Eighteen years after founding it, Pat Flynn handed Smart Passive Income to email marketer Liz Wilcox. The two of them, with host Nathan Barry, walk through exactly how the deal and the six-month reveal actually worked.
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
A creator business becomes sellable to the degree its value moves from the founder's own name to systems, recurring revenue, and a community that trusts a shared mission more than the person delivering it.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A creator, course, or membership owner who has thought about what happens to the business if they step away or get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Someone building a personal-brand business who wants to structure it so it could eventually be sold.
A prospective buyer considering acquiring an audience-based business and wanting a real example of how price and terms actually get negotiated.
Anyone running a membership or community who wants to see how a founder transition can be announced without spooking members.
SKIP IF…
You want a technical breakdown of deal structures, cap tables, or legal contract templates. This is a founder-level narrative, not a how-to on drafting an APA.
You're not interested in creator-economy business models specifically.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
After 18 years running Smart Passive Income, Pat Flynn sold it to Liz Wilcox, an email marketer with her own 4,000-member paid community, because his attention had split between SPI and his much bigger Pokemon YouTube channel, Deep Pocket Monster. The deal used a revenue multiple with seller financing over two years rather than a lump sum, and prioritized picking a buyer who shared SPI's values over the highest bidder (two VC offers were turned down for treating the audience as a number). Instead of announcing the sale immediately, they ran a six-month transition where Liz worked publicly as 'director of community' before the ownership change was revealed, so the audience could judge her by results instead of a headline. The throughline: a business becomes sellable when its revenue is recurring, its systems don't require the founder personally, and the community's loyalty is to a mission rather than a face.
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A teaser montage: Pat warns he might cry, calls himself 'the Mr. Beast of Pokemon' while insisting he'd rather be Mr. Rogers, mentions buying an 8,000-square-foot building, and the show reveals Pat sold a business while Liz bought it, the same one.
01:15 – 08:25
02 · The announcement, and why Liz beat the VCs
Pat confirms he's no longer the owner of Smart Passive Income after 18 years and isn't retiring. Liz explains how the idea started with a phone call to her sister, who works on Pat's Pokemon team, and how her own path from a 2008 gas-station job to discovering Pat's book 'Will It Fly?' made her want the business. Pat reveals he'd had three prior offers, including two from venture capitalists who saw only the size of the list and traffic, and passed because he couldn't sleep at night handing them the audience.
08:25 – 13:53
03 · Building an SPI that could survive without Pat
Pat describes reading 'Built to Sell' and realizing SPI, in its early years, was effectively a job that required his constant presence. The 2019 in-person FlynnCon event and COVID's shutdown of gatherings pushed him to launch the SPI Pro community in July 2020, deliberately centered on shared values rather than himself, inspired by Scott Dinsmore's Live Your Legend communities that kept meeting years after Dinsmore's death.
13:53 – 19:44
04 · The other business, and the fear of letting go
Pat's Pokemon channel, Deep Pocket Monster, has grown to 2.3 million subscribers, with 65% of its audience watching on TVs and a Shorts channel pulling 10-12 million views a day, opening doors to athletes and celebrities. Despite that growth, Pat's biggest fear about selling SPI was the audience feeling abandoned, since some members could already sense the shift in his attention.
19:44 – 22:41
05 · Six months undercover before the reveal
The sale actually closed in April 2026, months before this recording. Rather than announce it immediately, Pat and Liz let Liz operate publicly as 'director of community' for six months first, so the audience could judge her by results instead of trusting a headline, and the community nearly doubled in that window.
22:41 – 30:17
06 · Today is day one
Liz adopts 'today is day one' as her daily mantra for stepping into SPI, while Pat explains the deeper mission behind Pokemon: bonding with his own kids, a mascot (Miltank, 'just a cow') chosen to represent that everyone is special without flashy powers, and viewer stories including an autistic child who only speaks while watching his channel. Pat rejects being called 'the Mr. Beast of Pokemon' in favor of wanting to be a modern Mr. Rogers.
30:17 – 35:03
07 · Letting go of one ladder to grab the other
Pat compares running two big things at once to climbing two ladders simultaneously: inefficient, and limiting compared to fully letting go of one to grip and rise on the other. Liz shares her own version of the same lesson, from selling her earlier RV travel blog to the moment, driving in her car and feeling stuck, that she decided SPI was her next move.
35:03 – 41:44
08 · Pricing and structuring the deal
Pat explains why revenue-multiple VC offers felt gross (the multiple got better the more the audience could be squeezed for cash), and credits advisor Matt Gartland with building a valuation both sides accepted as fair. Nathan brings up a contrasting example, Kit investor Dharmesh Shah's tactic of saying 'you name the price, I'll say yes or no.' The deal ended up structured as a two-year seller-financed plan, lump sum plus quarterly payments, instead of three years, because a faster payoff is worth more.
41:44 – 44:28
09 · The 8,000-square-foot studio
With proceeds starting to arrive, Pat bought, not leased, an 8,000-square-foot building to build a film and podcast studio, inspired partly by 'Hot Ones' (but with Pokemon packs instead of wings) and by young YouTubers, including the director of 'The Backrooms' and Markiplier, making self-funded, theatrically released films.
44:28 – 50:14
10 · Team WIN: proof the plan is working
The SPI community nearly doubled within a couple months of Liz coming aboard, and her first community challenge drew over 10,000 participants. Inspired by re-reading Pat's audiobook 'Superfans' and its 'Team Flynn' concept, Liz renames the audience 'Team WIN,' short for 'What's Important Now,' pushing creators to focus on one channel or task instead of chasing every platform at once.
50:14 – 56:30
11 · The financial mechanics of the deal
Payment plans are more common in creator-economy deals than most assume; even Kit's own domain purchase was 50% up front with the rest over years. Liz explains the real risk she took on and why she asked for seller financing instead of draining savings or taking out loans. Her due diligence involved signing an NDA, reviewing SPI's financials and sponsor history, and bluntly asking the team why they'd stopped doing things that used to work.
56:30 – 59:52
12 · What makes any business sellable
Both Pat and Liz have sold multiple businesses. Liz's biggest lesson: the right buyer matters more than the right price, since her previous business has now outlived her three years of ownership by five more years under its new owners. Pat's: meticulous systems and SOPs are what let someone else actually step in and run the business, and building 'to be sold' is good practice even if you never plan to sell.
59:52 – 1:04:49
13 · Merging two brands into one
Liz's $9 membership becomes the lower-priced tier SPI never had, and her email expertise gets folded into Pat's Super Fan System, which he's letting her use inside the community. Liz, who calls herself 'a horse with blinders' for only ever teaching email, says she's finally given herself permission to teach podcasting and YouTube too. Nathan connects it to '10x is easier than 2x,' a bold swing beating incremental optimization.
1:04:49 – 1:08:25
14 · Selling a personal brand
It's nearly impossible to sell a business named after you, unlike SPI or Veritasium, whose new host took over cleanly because the channel wasn't the founder's name. Pat suggests personal-brand creators can still build separable, sellable assets alongside their name, citing ConvertKit, Leadpages, and the SwitchPod. Liz shares her own early mistake, naming her RV blog LizWilcox.com, and how renaming it TheVirtualCampground.com and shifting focus to the community made it sellable years later.
1:08:25 – 1:13:28
15 · The transition playbook
Nathan cites blogger JD Roth quietly selling 'Get Rich Slowly' and only announcing it a year later with no backlash, as proof a smooth, already-proven transition beats a splashy one. Pat and Liz's philosophy: 'trust me, bro' doesn't work, showing does. Both admit they initially wanted a big public announcement, but Pat argued for thinking about what would actually work best for the audience instead.
1:13:28 – 1:18:48
16 · Closing: big shoes, new chapter
Pat describes his post-sale plans, reading, journaling, meditating, and working with former Disney World VP Lee Cockrell on leadership, while Liz describes replying to every single email and getting on calls with new members during the transition. Both frame the public retelling of the whole deal as consistent with SPI's history of transparent income reports, since being open lets others learn from their mistakes too.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
SPI turned down two venture capital offers because the buyers saw the email list and traffic as dollar signs, not a community with a mission to protect.
Pat Flynn switched Smart Passive Income to a recurring membership model in 2020, and that predictable revenue is what made the business attractive to buy years later.
The right buyer matters more than the right price: exiting into a mission-aligned owner protects a business that would otherwise die with its founder.
SPI's sale was seller-financed, a lump sum up front plus quarterly payments over two years, with the shorter payoff period reducing the total price through time value of money.
Trying to run two callings at once, two audiences, two ladders, means both get half your attention and neither gets your best work.
A business built around a founder's own name is nearly impossible to sell; Pat kept 'Smart Passive Income' separate from 'Pat Flynn' specifically so the brand could survive without him.
Running a new owner publicly for months before announcing an ownership change lets the audience judge the transition by results instead of trusting a headline.
10x is easier than 2x: doubling an existing effort just means doing more of the same, while a genuinely bold move opens returns a small optimization never could.
A buyer preparing to acquire an audience business should study its past sponsors and abandoned initiatives; an outsider's fresh eyes catch what the founder stopped seeing.
