Cubicle to CEO

Can puzzles be an effective marketing strategy? This CEO thinks so. Today’s case study takes us behind the scenes of a creative partnership between country music star Kacey Musgraves and a startup jigsaw puzzle company that led to a 97X increase in social reach for the brand. Here to share how she uses puzzles as a marketing platform for audience expansion is Kaylin Marcotte, founder and CEO of Jiggy, a modern, elevated jigsaw puzzle brand that supports emerging female artists around the world. Jiggy has been featured on Shark Tank, Oprah’s Favorite Things and won over many celebrity fans. You’ll walk away with new ideas for how you can expand your customer base by reaching new audiences in the most unexpected places. Connect with Kaylin: https://jiggypuzzles.com/ Instagram @jiggypuzzles  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jiggypuzzles TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jiggypuzzles If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you get others to invest in you when you don’t have proof of success yet? Doone Roisin joins us for today’s case study to share her approach to the classic chicken or the egg dilemma, detailing how she landed her first $25,000 podcast sponsorship for her then-newly launched show, Female Startup Club, now an internationally acclaimed podcast. Doone walks us through the brand deal from pitch to payout, so you can apply her best negotiation tips to your next partnership opportunity. Doone is also the author of best-selling book “Your Hype Girl” and creator of Majic, providing mentorship & community for female founders.Connect with Doone: www.femalestartupclub.com Check out Majic! http://majic.femalestartupclub.com/ IG: @femalestartupclub IG: @dooneroisin TikTok: @dooneroisin If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Never underestimate the power of a small but mighty email list. If you want to make more money selling other people’s offers to your audience, buckle up for a masterclass from a legend in affiliate email marketing, Laura Belgray. Laura is the founder of Talking Shrimp, co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo, and author of the much anticipated 2023 book release, Tough Titties. Laura is a copywriting expert who helps entrepreneurs find the perfect words to express and sell what they do in a way that gets them paid to be themselves. In today’s case study, Laura gives us a play by play of her emails that shot her to #1 affiliate on the leaderboard AND earned her six figures in commissions back when she had 6K email subscribers, beating out hundreds of affiliates with larger lists and more experience. What to send, when, and how often are all revealed in this episode.Connect with Laura: https://talkingshrimp.com/ceo Pre-Order 'Tough Titties' on Amazon --> https://amzn.to/3XPIlgH If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to a Behind the Business episode, where we get to sit down and share what has been going on behind the scenes as we are building our business! For this particular episode, we actually asked you, our audience, what you wanted the conversation to be about, and 80% of you chose to hear about Ellen’s favorite content, books, and podcasts right now. There has been a drastic shift in the kind of content she has been consuming lately, and we can’t wait for you to hear what it is and why. Press play to jump into her whole list of favorites!Ellen's RecommendationsPodcastsPodcast Advertising Playbook by Heather Osgood: https://www.podcastadvertisingplaybook.com/The Eventive Entrepreneurs by Sarah Brush: https://eventivebrush.com/eventive-entrepreneur-podcast/eventive-entrepreneur-podcastThe Crazy Ones by Alex Lieberman, Sophia Amoruso + Jessie Pujji: https://foundersjournal.morningbrew.com/introducing-the-crazy-ones/Back to the Beach by Kristin Cavalarri + Stephen Colletti: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/back-to-the-beach-with-kristin-and-stephen/id1630490097Creators@salarytransparentstreet: https://www.tiktok.com/@salarytransparentstreet@codiesanchez: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez/?hl=en@thecampaigngirl: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecampaigngirlNewslettersContrarian Thinking: https://sparklp.co/f6a9729d/Leader's Lens: https://workweek.com/brand/leaders-lens/Books'We Were Dreamers' by Simu Liu: https://amzn.to/3H19iI6'Born To Shine' by Kendra Scott: https://amzn.to/3Vo0RuX'Longshot' by Zack Graumann: https://amzn.to/3VKlKQCIf you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you bring your network together for experiences that get everyone talking about your brand and organically sharing your content to their networks? Today’s case study reveals how Zibby Owens - author, podcaster, and founder of Zibby Media - created brand buzz in a creative way by hosting book fairs in her own home. These book fairs generated $25,000 worth of sales in just 4 afternoons and priceless connections that continue to pay off. Zibby walks us through the whole process, from ideation to execution, and challenges you to think outside the norms of your own industry to bring your community together. Named NYC’s “most powerful book-fluencer” by Vulture and a regular contributor to “Good Morning America”, you can tap into more Zibby on her podcast, “Moms don’t have time to read books” and in her memoir: “Bookends: a memoir of love, loss, and literature.”Connect with Zibby: www.