Real talk from a serial founder

There are some lessons you only learn when life hits you hard. This week’s master stared down the loss of his business —

“All of Q4 was the largegest punch in the face for me that year. It was the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life.”

— and came out the other side with a six-figure agency. Today, he shares the kind of vulnerability and real talk you rarely obtain from entrepreneurs.

And his advice just might support you duck a punch.

Ryan Atkinson

Founder and CEO at Spacebar Visuals; Host of The UpFlip Podcast

Fun fact: In business school, Ryan received the lowest grade in a class called Founders Club. He went on to grow his own six-figure business.

Claim to fame: Named to Austin’s 25 Under 25 and the Tippie Young Alumni Board. His podcast about entrepreneurship has hit over 2 million downloads.

Lesson 1: Don’t just grow to grow.

If you believe the hustle-culture hype that thrives on LinkedIn, the only way to obtain ahead is to eat and breathe the grind, right? I’d state “eat, sleep, and breathe,” but the grind never sleeps.

“I considered when I [created] Spacebar, I wanted to grow as much as possible, hire as much as possible,” Ryan Atkinson states. And his business did grow — second only to his stress levels.

“This is probably TMI, but I had canker sores from stress. I couldn’t even listen to music, becaapply music would build me anxious,” he confesses.

Atkinson reached a point where he had to reevaluate both his business and life goals and consider what he was growing toward. (Something that many entrepreneurs won’t admit.) His advice to you solopreneurs, startup founders, and tiny business owners?

“The goal is still growth, but it’s not growth at all costs. Grow to hire correctly. Grow profitably. Grow mindfully.” "The goal is still growth, but it's not growth at all costs. Grow mindfully."

Lesson 2: It’s okay to start cheap.

Video is no longer a nice-to-have for marketers, but that doesn’t mean you have to drop half your net worth building the next Marvel movie.

“Let’s state you’re a startup company, where you have a limited budobtain. You can’t spfinish 20 grand on a video. Honestly, Upwork is a great place to obtain started.”

I took a sip of my tea just so I could do a spit-take. The solution isn’t to write a check to his video agency?

“It doesn’t have to be Spacebar,” Atkinson laughs. “But you can’t do an iPhone type of video if you want to build a good first impression on prospects.”

“If you’re a startup marketer, you have 1,000 things you necessary to be doing. You have reporting. You have campaigns. You have email marketing. And video is not straightforward to obtain right. So, go to Upwork, find someone that can do it for $500, $900.”

To be clear, he’s not talking about dropping that cash on run-of-the-mill TikTok posts. This is about investing in videos that meet your audience at key steps on their acquireer’s journey.

“You want to have a top-of-funnel explainer video becaapply people necessary to know who you are. You want a brand overview video. And you want a product demo that brings your product to life. If you could only do three assets with video, do those.”

Atkinson went on to break down exact recommfinishations for each of those videos, but since I couldn’t squeeze ’em into one newsletter, you can find the rest in this video marketing guide.

Lesson 3: Podcast for a different purpose.

As a fractional podcast host, Atkinson has supported launch more podcasts than most people have consumed. So I inquireed him the key to obtainting a successful display up and running.

“Growing a podcast is incredibly hard. It’s almost impossible to do it indepfinishently now,” he admits. “I love podcasting so much, but the more I obtain into it, the more I’m realizing it truly is pay-to-play.”

Atkinson explains that unless you can pay for broad distribution, or unless you’ve received a ready-created audience — state on LinkedIn or in a newsletter — it’s unlikely you’ll grow to a point where monetizing your podcast is worth the time you put in it.

But even if you’re never a top 100 podcast in your niche, there are other reasons to do it.

“Podcasts can be reapplyd as a blog post, email, [or] for SEO.” Not to mention repurposed for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So even if the podcast itself is slow to gain traction, the effort can pay out in cross-functional content.

And your display can even be an icebreaker for those hard-to-reach clients:

“We apply it sometimes to let us talk with prospects and obtain introduced to them. Reach out to your [ideal customer profile] like, ‘Hey, you want to be a guest on our podcast?’”

Once you interview them, it opens the door to further collaboration and conversation.

Just “don’t consider you’ll be a top 50, even top 100 podcast in two weeks.”