The best way to make a business worth more is to build it as though someone else will need to run it someday, whether or not you plan to sell.
A creator's most sellable asset often isn't the personal brand itself, it's a separate product or system that brand can launch and later detach from, like ConvertKit or a SwitchPod.
Recurring membership revenue reads as safer to a buyer than a launch-and-hope info-product model because it's predictable enough to finance a payment plan against.
Takeaway
How a creator business actually becomes sellable
WHAT TO LEARN
A business becomes worth buying when its revenue is recurring, its systems don't require the founder, and the buyer is chosen for shared values instead of the highest multiple.
02The announcement, and why Liz beat the VCs
Venture buyers valuing an audience purely by list size and traffic numbers is a signal to pass, even at a higher price, if you can't trust what happens to that audience afterward.
A buyer's own origin story can matter more in a sale than her resume, because it proves she already shares the mission before any negotiation starts.
03Building an SPI that could survive without Pat
A business that requires your constant personal presence isn't a business yet, it's a job with better branding, and that's exactly what has to change before a sale is possible.
Centering a community around shared values instead of the founder's personality is what lets it keep meeting and growing during stretches when the founder is barely present.
04The other business, and the fear of letting go
Explosive growth in a side project is often the real signal that it's time to let go of the original business, not a reason to feel guilty about it.
The single biggest fear in selling an audience-based business isn't the money, it's the audience feeling abandoned, and that fear is worth planning around months in advance.
05Six months undercover before the reveal
Announcing an ownership change only after the new owner has already run things well for months turns a scary headline into a formality the audience already trusts.
A community's size can nearly double within a couple of months of new energy and expertise arriving, proof a transition plan is working before it's ever announced.
06Today is day one
A mascot or story chosen specifically because it has no special powers can do more to build belonging in a community than any success story could.
Choosing to be the quieter, values-first influence in your space instead of the loudest, highest-spectacle one is a positioning decision, not a limitation.
07Letting go of one ladder to grab the other
Trying to fully serve two audiences or two callings at once usually means both only get half your attention, and neither gets your best work.
The moment to make a big change rarely announces itself with certainty; it shows up as a feeling of being stuck that's worth acting on before you can fully justify it.
08Pricing and structuring the deal
Watch for a valuation offer that gets more generous the more revenue you extract from your audience. A multiple that improves with squeezing is a sign of the buyer's incentive, not yours.
Structuring a payment plan for a shorter payoff period, even at a lower total, can be worth more than a longer plan with a bigger headline number, because money now beats money later.
09The 8,000-square-foot studio
Reinvesting proceeds from selling one business into infrastructure for the next only works when it's aimed at a specific, provable content trend, not just because the funds exist.
Watching where independent creators are already succeeding at a bigger scale is a legitimate way to scout where a niche is headed next.
10Team WIN: proof the plan is working
Renaming an audience around what they should focus on right now, instead of everything they could be doing, gives people permission to stop chasing every platform at once.
The clearest proof a rebrand or leadership change is working isn't a survey, it's whether engagement numbers move before anything has even been announced.
11The financial mechanics of the deal
Seller financing is common enough in creator-economy deals that not having six or seven figures in cash shouldn't rule out buying a business outright.
The best diligence question to ask before buying an audience business is why something that used to work got quietly abandoned, since that gap is often the easiest win to reclaim.
12What makes any business sellable
Choosing the right buyer over the highest price pays off years later. A previous sale can end up outliving the original owner's tenure by more than double under the right new owner.
The real deliverable of good systems and SOPs isn't efficiency for the founder, it's that someone else can actually run the business without the founder in the room.
13Merging two brands into one
A smaller, cheaper offer you've been running on the side can become exactly the lower-priced tier a bigger, more expensive business was missing all along.
Giving yourself permission to teach or sell beyond the one narrow thing you're known for is often a self-imposed limit, not a market one.
14Selling a personal brand
A business is nearly impossible to sell while it's still named after the person running it; separating the brand from the founder's own name is what makes a future sale possible.
A creator with an established personal-brand audience can still build a separate, sellable asset next to that brand, using the audience only to launch it, not to run it forever.
15The transition playbook
Announcing a change well after it's already happened and already working removes most of the anxiety an audience would otherwise project onto the announcement itself.
Telling an audience 'trust me' does less work than simply showing them months of results and letting them draw their own conclusion.
16Closing: big shoes, new chapter
Replying to literally every message during a transition period is a deliberate trust-building strategy, not just good customer service.
Deliberately seeking out a mentor with direct experience in the specific new skill a transition requires is worth doing even after decades of success elsewhere.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Built to Sell
A business book (and the framework it introduced) for structuring a company so the owner could remove themselves from daily operations, making it sellable instead of dependent on the founder.
Seller financing
When the person selling a business lets the buyer pay for it over time in installments instead of requiring the full price at closing.
Time value of money
The idea that money paid sooner is worth more than the same amount paid later, so a faster payoff period effectively lowers the real cost of a deal.
Super Fan System
A membership and community framework Pat Flynn built for turning casual audience members into deeply engaged 'super fans,' which he shared with Liz Wilcox to use inside SPI.
Team WIN
SPI's rebranded audience identity, replacing the old 'Team Flynn,' standing for 'What's Important Now' and encouraging creators to focus on one priority at a time instead of every platform at once.
56:30 – 1:08:25denseBrand strategy and personal-brand exit lessons
1:08:25 – 1:18:48Transition philosophy and closing reflections
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
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See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
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metaphoranalogystory
There's a 50 % chance I'm going to cry on this podcast. Pat walked into the studio, joined by SPI's community director, Liz Wilcox, to announce something big he's been keeping a secret for months. 18 years into SPI, I am officially no longer the owner of Smart Passive Income.
Pat is someone who's defined the creator economy and helped so many creators get their start, build their businesses and more. I kind of needed to let go of this to grow into something else that was calling me. Today is day one.
I mean, you're hearing this for the first time. Pat and I have a very similar mission. We love early stage entrepreneurs.
We want to make sure the audience know that they're in good hands. My biggest worry with all of this was the audience at SPI feeling like I abandoned them. Yeah.
And my favorite thing is how he's continually reinventing himself. I have been told a lot that I am the Mr. Beast of the Pokemon space.
And I'm like, no, I don't want to be the Mr. Beast. I want to be Mr.
Rogers. I love that. I can't wait for you to hear what he's up to in this next chapter.
This might be the first time some people are hearing about this too, but I recently bought a building. Didn't lease it. I bought it.
8 ,000 square feet. So big. To build a...
So insane.
All right. So the big news, you sold a business, Pat. Liz, you bought a business.
Yeah. And it's the same one. It's the same one.
Hey, there you are. Yeah. Big news.
I never thought this day would come. 18 years into SPI, I am officially no longer the owner of Smart Passive Income, which is insane. Started in 2008.
2008 after getting laid off and thought it was going to be something I would do forever. But I'm sure we're going to dive into the why and what comes next. Yeah, and how you're going to be fully retired after this.
Definitely not. Okay, we'll get into that. Yeah, no, there's a lot coming.
But I kind of needed to let go of this to grow into something else that was calling me. I'm very grateful to have Liz come in and take the baton, not to replace me, but to kind of continue the legacy of what I've started. And honestly, I'm so lucky to have you.
There's nobody better. That could take this and take it to the next level and give it the attention it needs in the audience. I'm so glad we're recording this.
That feels so good. We'll clip that and then you can just play it. Right, right.
That's going on social immediately. There's nobody better. There's nobody better.
Just anytime I have a bad day. No, I'm so grateful. Just like Pat, I wanted this because I wanted to step into the next bigger like calling for myself.
So it just was very, I don't know. uh, kismet or serendipitous serendipitous. Thank you.
I like that. So Liz, what was the thing that made you go? What was the moment where you're like, I want this, I want to buy this business.
Yeah. So actually my sister works for Pat, uh, in his Pokemon channel and does like helps him with his card parties and stuff. We were on the phone and she was talking about it and just saying, you know, Pat just seems so stressed.
Like, you know, he's trying to juggle everything. You know, I can tell he's having so much fun with the card parties, but I wonder what's going on with SPI. And I remember I was on the phone with her walking through my house.
I remember exactly where I was. And I said, I wonder if Pat would sell me SPI. I would love to take over.
I love SPI. And she was like, huh. And then I was like.
well, that was kind of ridiculous. I don't know why I said that. And she's like, no, no, I think that's a good idea.
And we just kept talking about whatever. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, yeah, you know, Pat and I have a very similar mission. We love early stage entrepreneurs.
We love, you know, just helping people make that first dollar and knowing that it's real. And when I first started in 2008, I was working at a gas station and I was, I think, 20 years old. And so I started my entrepreneur journey in 2016 and he was releasing a book.
Which one was it? Will it fly? Yeah.
And so I first heard of him because he was everywhere launching his book. And I thought, yeah, I like that guy. And I.
followed him periodically here and there. And I've just always really resonated with his message. And so the more I thought about, oh, could I be the next person to take over SPI?