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/moms-dont-have-time-to-read-books/id1366633318 www.zibbymag.com www.zibbybooks.com www.zibbyaudio.com www.zibbyowens.com If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love a scrappy startup story, today’s case study is a true standout. I’m joined by Daina Trout, co-founder and Chief Mission Officer of Health-Ade, the fastest-selling Kombucha brand in America, currently carried in 60K stores across the country and doing an impressive $250 million in retail sales annually. Far from an overnight success story though, we’re taking a trip down memory lane to the brand’s early days in 2013, when they were quickly running out of money and only carried in 10 stores. With the three co-founders already at max capacity trying to keep the business alive and no funds available to hire traditional sales reps, Daina turned to Craigslist to recruit commission-based, independent sales reps to hit the pavement and open new accounts on their behalf. In just 2 weeks, Health-Ade’s products exploded into 300 stores. Daina gives us her full playbook today for exactly how she incentivized total strangers to sell her products with no guaranteed pay, the training process, compensation plan, and lessons learned from being in the field interacting with customers. Press play to apply her scrappy sales strategy to your own business! Connect with Daina: https://health-ade.com/ https://www.instagram.com/healthade/ https://www.instagram.com/dainatrout/ If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re a long-time fan of Shark Tank, you know the iconic line “and for those reasons, I’m out” when a Shark bows out of a potential deal. It’s rare however, that the entrepreneur seeking an investment actually turns down a Shark, but that’s exactly what today’s guest did. Kim Lewis is the CEO and co-founder of haircare brand CurlMix, appearing on Season 10 of Shark Tank with her co-founder and husband and ultimately rejecting Robert Herjavec’s offer of $400,000 for 20% of her business. Despite not landing a deal, CurlMix has since done $20 million in lifetime sales and successfully raised funds by leaning on their own community.In today’s case study, Kim gives us the unique launch strategy behind her equity crowdfunding campaign that raised $1 million in 4 hours - and ultimately $4.5 million from 8,000 everyday investors, many of whom are CurlMix customers. Borrow Kim's powerful approach to build momentum for your next launch.Connect with Kim: https://curlmix.com https://kimlewisceo.com https://www.instagram.com/curlmix/ If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another one of our quarterly income reports! If you’re a new listener of the show, we highly recommend going back and listening to our previous income report episodes to get a better understanding of why we started sharing this information 4 years ago as part of our advocacy for financial transparency. If you want to check out our previous reports, we’ve created a curated playlist for you here: https://ellenyin.com/incomereportIf you are a returning listener of these income reports, welcome back! We hope you use our audio diary as a resource to reflect, gain perspective, and better analyze your own numbers from the last 90 days.Check out these links:  Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport! Reverse engineer your $10K month with our roadmap: https://ellenyin.com/roadmap Take our community survey: https://ellenyin.com/survey If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the show today we have our first guest who has taken a company public. Mike Evans founded GrubHub in his spare bedroom and grew it into a multi-billion-dollar household name. Today’s case study looks at how GrubHub grew their revenue by 300% in one week after switching from a subscription based model to a transactional model, and how you can evaluate which revenue model would create more value in your own business and attract repeat customers. Since leaving GrubHub post-IPO in 2014, Mike more recently founded Fixer.com, an on-demand handyperson B-corp that trains its W-2 employees from scratch. For more insights from Mike, order his book, Hangry, releasing this November on Audible and wherever books are sold. Connect with Mike: Get Mike's new book Hangry: A Startup Journey --> https://ellenyin.com/hangry https://mikeevans.com/ https://fixer.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/authormikeevans/ https://www.facebook.com/mevans314159/ https://www.instagram.com/m_evans314/ https://twitter.com/m_evans If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know we're obsessed with leveraging other people’s audiences to GET VISIBLE and increase your sales, and today’s guest has mastered this practice. Kelly Mosser, host of the Aligned Success Show, joins us to unpack how her signature offer jumped from $24K in revenue in Q2 to $52K in Q3 simply by guesting on other people’s podcasts with intention. So it’s not just about being interviewed on someone else’s show, but what you do before, during, and after the episode airs that really matters. This case study details exactly how to set up your own strategic podcast tour to 4x the number of ideal clients you’re reaching every week (for free!), so you too can double the revenue for your next launch with ease. What we love about Kelly’s background is that she’s a business strategist with a decade of experience helping businesses of all sizes make bank - from Fortune 500 powerhouses, to mid-size startups, and scrappy solopreneuers. No matter where you fit in that spectrum, this case study is applicable to you.To help you get on more podcast shows so you can implement Kelly’s podcast tour strategy, go to ellenyin.com/perfectpodcastpitch to borrow our plug + play pitch template proven to get your pitch emails actually read AND responded to. Connect with Kelly: http://kellymosser.com Get $50 off Kelly's 6-week course, Hell Yes Guest: https://ellenyin.com/kelly https://www.instagram.com/kelly.mosser/ If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices