I share writing & editing lessons so entrepreneurs & founders can attract + convert high-value clients | Edited 3M+ words | Former Head of Content | Running on seltzer 🤩

You’re doing $30K, $50K, maybe $80K months. You should feel amazing. But instead you’re custom-scoping every deal, rebuilding proposals from scratch, and one client churn away from a panic spiral.

You’re successful. You’re also exhausted. (Two things can be true at once.)

I co-founded Duo with Nick Bennett after rebuilding my own business five times. Cohorts, courses, group coaching. I tried all of it before landing on a model that doesn’t drain my energy.

At Duo, we help solopreneurs (specifically B2B service providers) fix their offer, fix their positioning, and build systems so they can stop being the bottleneck in their own business.

Our clients have gone from $40K to $80K MRR in 60 days. 

From $300K ARR to $2M ARR in 13 months. 

From relying on referrals to every inbound prospect saying “found you through your content.” 

From dreading sales calls to prospects showing up ready to buy.

From white knuckling it to the end of each week to running a business that gives them energy. 

It’s not magic, but there is a formula: we helped them standardize their offer, delegate the stuff draining them, and actually articulate why they’re different.

I also write a lot on here about content strategy, our MP3 framework, my business journey, and the occasional rant about my toddler twins slapping me on airplanes.

If you’re doing $30K+ months and having a “wtf do I want this business to actually BE?” moment, DM me.

Website: duoconsulting.co
Podcast/mini books: howsolosscale.com


Erica Schneider

The hardest part of a platform like LinkedIn is shallow thinkers “win” the day. People with little experience share tips and tactics that feel easy to understand and even easier to implement. People hit like because it makes their dopamine go whoosh. 

“I can do this!” 

Yeah, you can. And it’ll make you feel good in a world of make believe thumbs but prove useless in a world of real money. (Money is also a construct but I digress.)

This game of shallow thinkers makes deep thinkers feel… shit, to be honest.

Your deep experience and proven ideas get shoved to the sideline. You lose the popularity contest. Nobody loves you. You feel resentful, frustrated, unseen and unheard.

You think, why the f*ck would I waste my time in a garbage in garbage out place like this?

And you don’t have to. You really don’t. There are other ways and places to market.

But I’ve found pockets of excellence here, and that makes it worthwhile to me. You can find them too if you hit unfollow and not interested on the shallow game. If you hit connect and dm with the deeper minds. If you market the problem, process, and proof and radically accept lower engagement in exchange for elevated conversations.

There is a way. I am proof. Our clients are proof. Our friends are proof.

But the choice must be yours to make. Either commit to it with conviction or don’t bother.

Complaining endlessly, however, is a waste of your time and mine. That’s what makes people hit unfollow and not interested.

My take on the state of things.

Growth consulting for scaling solopreneurs & micro agencies | Co-Founder @ Duo Consulting | Running on seltzer 🤩

70% of Brian’s leads now come from LinkedIn. A year ago, that number was zero.

And this morning, Nick and I got to train the 3 contractors Brian has hired since his business exploded to build their own LinkedIn presence.

What a full circle moment! 

The backstory:

A year ago, Brian was stuck. He was doing $25K months off referrals alone with zero inbound. He was scared referrals could dry up at any moment, and he wasn’t getting enough leads to aggressively scale.

So over the past year, we helped him get known for a specific problem he solves. 

Rebuilt his content around marketing the problem, process, and proof. 

Started real conversations with the right people. 

And within months, ~70% of his prospects were coming from LinkedIn. 

This influx of leads helped him scale from $25K to $150K a month. 

To execute on delivery, we coached him through hiring 3 senior contractors, standardizing his engagement model, and freeing up his time so he can focus on strategy, biz dev, and marketing.

And now here we are: training his team to do the exact thing we helped him do a year ago. 

So the business keeps compounding without Brian being the single point of awareness.

Watching his contractors get fired up about building their own presence, knowing we’ve been part of this thing from the jump, I don’t know. It just hit different.

I love that I get to wake up and do this every day. 

DM me if you’re Brian a year ago and ready to scale revenue + reclaim your time.

The traditional agency model is a trap for most scaling solos. 