The more I thought this just makes sense. Yeah. I mean, you eventually became a guest on the show.
I mean, before even this was a conversation, you were a guest on the show. Liz came on and just dropped some incredible knowledge about email specifically. That's what Liz is known for.
That's what Craft and Commerce Keynote was about. Yes. Yes.
I mean, Liz is amazing. And to have her come in and not just bring her email expertise into the world of SPI, but her community building. I mean, she has how many members do you have in your community?
Over 4000. Wow. Yeah, it's it's crazy.
Yeah. So, you know what that what that entails and how to bring people together. And I was even a guest on one of your community sort of gatherings.
And I was so impressed with just how you knew everybody. who was there and what they did. And I was like, this is exactly what a person who I would want to take over SPI should have.
Because I've actually gotten offers before for SPI. Three. One of them was from another creator a while back, but they didn't, it just didn't, just didn't mesh well.
It didn't make sense. But the other two were from venture capitalists who saw the brand, who saw us ranking really high for all these keywords, who saw the size of the email list and were like, dollar signs. That's worth something.
Yeah. And that was flattering and the money would have been incredible, but I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night because I knew that they had no idea who this audience was and how to serve them better. And so that's why I kind of tabled the idea of selling when it even was a thought until Patricia came and was like, hey, Pat, like Liz is interested in maybe buying SPR.
Are you willing to sell? I was like, you know, I've thought about that before, but I maybe. I don't know, let's talk and see what happens.
And then one thing led to another, multiple conversations, of course, deal making and all that stuff is a part of it too. But it just made sense. It just made sense, especially with my calling into the Pokemon space and things I want to do there and the events that I've been hosting.
We just hosted 9 ,500 people in San Diego. That's so insane. We have two more events this year.
And to be able to fully go into that, I mean, there's so much that I want to do and so many. more ways that I can make an impact beyond SPI, I feel at this point. Yeah.
So I want to dive into all of that in a minute. But first, one of the things, Liz, where I feel like there is some ideas that they're not a thing until they're verbalized. And then once they're out in the universe, it's like, oh, well, now we've all got to.
All right. That's like an actual thing. And, you know, what if I bought SPI is one of those things that you're like, not an idea, not out there.
And then once once you say it, you're like, all right. Yeah. I tend to do that.
I'll just have ideas or something will come to me and I'll just blurt it out loud. And I'm not the type of person that's afraid to make the ask. I mean, the worst thing he could say is no, or the worst thing the bank could say is no, right?
But it just felt right. Like Pat mentioned, my community, I love. these people so much.
I love entrepreneurs. I always say, and maybe this is a bit much, but God strike me dead if I forget where I came from. I mentioned my last job was at a gas station.
My mom didn't get past eighth grade. Statistically, I shouldn't be sitting here in Kit Studios right now. It's insane.
And so I always think about that early stage person who is Finding someone like Pat or me or finding Kit and thinking, oh, maybe, maybe. And I want to be that person that says, not maybe, yes.
And so when I heard about Pat feeling stressed out, I was like, I'll take it. It's fine. It's fine.
I would love to help those people. I have such a freaking passion for it. And I just, like Pat, I feel so blessed.
What an honor to... be able to step into this bigger calling. Well, so I think there's so many things that creators are going to be curious about.
One is even like, how do you sell a brand? Is it even sellable? And that's probably something that you thought about a lot, Pat, of like, oh, if it's ever time to move on from SPI, could you even sell it?
So I'm curious, how did you think about turning it into something that could be sold? And what went through your head of that process? Yeah, I mean, there's a book out there called Built to Sell.
A lot of us know about it. And it's this idea of whether or not you are going to sell to structure your business in a way that you could, such that you could remove yourself from the process if something were to happen to you. That was the thing that was most on my mind as I'm in my 40s now.
It's like, hey, I'm getting older. We don't know if tomorrow is going to come, but I want to make sure that this business and my family and the audience are all taken care of. with the way that it used to be back in the mid 2010s something happened to me the brand is done right it's effectively a you know a job and a salary in that sense that like it requires your time entirely right and although there were passive opportunities there you know create things once and have it sell over and over again and you know nurture sequences that are automated and all this stuff like If I were to go, you know, it would still run for a bit because, you know, we build a business in an automated fashion.
But, you know, it was very much tied to me. I mean, Smart Passive Income was synonymous with Pat Flynn. Always was.
Until 2020. The interesting thing that happened in 2019 was I hosted a live event in San Diego for 500 entrepreneurs. And it was called FlynnCon.
People are like, dang, you're so self -centered. Like, you named it after yourself. And I was like, well.
The audience called themselves Team Flynn because they wanted to be on the side of the internet. And so here's FlynnCon. Now that I think about it, we probably could have called it something better.
But anyway, the whole purpose of that was to bring people together, the community, having everybody meet each other for the first time, similar to why you do craft and commerce. And it was a massive success. I mean, it was one of the most fulfilling times of my life.
And then 2020 happened, COVID, everything shut down. Getting together in person was impossible. And I craved that connection so much, but not just connection from me to my audience, but the connection that I knew I could create audience to audience.
When I ran a survey about FlynnCon, the number one thing people said that they enjoyed the most was the time in between all the talks, the time in between all the activities. I was like. Oh, if I could do it all over again, I would just have nothing on the schedule and just put you all in the same room and you'd be fine.
Right. You need like just enough structure to bring everyone together. Right.
And to give them like purpose for conversations and whatever else. But then it's like, yeah, just. But the things that were most stressful were booking the speakers and all the activities.
And also I was like, oh, I just need to put people together in a room. And I, of course, couldn't do that during COVID, but I could bring people together virtually. So that's when the SPI community launched.
It was called SPI Pro back then. in July of 2020. We're coming up to our six -year anniversary now, which is pretty cool.
But it's gone through many changes, but the one thing that hasn't changed is just how much the community comes for each other. Because I wasn't even very present in the community. Like it wasn't centered around me.
It was centered around the values that we share and the goals that the audience had, the early stage entrepreneurs and those who were kind of starting to see some success, who wanted to scale and grow, but do it in a smart way and learn from each other, almost like mastermind, but amplified. And if we could come in and facilitate those interactions, then we would have something that could live beyond me.
And one person I think about when I think about this kind of level of community is Scott Dinsmore. Rest in peace, my friend. Live Your Legend.
I don't know if you knew who Scott was, but he had a brand called Live Your Legend. And he had set up these communities that were almost like satellite communities in different cities all around the world. And he had...
And this was in like 2012. Early 2010s. Yeah.
I mean, I met him in 2012 and then in 2013. One of my favorite Scott Dinsmore memories is being in Portland and we were walking down the street probably like 10 p .m. And the drivers in Portland are like the nicest.
I remember being in London and you look across the street and the drivers in London are like, yeah, yeah, cross the street. I dare you. See what happens.
In Portland, like four lanes of traffic stops. Like, where did you want to cross? And Scott like looks over, does a handstand and then walks across the street on his hands.
Oh, how fun. And it's just like Scott. That's who he was.
I mean, he was adventurous. He was kind. And he had brought this community together.
And these communities would meet with each other without Scott there. Because they all share the same values and the love for what he was building. And then he tragically passed away in a hiking accident.
And killed Majara. Which was just the worst thing ever. But the community came together to support him and his family.
And they still meet with each other. And that is living. More than a decade later.
More than a decade later. And that was so inspiring to me. And that was very much inspiration for me.
as I thought about, well, what could it be like if I sell SPI and, you know. Or could you build something that's bigger than you, bigger than your brand and doesn't rely on you being there and everything like that. Right, right.
And of course, when the community came about, that offered me a little bit more time back because again, it wasn't centered around me. Then I had time to explore and I explored the space of Pokemon. I talked about that the last time I was on your show and how.
big it has gotten, it's gotten even bigger. Yeah, what are some of the numbers that... Because it's gotten completely absurd.
Yeah, the long -form channel, Deep Pocket Monster, is seeing... We're at 2 .3 million subscribers and growing faster than ever. Every time we create a new video, it hits about a million views in two days.
And these are long -form videos that are about an hour in length. Right, and people are watching it like... They're primarily watched on TVs, right?
They're watching on television. 65 % of our audience are watching on TVs. Sitting in their living rooms with their families.
Eating dinner, just opening packs with me on screen, those kinds of things. Right. We're talking Pokemon in case you missed that.
Yes. I go live every Monday and I go live for two hours and I'm opening packs and doing these giveaways. We are seeing anywhere between 8 ,000 to 12 ,000 people concurrently watching live during those two hours.
And it just is continuing to grow. And you have the Shorts channel as well. And we have the Shorts channel, which is seeing about 10 to 12 million views a day.
And we are approaching two years of a 60 second short form video being published every day. Wow. We're approaching two years now.
We're closing on episode 700. Wow. And that has gotten me access to the biggest brand deals of my life.
That has gotten me. into the world of celebrities and artists and musicians and athletes who now follow my channel and want to open packs with me. And I'm like, what the heck?
Kiki Hernandez is like in my DMs from the World Series champion Dodgers. And he's like, yo, let's hang out. I'm like, what is happening here?
