In today’s episode, Melissa sits down for a (virtual) drink with Justin Welsh, Founder of The Saturday Solopreneur. After Justin pours his coffee and Melissa her soda water, Justin shares about himself and his career. He is a solopreneur currently building a diversified portfolio of one person businesses. Prior to this, he spent 10 years in tech as the VP of sales and CRO for PatientPop. He experienced a massive burnout in 2018 which led him to completely redesign his life. He has spent the last few years designing his life intentionally, which he is able to achieve by running his own businesses and maintaining life/work balance.
When Justin stepped down from his job in 2019, he had no plan on what to do next. He began writing about his own experiences in the tech industry and eventually built up an audience of 20,000 people. From there, he created his own business advising SaaS companies, a role much different that what he does now. He reached a point in which he felt another burnout coming on and stumbled on to the philosophy about lifestyle design. Justin defines an intentional life as doing what he wants, when he wants and with whom he wants, but doing very little things he does not want to do. One of the greatest things about being a solopreneur, he reveals, is that you have leverage in how you spend your time.
Next, Justin reveals his current biggest struggles and how he is working to overcome them. Justin reminds listeners that we all have the ability to craft our own intentional lives. Though some of us may be further ahead than others, it’s important to recognize that we are all winging it. A pivotal moment in Justin’s career was when he moved from a service-only business to a service and product business. Recognizing that the best thing he could do was sell his knowledge, he began to build up online courses. He went from having just one online course to having two online courses, a private community, online sponsorships , coaching packages, affiliate deals and subscription emails.Rather than having just one income stream, he now has 5-6. He offers encouragement for anyone listening to break free of their current 9-5 job and take control of their lives.
Then, Justin offers an overview of the life work balance he has crafted for himself. His weekly schedule varies depending on the day, but mostly focuses on content creation. The biggest lesson he has learned is not to create urgency when there is none. His ultimate answer is to be thoughtful about the hours you are putting in each day and how they may or may not be impacting other areas of your life. He also reveals his passion for writing and what makes for a good piece of online content. Justin’s online courses include the LinkedIn Platform and The Content Operating System. Using the systems he has created, a content creator will never fail to produce new content for their audience. Online content, he shares, fits into different peoples lives in different ways. He believes that people will soon begin to see through online copycats and the people who can stand out with a unique voice will rise to the top. The deepest relationships will win in the end.
Before signing off, Justin offers his best advice for anyone listening who is ready to begin their own journey towards self employment and intentional life design. The very first thing to do is to have a non-obvious approach to solving a very obvious problem in order to garner attention. The best way to get attention for that is to show people they can trust in your expertise. Finally, he leaves listeners with words of wisdom: action solves most problems.
0:55 - Welcome to this episode, in which host Melissa interviews Justin Welsh.
3:03 - Who is Justin and what does he do?
8:43 - What does an intentional lifestyle mean for Justin?
11:40 - Justin’s current struggles and how he is overcoming them.
12:95 - Advice for creating your own intentional life design.
16:18 - The phases of Justin’s journey thus far.
24:04 - Justin’s life work balance.
28:45 - An overview of Justin’s course offerings.
31:39 - How does online content fit into our daily lives?
37:06 - Advice for anyone ready to begin the journey to self employment.
43:10 - Justin’s final words of wisdom.
Welcome to the ProfitLed podcast, where we discover proven growth strategies for bootstrapped entrepreneurs from the people who have done it before to help you accelerate your business! The ProfitLed podcast is brought to you by eWebinar, the leading automated webinar tool, and hosted by eWebinar Cofounder and CEO, Melissa Kwan.
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eWebinar, webinar, SAaaS, founders, bootstrapped founder, startups, engaging content, solopreneurship, the Saturday Solopreneur, diversified portfolio, one person businesses, social media, technology, life work balance, career pivot, lifestyle design, startup, discipline, content creation, sales, online content, writing, community engagement, online engagement, online community