High overhead. 
Constant hiring. 
Managing people all day. 
Moving further and further from the craft that made you great.

Plus, the idea of building an agency makes most B2B consultants we know nauseous. 

They didn't build expertise for 13 years to spend their days chasing invoices and managing people who don't care as much as they do. 

Ok, so then how DO you scale to $1M-3M without going the traditional agency route?

At $30-$50k months, you're fast approaching capacity. You've likely hit a revenue ceiling. You're probably burning out.

You can't scale without operationalizing, but operationalizing means delegating, which veers into agency territory.

So here's our POV:

You're not building an "agency." You're not removing yourself from running client accounts or doing the work.

Instead, you're building a microagency with a pod structure.

A tiny, senior delivery team organized around you, not below you. 

You stay close to the work. 
You stay close to the clients. 
You don't become a manager in the traditional sense. 

You become the person who designs how the work gets done while a small squad of senior people helps you do more of it.

It's not an agency. It's not a solo practice. It's something in between. Which is why we've been calling it a microagency.

One founder running the show, a small pod delivering the work, and a business that can hit $2-3M without sacrificing quality and 60%+ of your margin.

One of our clients recently scaled past $150k months with three senior contractors and he's on the path to $3M. He's at 70% margin.

Another is restructuring his team into a pod right now, and already seeing his capacity open up and his energy come back.

So yeah, this is what we're seeing working for B2B solos who refuse to go the agency route but know they can't keep white-knuckling it alone.

We're going to be talking about this a lot more. 

If this sounds interesting to you and you're a B2B consultant doing $35k+ months, DM me. Let's talk about a better way to scale.

Jay Yang

Head of Content to Noah Kagan

Deciding to drop out of college to join Acquisition.com changed my life.

But that's not where the story starts...

When I was 16, I cold-emailed Tyler Denk, the CEO of beehiiv, with a list of ideas on how I could help. That email turned into an internship where I built beehiiv 101 - a course that’s helped hundreds of users unlock the platform’s potential.

At 17, I sent Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, a 19-page pitch deck breaking down gaps in his social media and email marketing - and how to fix them. That landed me a role as Head of Content, where I led campaigns (like the one that made Million Dollar Weekend a New York Times bestseller).

At 18, I decided to try my hand at the game of business and scaled a boutique ghostwriting and creative studio to six-figures within its first year.

At 19, I dropped out of college to work at Acquisition.com on Alex & Leila Hormozi’s media team where I led the written content engine. I was their first and only internal copywriter and wrote across every major format including social, email, ads, VSLs, and YouTube.

I also helped run the marketing campaign that broke a Guinness World Record for most nonfiction books sold in 24 hours and generated $106M in three days. 

It's been a ride.

Today, I focus on three things:

First, I write books about building a career without waiting for permission. My first book, You Can Just Do Things, became an Amazon #1 bestseller.

Second, I publish The Spark, a weekly newsletter on marketing and strategy read by more than 10,000 people. It's where I test ideas before they turn into books, frameworks, or client work.

Third, I work directly with a small number of founders and CEOs on developing their brand positioning and creative strategy. If you're looking to elevate your brand, feel free to reach out :)

When I’m not working, you’ll usually find me lifting heavy things (roughly 10-12 times), playing pickup basketball, or working on my next book.

Content Strategist

When I was born, I couldn't walk, couldn't feed myself, and was pooping my pants on a pretty consistent basis.

Someone else had to handle basically everything for me. It was a dark time.

But I kept showing up. Did the work. Ate the frog.

And today?

I walk everywhere. Feed myself daily. The pants thing is largely resolved.

I'm not saying it was easy. I'm just saying that if a screaming, immobile person with zero useful skills could turn it around, maybe you can too.

#youcanjustdothings #yourwelcome #justgrindharderbro

Every day I see this handsome, successful-looking guy in his 20s, and I finally dared to ask what he does for a living...

While he was fixing his hair, he responded, "I'm a copywriter."

"How much do you make per month?" I had to know.

"Roughly $25k a month."

I was in awe. But that wasn't as shocking as what he told me next.

"You won't believe me, but I don't have a degree in English or business," he said.