This is crazy. And you're in football stadium. The Detroit Lions invited me out.
There's going to be something going on between us and the 49ers. George Kittle's a big Pokemon fan. He's a big Dragonite fan.
It's like, what is happening here? I think it's really goes back to what you said about values. Like what I'm hearing is, you know, over at SPI, you put so much work in 2008, you know, so much work.
And then you said, OK, well, now we've got this foundation. Let's talk to each other. Let's build this community.
And that's what you're doing over there. Going live for two hours. That takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
Like even if you're just opening packs, like you obviously love your audience so much. And that was what attracted me to SPI and to saying like, yeah, I'll step up to the plate. I want to pour in the way that you've poured in for 18 years.
And now you're doing that over there. Like it's just such strong values. And I think to Nathan's original question of like, how do you get somebody from a personal brand?
How do you step back? It's really lined in those values. And that was one of our very first conversations.
I said, where is your mission statement? Where is your vision? And where are your values?
Because I want to read those over. I want to make sure that's in alignment and that's something that I can take over. Liz, I love that you're talking about values when you're both wearing OG kit shirts that have default to generosity, create every day the values that we preach so often, many of which, Pat, you shaped over the last...
Decade or so as an advisor. I mean, it's so it's so true, though, the values and the mission. They are just so completely aligned here.
My biggest worry with all of this was the audience at SPI feeling like I abandoned them. Yeah, that was that is my biggest worry. And I knew that there are always going to be people who are going to be upset or sad by that for sure.
There are people who I've told, though, who are like, oh, we knew this was going to happen eventually. Yeah. Like, they could just feel it and see it.
Yeah. And they see the joy that I have with Pokemon. Like, I feel like I am SPI 2008 in the world of Pokemon right now.
Right. Where I'm moving fast. I'm playing.
I'm just being curious. And it's like. Right.
Look at his face. It's completely changed. That's what we want.
But I still love SPI. Yeah, of course. I mean, it's like, that's my baby, you know?
And my baby's 18 now. Yep. Literally 18.
Literally 18. He had another baby. Yeah.
But I want to say this to you, Liz. Thank you for helping me feel like I'm not abandoning them. Of course.
I was like, there's a 50 % chance I'm going to cry on this podcast. I mean, there's so much that I want to get into in that. How do you take care of the audience?
Audience is the wrong word. How do you take care of the community? Through a transition like this.
We all have friends who have sold businesses. You both have sold multiple businesses. Yeah.
That's the most important thing. Like you've poured 18 years of, of my life and love into this community. Like tomorrow we're going to be at craft and commerce.
There's going to be 450 creators there and dozens, if not a hundred can trace some aspect of their inspiration, uh, strategies, tactics, success back to SPI in some way. Right. Absolutely.
And so that's crazy. It is like the impact is just huge, but, and so like, you know, sitting with the juxtaposition between that level of impact and the amount of time invested in everything else. And then like the opportunity and what you have in front of you and like how much the Pokemon world lights you up.
It's like, it's such an interesting tension. And I see it so much of like, Oh, you have to let go of the one in order to fully go all in. I'm very lucky that I can let go and be confident that because of Liz and because the team, because of the way we shaped SPI over the years to not be just centered around me now, that it will thrive.
I mean, here's how maybe we can go into a little bit of the announcement structure and stuff. You're hearing this maybe for the first time. had this transaction happen in april of 2026 yep and we're we're recording this in june airing it in september in september yes and our audience won't really hear about this publicly until right around now september um maybe later you're watching this but september so september 2026 so one way we could have gone about this is in april when the transaction happened i could have made an announcement hey guys big news i sold the company Liz is going to take great care of you.
Yep. She's amazing. All that.
I'll still be on as an advisor. Right. Right.
And I'm not going to be completely gone. I'm still going to be around and help. And of course, like you said, advise.
But I know exactly what would happen if that's the way we did it. People would make up stories in their mind about, well, how the community is going to go. Like, oh, there it goes.
Pat's gone. It's going to be bad. And, you know.
I don't know who Liz is. I can't trust her. How do I know that what she's putting into this is going to work?
And the truth is we had this transaction and we had a plan for me to continue to stay on, even though I've sold the company at this point in June. I'm still writing emails. I'm still involved.
And we're still recording podcast episodes. But it's kind of like we're starting to teeter the seesaw to the other side, to your side now a little bit. But the big overarching story is let's have Liz come in.
She's going to come in as director of community. To start, which means she's going to be front facing into the brand alongside me. And we're going to inject a lot of her ideas.
I also wanted Liz to have control early, not be like, hey, this is how you have to do it. Like, let's Liz, what are some ideas you have? And we could probably get into that as well.
No pressure. And you were up to the challenge. And even though it's been only a couple months now, the size of the community, for one, has nearly doubled.
Because of number one, your email expertise, it's working. But number two, the new life that has been injected, Liz's energy injected into the community. It feels like it's day one again.
And so we can say now like, oh, you didn't think it was going to work. Well, it has been working already. She's proven herself.
And it's amazing. And again, some people are going to be like, well, I was here for you, Pat. So I'm out.
And that's totally fine. Yeah, of course. But some people are going to be like, oh, my gosh.
I was here for Pat, but I'm staying for Liz. And everybody that Liz brings in and how she and the team manages. That's the story we wanted to tell.
And we've been getting into that. That's what we're in the middle of right now. Yeah.
I love that you said this is day one because when I bought the company, it was April 1st, you know, day one. Yeah. Yeah.
And I also. Yeah, exactly. Can you imagine if you announced it on April 1st?
Oh my God. Dude, we should have. That's a missed opportunity.
It would have been funny, but not a good idea. Right. But every day I've been waking up and going, you know, to work with SPI and the team and the community and the people.
And I've thought today is day one. Today is day one. Every single day, even this morning.
Today is day one. And that's just I love that you said that because that's how I've been thinking of it, because today is day one. I mean, you're hearing this for the first time.
It's day one for me. And it's going to be day one always. And I think it's day one even for our audience.
Every day you've got to wake up and you've got to make the decision to be an entrepreneur, to pursue those efforts. Right. Like Pat 20 or 2008.
Right. You don't get to 2026 and beyond without choosing every day. Like today is day one.
Today is day one. So I love that. Create every day.
Amen. It's not about creating every day. It's you get to decide how you want your day to be.
That's how I always read this. One thing I want to share going back to the Pokemon thing and the why. You know, a lot of people see it.
They're like, oh, you're like 40 years old. You're a grown man. with a beard playing with cardboard.
This is a kid's game. That's why it started. But there's a lot of people who were kids who are now adults and have kids who are using Pokemon as a way to bond with their children today to get them off of devices.
And that's really important to me. I've always wanted to and I've mentioned this on podcasts in the past. I've always wanted to have some agency to help.
change how kids are educated and how kids are growing up in this crazy world. I mean, I have two kids myself and I've seen what Pokemon has done for us to bring the kids in closer with with my wife and I. They're even now in the videos.
They are on stage at card party and all this stuff. It's been so fun. But there is so much more meaning to Pokemon than just the cards.
There's a reason why when I named the channel, it's deep pocket monsters, not just deep pockets for money. It's we're getting deep into. who we are as people and connection.
And Pokemon brings people from all walks of life, all ages, all backgrounds together. And it's like, if you're wearing a Pokemon thing on your shirt or backpack, I immediately can connect with you because we can talk about which Pokemon we like or which cards we collect. I mean, that's what we do at Card Party.
That's what I'm doing on my channel. But I am very similar to SPI in the early days. In SPI in the early days, I would get handwritten letters and notes and I still get some every once in a while.
But from people who told me how much of an impact SPI has made on their lives, they've been able to now go on a vacation that they've never been able to because they've generated more revenue. They quit their jobs and they're able to spend more time with their family. Like all these really heartfelt things.
There's been a few people who have been able to achieve lifelong goals as a result of listening to the SPI podcast. And I hear about that and it just makes me so happy. And I expect more of that with Liz's credit now.
But in the Pokemon space, I'm seeing even more of that. On the live stream yesterday on the channel, a woman shared in a super chat that her son, who is autistic, who doesn't talk, the only time he talks is when he watches Deep Pocket Monster.
Oh my gosh. That's amazing. It's just like, what is happening, right?
Now we're all going to start crying. Right. I've gotten personal messages from people who say that they...
decided to stay on this earth because of the community that we've been able to bring together. Because they feel bullied, they feel left out, but in the Pokemon space, they feel a sense of belonging. That's why the, it's going to sound weird, but the mascot of the channel, if you will, is a Pokemon called Miltank.
It's a cow. Its special power is it just makes milk. It's like, who cares?
And I chose that as the mascot because it doesn't... breathe fire, doesn't shoot water cannons, doesn't have any of these special abilities. It's just a cow.
And in life, a lot of us feel like we are not special. That everybody else has all these cool things that they can do. But the channel Deep Pocket Monster in the community that we've created is the space that welcomes everybody.
Because even if you just make milk, even if you're just a cow, you're special. You are unique and you belong. And man, like...
At the end of card party, every card party, I stay till the very end and I sign as many autographs until the last person's done. Usually I'm there for four or five hours straight at the very end of the event. And people pour their hearts out.
It's crazy. This is going to be maybe the first time a lot of you are hearing this, but I have been told a lot that I am the Mr. Beast of the Pokemon space.
And I'm like, no, I don't want to be the Mr. Beast. Because Mr.
Beast, as great as he is, it's gotten to a level where it's all about the money and the spectacle and the craziness, this little squid game stuff. Like, again, incredible creator. I'm inspired.
But I want to be a different Mr. I want to be Mr. Rogers.
Yes. I want to be this generation's Mr. Rogers.
And whether that's through Pokemon or maybe Pokemon evolves, pun intended, into something else, I feel like I have this unique ability with the experiences that I've had, with the resources that I've been given, the opportunities that I've been given, and the people I've surrounded myself with to bring back a lot of the values that Mr.
Rogers had. He had a boring TV show. But we all loved it and watched it and learned from it.
And right now, I think the world needs it. So that's what Liz is allowing me to do. That's what the SPI community has allowed me to do and has taught me to do, to take these things that I've learned to even deeper levels here.
So yeah, Mr. Rogers. I think there's so much of the sense of belonging that SPI created for entrepreneurs of like, oh, there's people out there who are trying to do things that I'm only just now learning are possible and live in this different way and make money online.
We were the crazy ones back then. And now creating that in a much larger scale. Yeah, I love this.
Pat just shared a bunch of stories about, oh, so and so told me this, told me that. And this is why I want to, you know, wanted to, you know, continue SPI because creators are so important. You know, Pat's work has been so important for.
tens of thousands of people, if not millions, right? I added up his YouTube channel the other day. As of June, it was like five and a half million across his three channels, right?
That's a lot of impact. And that's what I want for the SPI audience. Maybe we don't ever get to Pat Flynn level, right?
Maybe you don't even get to Liz Wilcox level, right? Your work matters. Creators matter so much, even to that one guy that watches every time you go live or that one lady that replies to every single email or shows up to, you know, just hearts your Instagram every single time.
You matter to that person so much. And I want to help you keep going the same way, you know, he wants to reinstill values and help those people have that sense of belonging. I feel the same way.
Like I feel so blessed to carry on that work. This conversation would have been very different with a venture capitalist. Got the email list.
Bye. So the thing that I'm most curious about is as an entrepreneur, when you, or anyone who's invested so much to build something, but then you feel your calling in a different place. Like often you have to let go of one to go all in on the other.
I don't know. I think I've heard you talk about, I use an example of, do you talk about Tarzan swinging between vines? Have you given that example?
No, mine was the ladders. It's similar, right? But you have to let go of one to fully go.
Right. If you try to climb two ladders at the same time, it's ridiculous. It's so inefficient and you can't climb that high.
But if you fully let go of one, then you can grip and rip essentially. So, but how do you know? You don't.
You don't. There's no, in my life, every time there's been something huge and incredible, it wasn't because the time was right. It was because I just decided that this was the time.
You know, from when I bought my first house with my wife to when we had kids to selling the business, right? Like, there are so many things on paper that would have said, like, this is not the right thing to do. But there's also so many things in my heart that say it is the right thing to do.
And I think when it comes to letting go, you know, my son is 16, my daughter's 13. Eventually, I'm going to have to take this thing that I love and let go. It doesn't mean I'm no longer a part of their lives.
I am them. They are me. And so they carry on the legacy, right?
And SPI is a kid, my first kid, I guess you could say. It had its infancy and then it had its teenager years and now it's maturing. I know that Liz is not going to just completely dismantle it.
I think she will improve it. She will add her own spin on things. But it's always going to be with some SPI DNA within it.
That's why I just can't sell to anybody. And I got so lucky. Dude, I got so lucky.
It's all happening so fast. But that's how you be okay with letting go because you know that, At least you know in your heart that they're going to be taken care of, the audience, the community.
I've had many conversations with community members who were sad but also stoked. Stoked for me, stoked for the future of SPI. And even the team, the team has seen new life as a result of having Liz come on.
I think every once in a while you need a big change. You need to swing big or else you'll either just be complacent or get bored. Yeah, I think it comes back to what we've been saying about callings, right?
Really learning how to hear that calling. You know, I've sold a personal brand as well. I started as an RV travel blogger.
I didn't even have Internet on my phone when I started in 2016. It's actually feels like a miracle to be sitting here. It's like, wait, what?
But it's that calling when I knew, OK. This RV travel thing, it's gotten me to here, but it's not going to get me to the next thing. It's not my forever home or, you know, maybe it's my baby, but my baby has to go to college now and I've got to let go.
And just listening to that calling and the same thing when I was hearing my sister talk about, oh, you know, Pat's got two ladders right now. I was like, oh, well, tell him to throw it at me. Like, I'll take one.
It was that it was just. that hearing my calling. Yes, I've been I've been at it's so weird.
I literally I was driving one day and I thought, I just I feel kind of stuck. I feel like, you know, I want to get to the next level, but I'm not sure what the what that looks like, how to how to get to the next level. And I thought, where's my teleportation machine?
I would just like to move on from this level that I'm at. And within days, you know, my sister brought up SPI and I said. There's my time.
There's my DeLorean. And I just, you know, I had to take that shot. I had to listen to my gut.
I had to know, yes, my calling is to help those creators so that they can have Pat Flynn stories, right? They can have those stories of, oh, this helped my son. This helped me.
This helped my family. You know, that lights me up like no other. And so I think it really is just knowing or getting to know.
what your calling is. Like Moana. Just go into the ocean.
That's right. We're voyagers. Yes, we are voyagers.
So, okay, let's go really tactical. I think a lot of people listening are wondering like, okay, how do you even price and structure a deal like this? Yeah.
There's a number of different ways to do it, right? In fact, one of the things that was interesting about my conversations with venture capitalists is if we were to hit certain benchmarks, like if we get to X million dollars a year, then the multiple that they would pay would be that much higher.
Like the difference between a two to three X multiple and a 10 to 20 X multiple. And it's just like, we're just talking numbers now. And it's like, is that because you see now how much more money you can get back by squeezing this out of the audience?
Like that doesn't feel good to me. And it's like, I don't need that. There'd be an earn out with it.
Yeah, right. And typically it's some multiple of, you know, annual revenue. And that multiples, I mean, this is where the negotiations happen and what it looks like.
And if, you know, we're on like a payment plan, right? So it wasn't all like cash up front, some cash up front, but then over a period of time and, you know, it would be more if it was longer or less if it's shorter, that kind of thing. And to me, I was just like, this is Matt.
Gartland's realm is the finances and stuff. This wouldn't have happened without him. Shout out to Matt, by the way.
Shout out, Matt. He really helped both of us actually understand. Matt was a small owner of SPI, so he got some out of this as well.
But he very much put in the work to help us both wrap our heads around the financial part of this design. I know you have familiarity with that as well. I'm just a creator.
That's what I was like. I just want everybody to be happy and I want to create the same way. And so, you know, maybe I could have asked for more.
Maybe, maybe, maybe I could have low ball. I don't know. So when you actually at this point of like, Hey, I want to buy this thing and I'm open to selling it.
Right. You have this, this back and forth. It's like, okay, so.
Where do we go from here? Yeah. Did one of you throw out a number?
Matt started with a number based on a multiple. He's had experiences selling businesses before, too. And so he came to me.
He's like with his spreadsheet. Yeah. He sent me a loom with the spreadsheet.
Oh, gosh. The spread. Matt's spreadsheets.
He's such a. We love him. He's good in the sheets.
Yes.
Sorry. He's going to die laughing. Yeah, he will.
He would love that. I was like, yeah, that sounds fair. you know, that sounds fair.
And we shared that with Liz. And I said the same thing. I said, okay.
So Matt threw out a number and you both said that sounds fair. Yeah. Honestly, it was pretty, I mean, that was the simplest part.
I think really, I think the most questions I had were again about the mission where, you know, Pat, what, how would you describe SPI? You know, what's the team like? you know, what would you like to see for the next one, five, 10 years of SPI?
You know, why do you think I'm the right person? And, you know, that was what I was most interested in because I want to see it keep going. I want, of course, if I'm buying it, number one, financially, it's got to work.
But really, you know, I wanted it to work and I didn't want to come in and. rock the boat of course you know if you google me you'll be like whoa this chick is really toned down in this interview but my values are still there you know i want to make sure the audience and the people that have you know worked with pat and followed pat for so long know that they're in good hands and so that was the majority of our negotiations was just getting to know yeah where pat's head was at with the community with the audience making sure it was The right creator, the creators I was thinking of that I want to serve.
That was the most important part. The the money like I always joke like I want to put the eye back in SPI. Like I love money.
I really do. And I want to help people make make it. But as far as the sale went, it was more about making sure I could be the right person because that's very important.
It was an interview. On both sides. to make sure it was the right fit.
I mean, that was where a majority of the time was spent. It was less about the numbers and the nuances of that, which I don't know if that's unique. I think it is, though.
