254 - Real-time FINAL launch update (3 of 3, Jason only)

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an unboring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show. Hello to all the nosy nellies out there. For those of you who have been on the edge of your seat waiting for this final recap episode, it's not the final, it's the last update episode while our launch is still going. I was probably as excited to record this as you were to hear it. Although if those of you who have been checking the live sales launch tracker that we created, I have heard some funny little anecdotes and people are like, oh, I was at the beach this weekend and like, I checked it like three times while I was at the beach. It's not even my launch. Like, it's not even my product. And someone said that when they were dropping their kid off at school, they were just like refreshing it while they were sitting in like the pickup line. I just thought that was amazing. So, just so fun to hear that people also love tracking along these launches as much as we do. 

[00:01:25] Okay, so as you can hear, it's just me. Caroline is, I, I want to say, doing better. For, for those of you who have not gotten caught up, she had a death in the family. Unfortunately, her dad passed away last week. So it has been a very, very tough week for her. Not to mention she's seven months pregnant. We had a couple appointments. Since I last left you, our car's battery died. We have an electric car and it's the main battery, not like the battery that just like starts the car, but like the important battery. So we had to deal with that. And then Caroline's uncle passed away. So it was really just a incredibly bad week for us last week. Obviously there is so much stuff going on. I'm not going to get into all that. We've already, all of us collectively been dealing with a lot. So. But I just wanted to share with you why Caroline wasn't here. So that's why. But I am, I'm bringing a little bit of energy. It is, as of right now, it's 8 o' clock PM for me here in Portugal and we have, as of recording this, 12 hours and like 4 minutes left in the launch, which is fun to watch that little countdown timer go. 

[00:02:37] So let me just go ahead and get into this final recap episode here and this final real time sales update. I keep saying recap. This is not the recap. The recap will come later on. We'll do a full breakdown for you all so you get to hear everything, all the things we did, um, and all the stuff that kind of like got this launched to where it is. 

[00:02:57] But I want to share just a very quick story because I was walking up the stairs in our house to record this episode. And as I was walking up the stairs, I had this memory that like, shot to the the forefront of my brain. I don't even know if that's where memories come from, the back to the front. It doesn't matter. Get to the point. 

[00:03:17] The point is, 10 years ago, I started what basically became WAIM Unlimited with this project called BuyMyFuture. Some of you listening to this actually purchased BuyMyFuture, which is really cool. You've been around our world for 10 years, which is amazing and we so appreciate that. Some of you have no idea what that is. But it was essentially just a bundle of courses and a couple software products I had back in 2015 sold for $1,000. And I had never seen anybody do anything like this before. And again, this is 2015. So like bundling was really just like barely even getting started. 

[00:03:52] And I did a lot of work for this project. I did a 60 day journal on medium.com that also dates when this was going on. And I basically shared like the build up to it. I gave it a code name Project. I didn't say what the project was for anybody listening, if you remember what that project name was, shout out to you. And then did the actual launch. It was a two week launch for BuyMyFuture and it ended up doing 178 sales. 

[00:04:20] So it was $178,000 launch. That was the biggest launch I had ever done for any product ever at that time. And it was just, it was such a fun project. I mean, from start to finish. I remember the idea, the day I had the idea in a house that we were renting with, with two friends, two entrepreneurial friends. And I told my buddy Clay over coffee, like this idea that I had, and he was like, yeah, I think there's something really interesting here. 

[00:04:44] But then it took like, you know, 60 days of daily kind of like work leading up to it. But even then there was more time before that. But the reason I bring it up is because 10 years later, we're now closing the doors on our final launch of WAIM Unlimited, which may be the final time we ever sell, like, a bundle thing like this where it's like all of the stuff that we've ever created in the past, all the things we're creating in the future. 

[00:05:10] And it just. It felt very interesting to me that it was almost exactly 10 years to the day when I had the idea for BuyMyFuture. So, you know, our brains work in very mysterious ways, and it's very cool. 

[00:05:22] Also, just for funsies, as of recording this, I will get to the total sales number, but spoiler alert, we're only $20,000 off of that initial BuyMyFuture launch revenue as it sits right now. Could be very interesting if it ends up finishing out close to the same number or the exact number. That would be absolutely ridiculous. 

[00:05:47] Okay, so let's get just a couple bullets here of things that I wanted to share with you, and I lost my place here. Okay. There are my notes as I was looking for other things. So last week, when I left you on the real time update number two, we had 47 sales at that time. That was Thursday of last week. And since then, these are the things that have happened in the launch. 

[00:06:13] So reels posting on Instagram slowed down. I got a good, like, cadence going of getting a couple posted, but then I recorded a couple. Then our car thing happened, then another death in the family, and then it was just, like... It was just too much. And I was like, okay, well, Instagram is not a thing that we see that converts very well to sales anyway. So I'm going to pivot over to doing stories, because stories I can do in... I mean, call it like 45 minutes for one 15 slide story that's just a bunch of photos of me in different poses in some area of our house. That's the way that I have come back to Instagram and done stories, because it's just really, like, easy for my brain to think through fun things to do with those, and I don't have to, like, overthink it. I don't know if they're even that effective, but it's like I'm checking the box of doing Instagram marketing, if you will. 

[00:07:01] So there were two more reels that I actually filmed, and I started editing one, and I was like, this isn't really good. Like, I'm not even really enjoying it. And then the second one I kind of liked, but, like, I just didn't have the time and so I, so I gave up on it. 

[00:07:14] So I did three total Instagram stories since that time and obviously these just go up for 24 hours and go away. I took the last reel that had not been posted as a YouTube short, posted it as a YouTube short. And for those of you who saw the Instagram reels or the YouTube shorts, it was the nursery one that I recorded. That one did really well on Instagram to start. I think as of recording this, it has like 3, 000 views for us. It did well for us. Like I, you know, um, you know, it's not, I'm not saying it went viral. I'm just saying it got some views.

[00:07:45] Um, on YouTube it got like 500 views. Like it didn't go anywhere. And other ones, like, I think the sourdough one that I did got like three times those views. Um, so just, you know, it's. It's very impossible to know when something does well on one platform. Like why doesn't it do well on another platform with similar type of content consumption? You just never know. But I posted on there and then that basically kind of ended the, the YouTube journey. When we do the full recap episode, I'll share... We, we paid to boost or promote I guess is what it's called in YouTube some views to our longer form videos. We didn't do it for the short form videos and I'll share what that was like. It wasn't that much money and I didn't have big, big expectations. But there was some weirdness with the numbers that they said on like website clicks. Like they said there were like 2,000 website clicks. There were not. So I don't know. I'll follow up with that when we do the final recap of the launch. 

[00:08:37] Okay. Also posted two more podcast episodes. So I did the solo episode just like content episode last Thursday and then I did the real time update episode as well. So those were done. And then the last bit of emails. So there were emails that went out over this weekend and I actually got like a random burr in my butt on... I think it was Friday. Maybe it was Saturday actually where... I think it was Friday. Sorry, I'm going back and forth in my mind but I... we usually every launch did an unboring roadmap map preview. That's like our main thing that's in WAIM that has for the past couple years been like the focus that we want people to go through. And be just being totally honest, it has gotten so big because we have nearly 70 coaching sessions now that it's really like, it's kind of overwhelming. It's almost defeating the purpose of it being a quote unquote roadmap because it's like too big. 

[00:09:31] And so I wanted something that felt a little bit smaller and a little bit easier and a little bit more digestible. Uh, so I, I put together... You're basically only gonna be able to see this if you listen to this podcast episode right away. A little coaching session search, but kind of set up as a, like, just a question, like, what are you struggling with right now in your business? And there's just a search field and then there's some prompts if you can't think of anything to search. And then it'll show you coaching sessions and it'll actually let you watch the videos. 

[00:09:59] So the idea was I turned, you know, the free preview of our roadmap into this free preview tool and just vibe coded it all through Lovable. And it took in total five hours between Caroline spending time getting like all the CSV stuff together and actually doing a little bit of initial work on it. And then I tinkered, you know, on the UX and the UI for like, you know, three hours.

[00:10:20] But I think things like that are actually like, really exciting and fun to work on. And it's so much more interesting to me than, than some of the other stuff that we put together before in different enrollments. So I really, I think if you, if you take away anything from, like, these recent podcast episodes that we've been doing, please just give Lovable a try. Uh, I'll put our affiliate link down below.

[00:10:41] If you're, if you're someone who likes clicking other people's links like we do, um, it's just like, let your ideas run wild. Just like start trying to make something. And I'm just so happy that we can bring these ideas to life in like five hours. Like, there's no way I could have found a developer to build this thing that we built this little preview tool.

[00:10:57] And I don't think I've said what the URL is. It's preview.waim.co. The link will be in the show notes. And again, that'll only be up for about 12 more hours and then it's going to go down. So if you listen to this podcast episode, literally after the next 12 hours, you won't see it. 

[00:11:10] But it was just a fun thing to put together and it was really easy. Also, if you're a WAIMer listening to this, you will still have access to that and you'll get a link in our Slack community with where you can find it. But also you have many other ways to search for our coaching session so it's not maybe as exciting to you. 

[00:11:26] Okay, so that I put together, emailed that out over the weekend and and then we had today we have two final emails that went out. So we have the morning email which is kind of like hey, this is your last call. And then we have the evening email which is like, hey, no seriously, this is the final call. This is the last time you're ever going to be able to join. And so that's where we're at. 

[00:11:47] Okay, so I left you out on a limb a little bit because I told you that last week when I recorded our real time update, we were at 47 total sales. And then today as of recording this right now, I just did a refresh of our little sales tracker. We are at 79 total sales and that means we hit our high goal which is fantastic. 

