E4: Our Business Model Was LEAKED & Sam Ovens Kills His $4 Million Dollar Mastermind
Jan 30, 2023
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Entrepreneur and business coach Sam Ovens discusses the closure of his $36,000 mastermind and AJ and Smart's leaked business model. They describe how AJ&Smart transformed their business model with a product ladder, targeting individuals through ads on social media. The podcast also covers selling strategies through live streams and free trainings.
AJ&Smart shifted their business model from a traditional agency to focus on design sprints, targeting big corporates and selling a single product, which increased profits.
AJ&Smart leveraged their existing audience and content to attract individuals who wanted to learn how to run design sprints, generating millions of dollars in revenue through a B2C sales and marketing funnel.
Deep dives
AJ and Smart's Business Model Evolution
AJ and Smart, a design and development agency, underwent two significant business model innovations. The first shift occurred after CEO Jonathan Courtney read the book 'Built to Sell,' which inspired him to make the business more sellable and sustainable without him. They transformed their value proposition from a traditional agency model to solving client challenges in just one week through design sprints. They also shifted their customer segments to focus on big corporates, becoming a trusted partner for design sprints. This partnership with Jake Knapp, the author of 'Sprint,' solidified their position as leaders in the design sprint space. They created extensive content, including YouTube videos and podcasts, to establish credibility and attract clients. This shift allowed them to move away from day-rate work and focus on selling a single product, design sprints. They increased the price and scaled delivery teams to generate higher profits.
Leveraging Superfans and Targeting Individuals
After running numerous design sprints, AJ and Smart recognized the demand for individuals who wanted to learn how to run their own design sprints. They conducted experiments and discovered an opportunity to offer a new value proposition: learning how to run a design sprint. Leveraging their existing channels and superfans they had cultivated through content creation, AJ and Smart targeted individuals through YouTube, blogs, and other channels. By providing valuable content, they built a dedicated following and attracted subscribers who were keen to learn how to run design sprints themselves.
Monetizing through Content and Product Ladders
AJ&Smart used their content as a secret weapon to attract viewers from different companies who wanted to learn and eventually turned them into paying customers. They created a product ladder by giving away free content like ebooks and webinars to gather email addresses, gradually offering more expensive products higher up the ladder. This approach successfully led to the sale of their design sprint master class course, generating millions of dollars in revenue. They also built a separate B2C sales and marketing funnel to find new customers and used ads to target individuals interested in design thinking. The ladder approach helped them establish a social community of superfans and capture increasing value from customers.
Business Model Evolution and Integration
AJ&Smart transitioned their customer segment from B2B to B2C by capitalizing on the demand for people wanting to learn to run design sprints. They leveraged their existing audience on YouTube and email lists but later expanded their reach by creating a B2C sales and marketing funnel. This involved promoting live stream trainings and using a value ladder approach to gradually increase the value of products and prices as customers moved up. The success of the B2C segment eventually led to B2B leads, showing how both sides of the business could thrive. They also highlighted the importance of keeping separate teams for each model while finding ways to integrate and bring leads from one team to the other.