I've seen more people, people that I really respect, do things like this. Like when we were putting together a secondary round for Kit, it actually was pitched by Dharmesh Shah, the CTO of HubSpot, who's been a longtime friend. I don't know him really well, but I think I first met him in 2013 or something.
And he... And he had reached out and said, hey, if there's ever kit team members that want to sell, I'd be open to buying shares. And so now it was up to me kind of as the steward of the transaction.
You know, I wasn't even selling any of my shares at that time. But, you know, what should we set for the valuation? He's like, you know what?
I don't really want to negotiate. You pick. And I'll either just say yes or no.
It was such an interesting problem. One, as a negotiation tactic, because you're like, oh. what's he doing if i say something he's good if i say something too high he's like oh no thanks it's not a good fit you know but it really gets you thinking like okay what is fair and i've heard of other people doing this where they're just like hey throw out what you think is fair and if i generally agree that's fair too then like great because we're trying to optimize for the long term optimize for the relationship the community all of those things and so long as we're within generally within the ballpark then great yeah i'll move on yeah um Yeah, well, I don't know if you want to cut this, but I will say the structure of it was the faster I pay it off, the less money it is.
Time value of money. Yeah, so I took a two -year deal. I was thinking three years, but then I said, you know what, Liz?
Every time you bet on yourself, you win. So let's go for two. With a lump sum up front and then quarterly for two years.
Second payment's coming up, Liz. I know. Is that a July 1st situation?
Yes, July 1st. Well, honestly, it's like, it's, it's, yay, I made money. But it's like, I don't even think about that.
Right. It's, I want to make sure everybody's taken care of. We want to make sure we do right by what SPI has done for me.
I don't discount that at all. And I am ready to move on to the next stage. Right.
And I've already started investing into that. Thanks to some of the money coming in. I recently, this might be the first time some people are hearing about this too, but I recently bought a building.
Didn't lease it. I bought it. I've seen the building.
It's pretty epic. Thank you. It's awesome.
We have 8 ,000 square feet. It's so big. To build a film studio that I will be live streaming out of and filming out of and, you know, having a group of people in there who are a part of the team to.
essentially tell the best stories that we can. That's what we're leaning into is the storytelling. And, you know, part of our long -term vision, we have some plans to do some amazing things with the studio.
We want to build a podcasting space in there with these now connections I have with celebrities and athletes. So if you've heard of Hot Ones with Sean Evans, where they're eating hot wings and they get progressively hotter, imagine that, but instead of wings, it's... packs of cards maybe it's sports cards we can maybe pull themselves out of the pack um but there's so many celebrities now that are coming out and saying oh yeah i've i opened pokemon i i have i have a collection too tom brady started his own yeah we do a bunch of work with tom brady and he's i mean he's opening physical retail stores yes for collectibles wow um and then gary v already being in the collectible space having his own trading card collectible He and I are friends.
There's so many opportunities now to build the hot ones, but with Pokemon packs, which would just open up again, new opportunities, new ad revenue, etc. I am very inspired right now by a lot of YouTubers who are making legit Hollywood movies. A 20 -year -old directed The Backrooms.
I don't know if you knew that. I haven't seen that. He was a YouTuber.
He has, I don't know, made over $100 million. And he's 20 years old because he was a YouTuber. Another YouTuber made another horror film, and they were just kind of skit YouTubers who directed this film.
Again, Obsession is what it's called. And they went around the traditional model and just did it themselves. And there's another YouTuber, Markiplier.
Yeah, I just saw him on stage at Colin and Samir's event a couple weeks ago. Oh, you did? Oh, yeah, I saw that interview, actually.
He's incredible. Self -directed, self -wrote, self -funded his own movie. And he started it as well.
Wow. And started it. And it got into 2 ,500 theaters and became the number one movie.
So it's like, I feel like there's a surge now for creators to start telling better stories in a medium like theater that wasn't accessible before. And if we can get on the front of that, we already make movies. Our videos are one and a half to two hours in length.
When I write a script for the voiceovers for those, they're book length every single video. That's why it's like once a month. And I'm loving it.
And we're leaning into it even more. And then maybe Pokemon evolves into maybe we make an anime. Well, I don't know.
When we have the skill of storytelling in these mediums that we're a part of, the sky's the limit. And we'll see where it goes. The thing that stands out to me the most is first your passion for whatever you sink into.
right. Of, we saw that with SPI over the years, you were always the person who was like, Hey, I'm going to try this challenge. I'm going to do this thing.
I'm going to, you know, during, during COVID, you're like, I'm going to go live all of these times. Like I'm going to start, I'm going to go above and beyond to serve the audience. But then the second thing is how you have to let go of one thing in order to go all in on the next.
And like, you can have these multiple things that are great and impactful and all that. And there's a story that you can tell yourself of like, oh, but I have to keep serving this audience.
I have to keep serving both audiences because of the impact that I'm having. And you have to let go of the one in order to go all in. I mean, I tried.
And I feel like I did a decent job. But each of these aspects of my life got half of me. And therefore, I wasn't best serving either of them, in my opinion.
Well, I mean, that's evidence of Liz coming in. And the community doubling. Just exploding like on day one.
Even if the different aspects of it where someone might not be able to put their finger on it of like why something's different. Or if there's a different tactic. They can feel the passion.
They can feel the energy. And they can feel the focus. Yeah.
I mean, we started running these challenges, which had, you know, our first one had like over 10 ,000 people participate in it. The conversations that are being held in there, there's just so much more. talking and conversation in the community now since you've come on.
Yeah. And I think it's what Nathan just said. There's energy, there's excitement and people even, you know, DMing us and emailing, oh, I'm loving this again.
I'm logging in again. I don't know what it is, but I'm excited to be here again. Or getting new members in creates a lot of new energy.
It was her. It was Liz. Thank you for the endorsement.
And that's just been so, so awesome. And I love that you mentioned, you know, Pat loves to pour into his community. I do too.
And I'm so excited to be able to do that. Like, I'm just super jazzed. Liz, I'd love to hear from you.
What is the future of SPI? Yeah, so Pat talked about his FlynnCon and people used to, you know, used to be Team Flynn. And I remember when I was...
buying the business or you know we were in negotiations I said well if I'm gonna buy this I should read one of Pat's books I've never read any of them and so I actually I was so busy I actually downloaded the audio version of Superfans and I listened to it and he was talking about Team Flynn and things like that and I said well How could I change that?
Because it's true. You should name your audience. For me, my people are big senders.
I want them to go out and hit send. Yeah, it's so fun. Right.
And so I'm like, what what could it be? Because I think right off the bat, in order for people to, you know, accept this transition, it has to be about them. Right.
And I thought Team Flynn. I said, well, what about Team Wynn? And I was like, oh, that's kind of corny, but so am I.
So is Pat, you know? But what does it mean to win? Because a lot of creators don't feel like winners.
We go in, we create every day. But, you know, the needle moves so slowly at first. And that's who we talk to.
We talk to those at first people, right? And I thought, well, what does win stand for? And I thought, what's important now?
And so I want to take it from Team Flynn. to team win. And I want to help creators focus on what's important now.
People like me and Pat, we'll sell you a webinar. We'll pitch you day after day, right? And so you're getting thrown all these things, email, Instagram, many chat, Pinterest is still on the board, I think, you know, and it's, but we've got to focus on what's important now.
And every day that's different. And that's where I want to take this community. I want to help.
Each individual creator recognize their thing there. This is what's important right now. I'm going to forget about the rest and I'm going to focus on this.
If I'm growing my YouTube channel, that's what I'm growing. That's what I'm focused on. If I'm working on email, that's the thing.
If I'm starting my podcast, that's the thing because creators. We try to do so, the two ladders. Pat's guilty of it.
I'm guilty of it. And so we're taking it from team Flynn to team Wynn. And I'm so excited.
I love that. And everybody has a different definition of what Wynn means to them. Right.
And you need to celebrate the small wins too. I think there's so many levels to that. That speaks to the values and the mission completely.
And Winnebago. Okay. All the way back to RVs.
Going back to RVs. That was one of my first sponsors. Really?
There you go. Team win. Team win.
And I love it. And part of the transition we've been doing, I've already been implementing that into the community. Hey, around here, we're team win.
We're team win. Pat and I have been co -creating the newsletter. And so there's a little win of the week.
And it goes perfectly with what he. you know, because normally he'll say, oh, this and that, you know, here's your challenge of the week. Here's what I want you to do with that.
And so I'm like, this is your win. This is what's important now. Based on what Pat said, here's what we want you to go out and do.
And we've been getting replies to the inbox. Oh, I love this. This gives me something to do.
I feel like I'm actually, you know, logging off accomplished versus I spent eight hours on the computer today and I don't know what I did. So I love that so much. I'm stoked.
So am I. That's so good. I have another financial question I'm very curious about.
Okay. Diving in. So you're talking about the, you figure out an acquisition price and you're figuring out, okay, a payment plan, like what to buy it over.
