Screw the Nine to Five

Jill and Josh Stanton launched Screw the Nine to Five in April 2013—ironically, the same week they were getting married. "The year we were getting married, don't ever do that," Jill joked. "Things got really real, really fast." But they had the idea on their wedding week and ran with it. Before this venture, they had each built separate businesses: Jill ran a social media management agency while Josh built a software company. They later consolidated around an affiliate marketing business with 32 different websites testing various products. When they founded Screw the Nine to Five, they brought all these lessons together.

The core offer started as a one-time digital product but quickly evolved. "We quickly realized that we didn't love starting from square one each and every month," Jill explained. "We found it stressful." They shifted to a continuity model—a monthly membership priced at $69/month plus a $169 join fee. This alignment with their strengths mattered: "One of our strengths is growing a community," Jill said. They built the membership around what they called "the four pillars": strategy sessions in week one, hot seats group coaching in week two, U-Cruise local mastermind groups in week three (eventually scaling to 17-18 groups worldwide), and Q&A calls in week four.

They leveraged content marketing as their primary funnel. They published blog posts like "How to Create a Dangerously Effective Automated Sales Funnel," paired with lead magnets (like email swipes from their own funnels). This drove opt-ins to their email list, which grew to just over 16,000 subscribers by early 2016. Their Facebook group also became a major asset, reaching over 11,000 members. These audiences became their core acquisition channels.

They built a multi-layered revenue system called "the Octopus model"—inspired by James Schramko. The head of the octopus was the $69/month membership (361 paying members in March 2016). The tentacles were introductory "tripwire" offers: low-priced one-time courses ($19-$69) that funneled people into the core membership. In February 2016, these tripwires generated $6,107—about 25% of their total revenue alongside the $25,000 from core membership fees.

What didn't work: their podcast. They scaled it to 32,000 downloads per month across 144 episodes, eventually publishing three times per week. But Jill felt it was misaligned with their business model and burned them out. "Yes, it was entertaining," she said, "but we're also here to run a business." They killed it. "Weirdly enough, since we cut it, our business has grown in such a huge way." This reflected their philosophy: "It's either an FES or if it's an FNO. And if it's an FNO, you cut it."

By March 2016, they were generating approximately $31,000 in monthly recurring revenue from the membership and tripwire offers combined, with plans to launch their first live event—"Screw You Live" in San Diego (October 14-16, 2016) at $500/ticket, capped at 100 attendees. They had a lean team of four: Heather (part-time community manager), Amanda Bond (contractor ad strategist), Eric (full-time VA), and Lanny (full-time technical/billing support). Their email list showed exceptional engagement—37% open rate and 16% click-through rate, well above industry averages—a testament to the "rabid community" they'd built from day one.