How Brian Basel Built Audience Ops Before To 6-Figure Exit
Audience Ops helps online businesses grow their audience, educate customers, and earn more sales through deep customer research, educational email campaigns, and blog publishing.
Who is Brian Casel?π
Brian Casel is the founder and former owner of AudienceOps, a done-for-you content marketing service. Brian, a full-stack product designer and developer, began his career as a freelance web developer. He designed and developed websites for a variety of small businesses, organizations, and well-known national brands.
Before starting AudienceOps, he created Restaurant Engine, a website design solution tailored to the needs of restaurant websites. Currently, he is the founder and product designer at Instrumental Products, a product studio where he partners with SaaS companies, founders, and creators to bring new software products from concept to launch.
What problem does Audience Ops solve?π
The process of crafting content that resonates with their target audience can be both painstaking and costly.
How did Brian come up with the idea for Audience Ops?π
Inspired by Jesse Mechamβs talk at MicroConf Vegas, Brian, the founder of Audience Ops, conceptualized his company with the core belief that content marketing is about building assets, not tactics.
He identified that companies miss opportunities by focusing on superficial metrics such as word counts, keyword stuffing, and click-bait rather than deep customer research and email engagement.
Brian emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs and using email to maintain connections, ultimately building a valuable audience and gaining a competitive edge.
How did Brian build the initial version of Audience Ops?π
Brian began developing a new software product for Audience Ops, a significant investment for his self-funded company and in just six weeks, he transformed the idea into a validated concept with 14 pre-paid customers and over $3,000 in revenue, validating the idea. Upon validating the idea, he gained the confidence to proceed hire the developer who wrote the code.
He started the business with the productized, done-for-you content service first, which allowed him to grow recurring revenue and profit to a comfortable, sustainable level within 18 months.
What was the growth strategy for Audience Ops and how did they scale?π
Direct outreach: Brian's initial customer acquisition strategy involved direct outreach. He contacted friends to inform them of the product he was designing, and a couple of them expressed interest in his beta product.
Social media: He used Twitter Search and Facebook Groups to find people tweeting about "content calendar tools," and some people replied and were receptive!
What's the pricing strategy for Audience Ops?π
AudienceOps offers custom pricing with Bi-weekly articles starting at $1500/Month and Weekly articles starting at $2600/Month.
What were the biggest lessons learned from building Audience Ops?π
- Productized services... work
Pursuing the productized service model with Audience Ops resulted in 2 very important wins for me: First, it was certainly that βpath of least resistanceβ to growing a recurring revenue business that could (and did) run without myself in the day-to-day. On that front, it grew way faster than any SaaS could. Second, it most certainly resulted in a more βsellableβ business than just consulting or growing a big project-based agency. Sure, agencies get bought and sold often. β Brian Casel (Source)
- Nurturing your network helps.
Many people donβt see the value of building a network or an audience. Doing podcasts, writing newsletters, attending conferences, etc. β Brian Casel (Source)
Audience Ops Acquisition: How much did Audience Ops sell for and what was the acquisition price?π
Brian Casel sold Audience Ops in September 2021 to his buddy JD Graffam for a high six-figure deal.
Discover Similar Business Ideas Like Audience Opsπ
GrowthMentor, a platform connecting vetted growth mentors for one-on-one calls, founded by Fotis Panagiotakopoulos, has had over 2,500 mentorship calls booked to date and has seen success in using word of mouth, content marketing, and leveraging other people's networks as the primary drivers of customer acquisition.
This case study follows the journey of Darren Magarro, who started DSM, a full-service marketing and PR firm from his porch with just a laptop and IKEA furniture, and has since grown it to 18 employees with 334% growth since 2014, utilizing organic and paid digital media, traditional media, and a full-service creative team.
More about Audience Ops:π
Who is the owner of Audience Ops?π
Brian Casel is the founder of Audience Ops.
When did Brian Casel start Audience Ops?π
2015
What is Brian Casel's net worth?π
Brian Casel's business makes an average of $10K/month.
How much money has Brian Casel made from Audience Ops?π
Brian Casel started the business in 2015, and currently makes an average of $120K/year.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