I think a lot of entrepreneurs early in their careers would be surprised at how many things actually happen up with payment plans. Like even the kit .com domain purchase, they made us a deal on a payment plan and we're like, yes, we will take that. We paid 50 % up front, 50 % over a couple of years.
And we've got, I don't know, maybe a year left. And then we'll have that paid off. But it's a very common thing.
I mean, learning finances in this way where like the magic you can do when you move numbers around in a certain way. This is, again, Matt's magic. I'm learning this as a person who has now built a little bit of wealth and can now understand what to do with trusts.
you know, taking a loan against something I already have. So I don't actually have to use that cap. It's like, what is happening?
Like, this is all new to me. And I kind of learn it as I go. And I'm like, wow, there's a lot of tools that we can use that can help you get these things a little bit, you know, faster or, you know, actually have access to stuff that maybe you didn't know you could.
Because, I mean, I bet paying 100 % would have been a lot. Yeah. And it was doable.
But when you think about, oh, we keep this capital reserved for something else. Liz, I'm curious for you, how did you think about the payback period of the acquisition? Because obviously, if I invest in the community in this way and we can grow it in this, it can turn into these other things.
But you're taking on a lot of risk. Yeah. I don't know if the camera just showed me swallowing.
It's a lot of risk for me. You know, you can do the math. Four thousand times nine.
You know, that's quite a bit of cash. But to buy something like SPI, you know, I'm going to need some more. Right off the bat, when we first finally started talking about finances, I told Pat and Matt because he was, you know, a big deal of making this work.
I said, well, we might have to get creative boys. You know, I might be the right person. But, you know.
Like you said, I don't want to spend everything, take out loans, et cetera, et cetera. That's a huge risk. And so I asked for seller financing, hey, can we make a deal that way?
And they were super open to it. And I think that's a testament to what Pat said about finding the right person. And so for me, that felt really comfortable, again, being able to bet on myself.
knowing that, also seeing the financials of SPI, signing the NDA and taking a look behind the curtain and also looking at SPI, really analyzing it, joining the email list, seeing what they're launching, what they're not, what they're making money with, who's sponsoring them right now and who isn't. What are your past sponsors?
How much money did they give you over there? Why did that deal go south? What are the missed opportunities?
And so for me, that's where my head was at of how can I come in and double the membership in 90 days? How can I get with past sponsors? How can I?
I know. We work with Kit closely as an affiliate. How can we double that number in the next two years?
Where is this money going to come from? And so for me, again, it was just literally listing out all the missed opportunities that I saw. A lot of our conversations were me just poking holes.
Like, yeah, you guys didn't reply back to my email. I was like, oh man, you're calling us out on your shortcomings. But why don't we have this?
Why haven't we done that? what in the past was working and then you just stopped doing it? Why did you stop doing it?
Thinking to myself, is this something we could maybe try to bring back or flip it to do it X way instead of Y? And so that appears to be working really well. Yeah, you definitely surprised a lot of the team members on just calling us out on what was wrong.
you know, from your perspective on the outs, this is the nice thing about having people on the outside, whether they're incoming buyers or advisors or other people, just they have a separate set of eyes that are not so deep into what you're doing. And they could see things that are so obvious that are not to you who is on the inside.
I think a part of what helped with finances is that the business model that we adapted in 2020 was the membership model. which has recurring income, which is a little bit more predictable, a lot more predictable than the sort of like launch and hope model that was always kind of around. So that was also a part of the idea in 2020 when it was built to sell.
Again, I didn't have the idea of selling it back then. And then I got a few offers once we went recurring and the membership happened. See how attractive that is.
Once that's there, then you have a lot more security and a lot more predictability to. help a buyer understand what they're getting into. And, you know, some of the funds I imagine are going to come from what you knew was going to come as a result.
And you just want to level that up. Right. And for me coming from my business where I have a membership model as well, I'm serving a very similar audience.
I knew that I could come in. And, you know, implement what I was implementing over here. And it seems to be working really well.
And I love the plan that Pat came up with of let's introduce Liz as the community director, you know. So it makes sense why she's sending emails about the community. It makes sense why she's the one, you know, doing the workshops now.
We added in office hours. You know, Pat had to because he was holding two ladders, you know, he had to go from four office hours a month to two. oh, that's perfect.
I'll do two, you know? And so it's worked really, really well in that way. And it's made me feel super secure about those payments.
Yeah. Okay. So I'm curious, you both have sold multiple businesses now.
What are the things that, you know, you got right in those exits, either this one or others, you know, in structure, packaging, how you built up over time? And maybe what are some of those things that you're like, ooh. If I could come alongside me, you know, five years ago or two years ago or now in a previous exit and I would give different advice.
I think for me, what I get right is the buyer. You know, similar to Pat, when I sold my personal brand, it was really important that it lived beyond me. And now I sold in 2020.
I only owned that business for three years. And now that business is eight years old. So the owners have owned it longer than I did.
And that just blows my mind. So I sold it to the right people. The right buyer is more important than the right price.
Correct. Yeah. And so if I was to look back, oh, I could have gotten more money or I should have extended that deal.
I should have stayed on longer so I could have made more money. But again, that didn't feel right in the moment. For me, having Matt has been absolutely key because I just wouldn't have been able to wrap my head around the logistics of a sale and the numbers.
And if you are in a position to not have your own Matt, a CFO or somebody like that on your team, you're gonna have to hire potentially somebody on the outside to do a lot of that auditing and all that kind of stuff. And it's just like, it's a lot. However, as you are building your business, Keep track of everything.
Keep track of everything. Build systems. The more that you have systems and standard operating procedures, the more that somebody can come in and just kind of now be the one to operate them versus again before if I wanted to sell my business, it would have been impossible because the only way I would have been able to sell it is if I had gotten money but then essentially became an employee of the buyer.
And that's not what I want. Yeah, I think that the build to sell is such an important idea. I think it's important for every creator, really every business, whether you want to sell it or not.
Because you can look at, okay, if someone were to buy my business, one, what would they fix immediately? And that's basically what Liz is doing, right? You come in with fresh advice and you're like, okay, do all of these things.
And if things on that list make sense, like, okay, well, let me do it even before I sell the business. But two, what are they going to value? You brought up recurring revenue.
They're going to value that a lot. Maybe we have a business that's very Instagram and social media heavy. It's like, okay, well, where's the email list on that?
They're going to value that. A really good team, really good SOPs. All these things that investors or a new acquirer care deeply about, do that because they're just good business practices.
And so focusing on running a great business that is built so it could be sold also makes it... So that it's a great business to own and continue to run. And that'd be the position you would be in if you didn't have a much bigger, newer calling to pursue.
Correct. I would still be able to have more time. I'd be able to have a lot more peace at which, you know, the business can run on its own.
And, you know, again, beyond me, how could it continue to live? And I think that's really important. I think I'm curious, Liz, because you have this community, you have acquired another one.
Are you willing to share any plans on how are you going to balance and reconcile those two different communities? Yeah. So I don't know exactly how things will go logistically.
But of course, the two brands will merge. And Liz Wilcox dot com is going to move into SPI smart passive income. You know, it has more.
staying power. It's been around since 2008. You know, luckily, Pat sold me the podcast.
That's a large audience, you know, like come over here and, you know, listen to the podcast. Join this email list. I'm not membership is like your membership that you have.
That's you. Yes. It's like the lower level stuff.
It's a lower. That SPI never had. Yes.
We never had a lower sort of tier item. And so like there is like a perfect. So it's definitely emerging.
And we're definitely going to be taking assets from my email marketing and bringing them into the super fan system, which is something that Pat came up with and is generous enough to let me use inside of our community. It helps you create super fans. Right.
And so I think a big missing piece, if I'm going to poke holes, is email. Right. That's my expertise.
I want to help people make a living online. Right. And so that's what I do with my little membership.
And so putting those assets into the community and letting everyone learn from them, I think, is a really, really important next step for the community. I'm very excited about. You have 4000 members that several of them, I imagine, would just benefit so much from this, the other kind of things we teach in SPI.
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm so excited because I. I've always taught very granular.
I'm a horse with blinders. Email, email, email. I've even had business coaches.
You know, Liz, you're bigger than email. You could teach all this stuff. And I'm like, I haven't hit 10 ,000 members yet.
When I hit 10 ,000, I'll talk about it. But it's a perfect segue. You know, I want to teach people not only email, but how to, you know.
get on podcasts and host a podcast and start a YouTube channel. You know, I've done all of those things in different industries as well. So I think it's a perfect union, I guess.
Yeah. A lot of people purchase businesses to essentially fast forward to get to the point of that, right? It would take you forever to build SPI from scratch.
It was taking me forever. I haven't had this 10 years, bro. Like I said, teleportation machine.
Let me just get in there. Yeah. And I love my people so much.
Like I want to help them do the thing. And a lot of people would ask me, OK, Liz, you know, I've got this email thing. It's working, but I want to start a YouTube channel.
Or Liz, teach me about how you got 50 ,000 downloads in the first six months of your podcast. I'm like, I don't teach that. Give me nine dollars.
