Founder Magazine

In his mid-20s, Nathan Chan searched for business magazines that would resonate with him—publications that dove deep into the real stories, failures, and processes of successful entrepreneurs. Finding nothing that matched his vision, he decided to build it himself. Founder Magazine launched in 2015 with a simple mission: interview world-changing entrepreneurs and showcase their journeys authentically. The decision proved prescient, as the publication quickly became a top 10 business and investing magazine in the App Store, eventually featuring cover interviews with high-profile figures like Richard Branson and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Nathan bootstrapped the operation with a lean, distributed team. He found his design team on Behance.net—designers based in India who became long-term partners. For publishing and distribution, he leveraged MagikCast, an off-the-shelf magazine platform. The magazine itself functioned as a high-quality, beautifully designed publication with features, interviews, and curated content. But Nathan never intended for the magazine alone to be the revenue driver. Instead, he viewed it as the entry point to a much larger ecosystem.

Starting in November 2014, Nathan simultaneously launched a weekly podcast alongside aggressive social media expansion. By 2016, Instagram became his most potent growth channel. He built the @FounderMagazine account from zero to 700,000 followers in just 16 months through a relentless posting schedule: 5-10 posts per day. He accomplished this by hiring Angela, a virtual assistant in the Philippines, to handle daytime posting while he covered morning and evening slots, ensuring 24/7 coverage across time zones. The strategy worked spectacularly: each lead magnet posted on Instagram converted 200-500 subscribers daily, with his most optimized landing pages converting at 65%. Within a few years, his email list grew to 210,000 subscribers, with projections to reach 500,000 by year-end.

Instagram's organic growth proved far more valuable than any paid channel. Nathan leveraged partnerships—"shout for shout" arrangements with complementary accounts—to amplify reach. He experimented with recycling high-performing posts from months prior, deleting originals and reposting them to audiences unfamiliar with the content. On the monetization side, he discovered that meta content performed best: an Instagram course teaching followers "how to get 100,000 likes on Instagram" became a significant revenue generator. He launched Founders Club, a membership site with 400 paying beta members, positioning it for a full launch. However, he remained realistic about the magazine's revenue ceiling—it generated "multiple six figures" annually but would never be a multimillion-dollar product on its own. Sponsorship revenue proved minimal (less than $5,000 monthly), so he didn't chase it aggressively. The podcast, generating 70,000 downloads monthly (roughly 10,000 per weekly episode), served primarily as a trust-building tool rather than a direct revenue engine.

By 2016, Founder Magazine had become a multifaceted platform generating revenue from magazine subscriptions (under $1M annually), digital courses, and membership fees. The business model reflected Nathan's understanding that modern media companies fail when they rely solely on advertising or content sales. Instead, he built an integrated funnel: Instagram drove traffic, free content (magazine, podcast, blog posts) built authority and trust, and premium offerings (courses, memberships) monetized the audience. With 500,000+ app downloads and ambitions to build Founder into a "hundred million dollar company," Nathan represented a new breed of entrepreneur—one who combined content creation, community building, and product development into a sustainable, scalable business.