I felt my heart beating faster. A copywriter, $25k a month, no degree... I had to get to know this man, pick his brain apart, and learn a thing or two about becoming as successful as he is.

I reached out to shake his hand and ask for his name, but my fingers hit the mirror.

Networking rule of thumb: If you like something, tell the creator

The cool part about the internet these days is you can literally reach out to anyone, for free, and reasonably guarantee that the message will land in their inbox.

Yet, in my opinion, not enough people reach out to the creators of the things that they love and tell them that they love it.

I have met many of the people I've looked up to simply because I sent them a message with a compliment and then started the relationship there.

A compliment can quickly become a conversation, which can quickly become a relationship.

Here's an example of me complimenting Mike McGuiness, who founded Startup Archive (image attached below).

That simple message led to us hopping on a call, which led to us working together.

Coming up on a year since this bad boy was published :)

👋 Hey quick favor LinkedIn friends...

I'm looking for examples of people who took "The Permissionless Approach" to getting an internship, job, or client.

They didn't apply through a job portal or apply on a website.

They:
• Sent a cold email
• Did the work upfront
• Made a video or website
• Posted a public pitch on social media

Anyone come to mind? Feel free to tag them or DM me please :)

The cost of not being surrounded by other ambitious driven people is way too high.

Networking hack: If you think of someone, say something nice

One of the things that slightly pisses me off about funerals is the eulogy. 

Everyone takes turns saying these incredible things about the person who passed away, and that person never gets to hear any of it.

Why do we wait until someone is gone to tell them how much they meant to us?

Same thing with friends. We talk positively about them behind their backs all the time but rarely say it to their face.

Pretty much every day now, whenever I think of something nice about a friend or someone who's been on my mind, I tell them.

It can be as simple as, "Hey, thought about you the other day. Keep crushing."

Let people know they're on your mind and that you care about them, because otherwise they won't know.

Something I've changed my mind on recently: 

When I was younger, I had this intense desire to be great, to make my name known for something, to be one of the best to ever do it.

What I've realized is I would much rather live a life I'm proud of than chase a legacy. The pursuit of greatness, at least for me, has always come from a state of lack, a feeling of "I'm not enough."

As I've gotten older, I've felt that fuel burning out and being replaced by something cleaner.

I don't actually want to go to Mars. I'm more than happy being in orbit and enjoying the view.

Before dropping out of college to join Acquisition[.]com - I sent my parents a 5 page memo weighing the pros & cons of taking an alternate career path.

For context:

• I was a freshman at the University of Illinois. 
• I was running a six-figure ghostwriting agency. 
• And honestly? Life was pretty good. 

But I was always obsessed with greatness.

And I knew that the fastest way to get to greatness was to swallow my ego and take a few steps back so I could take a hundred forward. 

I mean, would I rather learn business theory in classrooms or actually be inside of a fast-growing organization and learn hands-on? 

Anyway. I was scared sh*tless sending this to my parents. 

Idk if this would be helpful to others who are thinking through a similar decision.

Should I share the full memo?

I've written a newsletter essay, nearly every week since I've been 16.

I'm 20 now. I have FOUR YEARS of "public journal entries".

Sometimes I like to read them and reflect on how far I've come. I can't wait until I have a decade of them.

went on a solo trip to SF this past week

so glad I went

reinforced and refined how I want to live & who I want to bring along for the ride

highly recommend

The person obsessed with reaching the summit as fast as possible will climb faster than those around them - but they also tend to miss the view, the wildflowers, the conversations at camp… all the reasons climbing is worth it in the first place.

Some people are just inevitable. You can see it in their eyes, the way they move, the way they talk, the way they explain their goals. Life will delay them and distract them, but it can never stop them.

Covid-19 wasn’t 3 years ago, it was 7 years ago.

My sneaky little goal is for all of my friends to associate me with being an opportunity magnet. Whatever goals they have in life, I just want to be an asset and help them get there more efficiently.

Questions I ask myself when I edit:

Follow Jay Yang for more tips on writing, marketing, and strategy :)

One of the best feelings is opening social media and seeing your friends do something cool and use your catchphrase 🥹

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Erica Schneider

Jay Yang

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The Battle

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