[00:12:08] The like relief that I think we feel knowing that we're not going to be focusing much on revenue for the rest of this year, it really sets us up to not have to think that much about revenue at all for the rest of this year. So that when we start 2026 and we have new ideas we want to chase down, we, we have a buffer that we can kind of use as our, our own little like funding source essentially to chase down new ideas and new things. 

[00:12:34] So very excited about that. So appreciative of all the new folks who joined. Very appreciative of all of our WAIM members who helped get new folks in the door. That's our favorite way to have people join because we know that they're basically like vetted people. It's, it's really the best customer we've found is word of mouth customers.

[00:12:53] And then we are... That 79 number, we are 66% of the way to our stretch goal. We will not get there. Just spoiler alert, there's 12 hours left in the launch. It's not going to happen. But yeah, I, I feel really good about where we ended up. I, I think amidst all of the sadness and the grief that we have felt in the past week and it just feels like life is piling on top of our shoulders and you know, the only kind of like... not the only but the main happiness that we keep coming back to is, you know, we have this seven month old baby that's gonna come very soon in our lives and will disrupt our lives in ways we've never seen coming. But everything is healthy and happy and normal there. And that's kind of what we keep just focusing on and thinking about through these tough times.

[00:13:37] And I would be lying to you if I said that having a launch that hits your high goal doesn't also help you get through those times. There's been so many conversations we've had in the past week, like and a half now of should we stop the launch between what's going on in the world, between two deaths in our family, between our, you know, just car shitting the bed and just overall just feeling like, ah, there's just so much right now to try and keep up with everything. 

[00:14:03] But I think the distraction has actually been really helpful. And honestly, reading through the welcome surveys, like, lights me up, you know, every day, every time one comes through. And I've read every single one, and it's just been awesome to read through those things. So, yes, very appreciative. 

[00:14:19] Okay, so 79 total sales is where we're at. Our monthly recurring revenue has grown back up to $26,000 in recurring revenue with this launch. We had a big launch at the end of 2021, and that was the biggest launch we'd ever had. It was 143 people joined. It was incredible. But basically all of those plans ended about a month or two ago because that was, like, the 20 months from there. 

[00:14:46] So it's been a very sizable drop of seeing all those plans kind of end. And so our monthly recurring revenue dipped way back down lower than it's been in quite a long time. And so this launch we knew would need to recover some of that, and it did. 

[00:15:01] And so we're really happy that that kind of plan worked out and will take us into the next chapter. 

[00:15:06] Okay, the last thing I wanted to share, I... I sent Carol a message as I came up here to record, and I said, hey, okay, we're at 79 sales. We have 12 hours left. We always know that, especially with, like, the time zones and things, we're gonna go to bed and we're gonna wake up and there's gonna be a handful of sales waiting for us. 

[00:15:21] And then inevitably, after the cart is closed, we're gonna have, like, two or three people who email us and say, like, oh, my daughter was sick. I was, you know, I was in the hospital. I had to do the thing. Or, like, my... I had to take care of my parent. Or, like, you know, my phone was swallowed by a whale, and I, I couldn't buy. 

[00:15:37] And so there's like a couple of people that will straggle in. So we will... I'm, I'm fairly certain we will not end at 79. So Carol's guess is we will finish at 85. My guess is that we will end at 90. And as I was recording this episode with you 16 minutes ago, sorry, when I first started this, I read you that number of 178,000 for the BuyMyFuture first launch.

[00:16:02] If we hit my goal of 109 or of 90 sales, that will be 180,000 in total revenue. Unrealized, but total revenue. Almost identical. How crazy is that? Like, those little things just blow my mind. So we'll see how close we get to it. Either way, I think we're going to be reasonably close, which is just a fun way to kind of like, bookend this entrepreneurial chapter of our lives. And yeah, if you want to leave a guess, if you listen to this on Spotify, feel free to leave your guess of the final sales number in the next 12 hours, because if you guess once it's just over, then you're going to know. 

[00:16:34] But feel free to leave a guess as a comment on Spotify. It would be fun to read some of those through. All right, it's now after 8 o' clock. I want to go watch some Ryan Trahan on YouTube. He's got a super fun 50 Airbnbs in 50 days, which really makes me nostalgic for my previous IWearYourShirt journey. 

[00:16:51] But, yeah, we'll... we'll catch you back on the podcast. We may not record this upcoming week just to, like, fully recover from everything that we've been through, but we will be back with a full recap of this launch and maybe give you some kind of heads up on what the schedule is going to look like for the next couple months, because we are getting close to Baby Zook arriving. 

[00:17:11] Alrighty. That is it. A big, huge thank you from the bottom of our hearts if you've sent loving messages and condolences and just so many people have reached out to us and we have been really appreciative of those messages. 

[00:17:23] Okay, that's it. Next time you hear our episode or a podcast episode from us, Carol will be back and we can be in your earballs again. Okay, bye.