Baby Bathwater Event Series
After 13 years of building separate direct response internet marketing companies, Hollis Carter and Michael Lubbidge realized something crucial: their biggest business breakthroughs happened offline, at conferences where they'd make one or two key relationships each month. But they got tired of attending mediocre shows. Instead of complaining, they decided to create the event they wished existed. They took an eight-month hiatus from attending any other conferences to lay down the model for Baby Bathwater.
The genesis story is telling. At a large Boulder event that didn't align with their vision, they rescued their group by chartering a van and hosting them at a small hotel restaurant in a mining town outside Boulder for the weekend. The response was electric—attendees loved the curated people, the paleo food, the vibe. They said: "We want to do more of this." That weekend became the blueprint.
What started as community investment evolved into a structured event. Hollis negotiated early with Elliott (the Powder Mountain/Summit Series team) to secure favorable rates for hosting multiple events annually. This gave them a premium "canvas to paint on"—crucial for the luxury positioning but also a significant cost center.
Their first attendees came directly from their existing network of entrepreneurs and internet marketers they'd worked with for over a decade. Word-of-mouth did the heavy lifting. By their second official event at Powder Mountain in Utah, they had 110 attendees. Within one event cycle, they built a waiting list of 200 people—all of whom had been exposed to the event in person at least once.
The core insight: "People are the product." They ruthlessly curated attendees, ensuring everyone shared common threads—whether bootstrapped, fully funded, or something in between. They didn't chase attendance numbers; they prioritized fit. This meant turning people away, even repeat attendees who didn't engage. Michael Lubbidge developed a reputation for direct conversations: "Hey, I see you sitting on your laptop the whole time. You paid to be here. Jump in the game."
They also discovered a formula: always maintain 50% returning attendees and 50% new people to keep conversations fresh and community commitment strong. They reduced capacity from 110 to 100 to maintain intimacy. Speakers pay to attend, just like everyone else—flipping the traditional conference model.
Their second event generated approximately $330,000 in conservative topline revenue (110 people × average $3,000). But profit, in their own words, "doesn't really even exist." Everything is reinvested into the next event and community building. They're dedicated to this for two years before expecting lifestyle income.
Hollis and Michael are now exploring backend revenue opportunities so they can eventually host events without charging, maintaining even higher quality standards. Their vision: a self-sustaining community of 100 hand-picked people rotating with new talent, powered by derivative revenue streams rather than ticket sales. They're not building a business to maximize cash flow; they're building infrastructure for a community that happens to generate significant revenue as a byproduct.
- •They solved their own acute problem—mediocre networking conferences—which meant they understood the customer pain deeply and could articulate the solution with conviction.
- •By leveraging 13 years of existing relationships from previous ventures, they had a warm audience ready to validate the concept before building at scale, eliminating cold-start customer acquisition risk.
- •Their ruthless curation of attendees transformed the event into a self-perpetuating word-of-mouth engine because participants became invested in protecting the community's exclusivity and quality.
- •They flipped the traditional conference economics by treating attendees as the core product and speakers as paid participants, which aligned incentives toward genuine interaction rather than stage performance.
- •By maintaining a 50/50 mix of returning and new attendees while turning people away, they created scarcity and social proof that made attendance more desirable and reduced acquisition costs.
- 1.Identify a specific, recurring problem you personally experienced in an industry where you have deep relationships, then design the solution you wish had existed rather than incrementally improving existing competitors.
- 2.Launch your first version by hosting a small, curated experience for your existing network in a non-traditional venue, then measure enthusiasm through unsolicited requests to repeat the experience before building formal infrastructure.
- 3.Establish a clear attendee profile and actively reject people who don't fit—even paying customers—because community cohesion and conversation quality directly drive word-of-mouth growth and reduce marketing costs.
- 4.Implement a fixed ratio of returning to new participants (e.g., 50/50) and reduce total capacity if necessary to maintain intimacy, which creates scarcity that attracts higher-intent customers.
- 5.Secure favorable long-term venue partnerships early through personal negotiation, allowing you to invest all revenue into experience quality and community rather than venue costs.
Similar Companies
Zoom
$12.0M/moZoom is a freemium SaaS video conferencing platform founded by Eric Yuan in July 2011 after he left Cisco to build a next-generation collaboration solution. The company has grown to 850,000+ paying customers across individual, SMB, and enterprise segments, generating over $12M in monthly recurring revenue with approximately 100% year-over-year growth. Rather than focusing on customer stickiness or aggressive growth targets, Zoom emphasizes customer happiness and organic word-of-mouth acquisition, which has proven highly effective in driving viral adoption.
Plunge
$10.0M/moPlunge is a hardware company that manufactures and sells at-home cold plunge devices. Founded in 2020 by Ryan Duey and Michael after their brick-and-mortar float therapy and sauna businesses were impacted by COVID, the company grew from $270k in first-year revenue to $120M+ ARR in four years. Their success is driven by influencer gifting, organic word-of-mouth, and highly efficient paid advertising (7-10x ROAS on Facebook and Google).
Active Campaign
$4.2M/moActive Campaign started in 2003 as an on-premise email marketing solution built by Jason Vanderboom to fund his fine arts degree. After 10 years and 8 employees generating a couple million in revenue, he transitioned to a SaaS model starting at $9/month. The company now has over 60,000 customers generating over $50 million annually and employs 330 people, growing primarily through organic adoption, partnerships, and focus on the SMB market despite pressure to move upmarket.
NutriSense
$3.3M/moNutriSense is a direct-to-consumer metabolic health platform that pairs continuous glucose monitoring devices with proprietary software analytics and dietitian coaching. Launched in September 2019 with pre-sales in keto and Oura Ring Facebook groups, the company grew from under $1M MRR a year ago to $3.3M MRR today (3x growth), with 15,000-16,000 active paying customers and 170 employees. The business has raised $32M in funding across multiple rounds since a $250K seed in early 2020.
Batch Products
$2.5M/moBatch Products is a bootstrapped SaaS company founded in 2018 by three co-founders (Evo Dragunov and two partners) that provides five separate data and lead generation platforms for real estate professionals and other industries. Starting with Facebook group outreach and affiliate marketing, they grew to 18,000 customers generating $2.5M in monthly revenue ($30M ARR projected for 2021) with 57% profit margins, all while maintaining 100% ownership and adding 100 employees in six months during 2020.