authors published include Jeff Walker (Launch), Joel Combs (The AdSense Code), and Brendan Burchard (The Millionaire Messenger).

Noah Rasheta built iStabilizer, a smartphone and tablet accessories company, after struggling to film his young son at the park with his iPhone 3GS. Starting with a universal smartphone tripod adapter costing $1 to make and retailing for $19.95, he grew the business from $60-70K in first-year revenue to $400-500K after landing a Walmart deal. Today the company has 15 SKUs and generates significant revenue from major retailers like AT&T Wireless ($600K annually) and Walmart ($400K annually), with 75% of revenue from retail partnerships and 25% from online sales.

Jordan Gray is a sex and relationship coach who built a seven-figure business primarily through content marketing and syndication. Over 2.5 years, he wrote 10 books and ~250 articles, syndicating 180+ pieces across major publications (Entrepreneur.com, Cosmo, Thought Catalog) that funnel traffic back to his website where customers discover his $97 Supercharge Your Sex Life video course.

Tai Lopez built a personal brand empire offering the 67 Steps and Knowledge Society programs to teach decision-making and lifestyle optimization. Starting with a free beta to thousands of users, he tested at $4.95, then scaled to $67/month through his PVP formula (Plan/Strategy, Virality, Paid advertising), reaching 500 million views in six months with 70% penetration among his target demographic of 14-25 year-olds.

Heathen Shaw built three SaaS companies: self-funded Crazy Egg (heatmaps for website analytics since 2005), venture-backed KISSmetrics (customer analytics), and QuickSprout (content marketing software and services marketplace). QuickSprout generates 600-700k monthly visits through content marketing, with an email list exceeding 100,000 subscribers, and converts traffic to email at 2-8% rates before monetizing through approved marketing services partnerships and upcoming software tools.

Jim Fowler is a serial entrepreneur who built Jigsaw, a business data company, from 2003 and sold it to Salesforce in 2010 for $175 million (with a $25 million earnout). The company had $17-18 million in annual revenue the prior year with a $25 million run rate at the time of sale and was already cash flow positive. He is now the founder of Owler, a free competitive intelligence tool that tracks over 13 million companies using a crowdsourced model.

Jeff Bullis built a personal brand and content empire by consistently blogging 5 times per week while working a full-time day job at a digital agency, waking up at 4:30 AM for 4 years to fuel his passion. He grew his blog to 250,000 unique monthly visitors, 70,000 email subscribers, and 350,000 Twitter followers, eventually transitioning to full-time content creation and monetization through speaking engagements ($10,000 per keynote), affiliate marketing, and digital products.

The Brotherhood is a premium, invite-only private business club founded by Sean Gallagher for curated successful entrepreneurs of high character. Starting from a casual 30-person Facebook group in Mexico, it evolved into a paid membership community offering exclusive access to rare entrepreneurs, vulnerability-focused mastermind conversations, and high-end adventure experiences like yacht trips to remote islands. The community maintains strict quality standards, having removed over 100 members who didn't meet integrity criteria, and is expanding with a planned 'Sisterhood' for women entrepreneurs.

Brandon Epstein built Zendude Fitness as an anti-establishment fitness brand focused on simplifying fat loss and moving beyond physical transformation to life fulfillment. He generates revenue through three streams: a $10/month mastermind community (just launched), $500/month high-level coaching clients, and an Instagram consulting agency charging $300-$1,000/month for clients like Athletic Greens and FitLife TV. His most effective growth channel is Instagram, where he leverages direct messaging and creator collaboration networks.

Rich Brooks founded Flight New Media in 1997 as a web design and marketing agency in Portland, Maine, growing it from a solo operation in his living room to a full-service digital marketing firm serving small businesses and nonprofits. He later launched the Agents of Change conference in 2012 as a complement to his agency, running it profitably with 375-400 attendees and generating approximately $40,000 in annual profit while also securing $10,000-$30,000 in annual business from conference connections.

Mastermind Talks is an exclusive invite-only event for entrepreneurs founded by Jason Gaynard, building on his experience hosting mastermind dinners in Toronto. Starting with 4,200 applicants for 150 spots at $995, the event grew to $6,000 per ticket by maintaining intimacy and quality, with recent events generating approximately $800K-$900K in revenue from attendees alone. The business was built entirely through relationship-based networking and strategic speaker partnerships, with no paid marketing.

Bellhops is a tech-enabled marketplace connecting DIY movers with local, vetted college athletes who provide affordable moving and lifting help at $40/hour. Operating in 128 US cities with nearly 5,000 active service providers and processing 3,000-5,000 bookings weekly, the company has raised $8M+ in funding (including a $600K seed from Lampus Group and a $6M Series A led by Binary Capital).

Bundlepost is a patented social content management system co-founded by Robert Caruso, a Forbes-listed top 40 social media marketer. The platform uniquely aggregates RSS feeds and content sources to enable users to curate, schedule, and manage social content 80% more efficiently than traditional methods. After building the company to scale over several years while working 80-hour weeks, Caruso promoted his CTO to CEO and transitioned to focus on building his personal brand in the digital marketing space.

Stephanie Nicolich founded Success Society in August 2015 as a free community platform for women entrepreneurs, offering resources, tools, training, and mentoring from seven expert CEOs. The platform has grown to tens of thousands of active members with over 500 fully profiled members, generating revenue through a $97/month e-course offering and an $1,997 eight-week intensive bootcamp that runs quarterly with attendance doubling each iteration. She's built a team of eight and leveraged email marketing (4,000 opt-ins in a four-week period from a free lead magnet) to drive growth.

Buddha Doodles is a creative project turned full-time business founded by illustrator Molly Hahn in 2011 as a daily meditative practice following personal hardship. Starting with free daily sketches on Tumblr and building an email list to 13,000 subscribers, Molly launched a gift shop in May 2013 that now generates $22,000-$28,000 monthly through merchandise sales, prints, cards, and other products. The community has grown to over 200,000 followers across platforms, with Facebook being the primary driver of growth at 160,000+ fans.

Nick Unsworth built LifeOnFire, a business coaching and digital marketing agency targeting for-purpose entrepreneurs. The company generates significant revenue through a sophisticated event funnel that combines free/low-cost ticket acquisition via Facebook ads with high-ticket coaching upsells, generating $840,000 ARR from a single event with 42 high-ticket coaching sales.

Lewis Lautman founded Supreme Outsourcing after going broke funding 'The Yes Movie' in 2007, spending over $200,000 and realizing the pain of paying $80-120/hour for U.S.-based freelancers. Between 2008-2010, while building his entrepreneur training business, he began outsourcing overseas and discovered he was making more money fulfilling outsourcing work for other entrepreneurs than from his training business itself. He launched Supreme Outsourcing full-time in 2010 with a tiered pricing model ranging from $15/hour pay-as-you-go to $1,000/month for full-time virtual assistants, using customer financing to fund operations.

Tweet Jukebox is a content distribution system launched by Tim Fargo in February 2015 to solve his own pain point of managing frequent tweets for marketing purposes. The product grew to 16,000 users by the time of this interview, with approximately 150,000 tweets distributed daily, operating on a free model before planned paid tiers launching in 2016 at $9.99/month entry level.

Michael Port is an author and public speaking expert who built Heroic Public Speaking into a successful training business offering crash courses ($1,000), annual events in Fort Lauderdale, and a 4-month graduate program in Philadelphia. His first book, Book Yourself Solid (2006), sold approximately 500,000 copies primarily through email marketing to his network, establishing him as a thought leader whose subsequent books and courses have generated significant ongoing revenue.