Join my membership. You know, that's all that's all I'm available for. But now I feel like, you know, I have I've signed my own permission slip of, OK, yeah, actually, I can teach that stuff.
And, you know, you can come over here now. And so I think it's going to be just so amazing for not only the SPI community to get that email expertise, but my community to get, you know, a much broader sense of what it means to be a creator. I think this is a perfect example of 10x is easier than 2x.
I just bought that book today, bro. Yeah, shout out Dr. Ben.
Yeah, Ben Hardy. So funny. It is risky.
It feels risky. But oftentimes when you try to 2x something, you're just doing more of what you were already doing. Yes.
But this is that big, bold. investment, that risky thing that can get you so much more in return. And so I want to commend you for that.
Thank you. Even if you weren't buying my business, I would say the same thing. I'm sweating now.
But I'm glad you bought. Yeah, but I mean, I didn't want anybody else. Yeah, thank you.
But I want a 10x for the audience as well, like for the people I've been, you know, working with, hustling with, helping. I want to help them 10x too. And I think.
This is a bold, brave, risky move that shows people, oh, maybe I can 10X. Maybe I can do something like that. That's why I bought the building.
Right. Same exact kind of thing. Make those big swings.
Yeah. Yeah. So I want to touch on one more thing, which is selling a personal brand.
You both now have done it. I mean, SBI has grown out to be much bigger than a personal brand because of the deliberate moves that you put in place. Right.
But if someone is at this place where they're like, oh man, I have a YouTube channel. Maybe they're like a Veritasium or one of those things where they built something of value, it has an audience, but it's so closely tied to them. What advice would you give if you're like, okay, I have 12 months before I'm going to sell this thing.
What steps do I take? It's hard to sell the thing if the thing is your name. That's number one.
Veritasium is not. the seller's name. And so we were able to see the new person come in and he's all over my social feeds now.
It's awesome. I love him, actually. With me, it was Smart Passive Income.
And so I had the benefit of not having my name. I still have Pat Flynn dot com, but that's more of a personal just here's what I'm up to versus business education, Smart Passive Income dot com. So by over the years removing myself.
as the center of the brand and making the community the center, we were able to make that happen. However, I also think there's a lot of opportunity for people with a personal brand who have their personal brand as a name to create an asset that that name and that brand creates and is associated with, but is separate. Just like how I knew a person named Nathan Berry create something called ConvertKit.
and now kit and so many other people clay collins creating lead pages you know when you have a personal brand you have an immediate connection to an audience who's there for you and so you can also tap into that audience to go well what do you need what other problems might you need to be solved let me go build that and i'm going to build it in a way that's separate still with the help of my brand pushing it out there but then now it becomes its own asset that could be sold that could be pushed that could be partnered with on somebody else with somebody else right just like the switch pod with caleb right which i also recently sold with him as well i'm just clearing the runway he's a hustler i love that you said change the name because i made the mistake of my first my rv travel blog was lizwillcox .com And about 18 months in, I knew I didn't want to do it forever.
Like I was having fun with the audience, but I wasn't like so passionate the way I am about this. And I thought, what am I going to do? How could I sell lizwillcox .com?
And I thought, I can't. So I changed the domain. over to the virtual campground dot com.
And I started making it about the community. And I started doing like, you know, inside the RV blogs where I would interview people and give tours of RVs and things like that. And I just eventually moved myself out.
The only place where it was very strong, my voice still was the emails. Right. Which is, I think, similar to SPI.
And that was the very first question. My. Now owners, you know, asked me, they said, Liz, how can we buy the virtual campground?
You're Liz Wilcox. Because in that space, I was really making a name for myself. And I said, but you see, actually, if you look at all the assets, it's the virtual campground.
That's why you want to buy it, right? You understand the values, that core, and you want to grow it, right? And they said, yeah, I guess, you know, we like it because.
It is community because you have this Facebook group, because you go to events and, you know, run a summit and this and that. And yeah, we could we could keep that going. So I think it really is making sure it's named properly and then, you know, having a really core values that are obvious to the audience and then making the audience talk to the audience.
Things we've been talking about for the last hour. OK, the last thing that I want to talk about, we touched on at the beginning is transitions. Life is full of transitions and how you do them matters so much.
You two have been very, very intentional about how to handle this transition. And exactly as you said, Pat, like if you came out and announced it, like we all love big splashes. We love big marketing moments.
And so to say, you know, I sold the business. And then exactly as you said, people will tell all of these stories about what happened and everything else. One of my favorite examples is actually the first like.
blog being sold that i knew of was jd roth selling get rich slowly i don't know what what year he sold this but it was one of my favorites yeah probably what around when we met so it was like 2012 2013 2014 some somewhere in there and i remember they announced that you know he'd sold the business and people were saying oh now it's going to be completely ruined all the stuff and he said no i actually sold it a year ago i just announced now you know they're like yeah And so you two have been so thoughtful with this transition because you want, as I see it, you want the community to experience the authentic thing of what it's going to become before any of their preconceived notions can kick in.
Talk about that more. We just want to show proof that what we are stepping into is going to work versus, hey, trust us. Trust me, bro.
Right. Never trust somebody that says, trust me, bro. It's like, trust me, show.
We will show you. Okay, Pat. And then we'll tell you, right?
And like, yes, a part of that could be like, oh, I feel deceived, right? I can imagine some people maybe saying that like, oh, you had sold it this whole time. Like I was here for you and I hadn't gone anywhere.
I'm still here and I will continue to remain here and there. i think it was really important like that was important for the audience but also i think really important for liz to be positioned as a leader that could do it right and to already have six months behind us of like her doing it right is going to get rid of any sort of like oh what's going to happen well you've seen it And if you didn't like what happened in the last six months, then maybe it isn't for you.
Right. You might have already left. Right.
And some have. Yes. Yeah.
But that's OK. And that was one thing I was I was talking to a friend before. It was right before we signed the deal.
And I said, oh, you know, this is our transition plan. And my friend said, wow, Pat must really care about you. He really wants to see this thing succeed.
Because we did want to make a big splash. Who doesn't want to? We're like, oh, we're going to go to craft and commerce and we're going to write on stage.
And, you know, Pat came to me. He said, that's not right. I said, you know what?
You're right. Let's think about what would work best for the audience. What would make the most people because you can't please everybody.
That's part of being a creator. Comfortable and understanding and on, you know, going from team Flynn to team win. Right.
How can we do that? And, you know, I'll give him full credit for the transition plan. And I thought, yeah, you're right.
This sounds really good. Because in the beginning, I said, oh, I'm thinking of this like a gradient. But our plan was not.
Our plan was a big splash on the canvas. Right. So that's been it's been really remarkable to see the audience.
To see the plan come together, to see the audience. You know, I got my first reply of, Liz, I'm a super fan of yours. I was like, oh, my God, it's working.
I've had a lot of emails from people saying, I love that you've brought Liz on. Like, she's bringing the energy that I felt has been missing. And then you're, you know, you're like, oh, thank you.
And then you're like, you don't even know that half of it yet. There's so many good things coming. I know.
I want to tell everyone, but I'm so excited we're doing this because it feels so good to finally have it out there.
Yeah, it just it just feels really good. I'm so happy we did it this way. And hopefully it's a lesson to all of you who are watching and maybe are curious about what that might look like.
And maybe you hadn't thought so hard about, well, who would be taking over my brand? And maybe this gives you some inspiration for different conversations you can have to hopefully do it right. And is this perfect?
No. There will probably be things that we missed and we'll get some feedback on that and lessons learned. I'm sure.
But at the same time, we did a lot to think about trying to do this the right way and to do it in honor of those who, from my perspective, have helped me get to this position to be able to move into the next phase of my life. And it's crazy because the kids now are just a few years away from. college years and getting into their own lives and families that I'm going to have a lot more time on my hands to go even further in this new mission of mine.
You know, reading a lot of Walt Disney books and things like that. I mean, I'm thinking big. I'm thinking big.
So I love it. I'm so excited. And yeah, I understand.
And I don't take it lightly. The 18 years of work that it took to build this audience and. build that trust like real trust and that's something i'm excited to carry on And something, you know, it's really big shoes to fill.
And I'm taking it seriously. I'm also reading books. Like I said, oh, I just bought that book.
And, you know, I'm reading books. I'm listening to podcasts. I'm journaling.
I'm meditating. And I'm listening to every person in the audience I can. I'm asking so many questions right now in this transition period.
Every email I send. Hit reply, hit reply, hit reply. Do you like this?
Do you not like this? What about it? You know, I'm sending video after video to customers.
I'm getting on 20 minute calls with new customers. When you even went to a workshop about leadership, right? You with Lee.
Oh, right. I'm working with Lee Cockrell, the retired vice president of Walt Disney World, because. I want to make sure I can take care of this many people.
I look at April 1st as for me, you know, yes, it's day one, but it was also like the biggest day of my life. I'm stepping in. I'm stepped into that teleportation device.
I'm at a new level now. And so I need to be a new person who I was March 31st. That girl is gone, you know, and it's not even the audience, also the team stepping in and.
making sure they're happy and you know want to come to work that's a whole new set of problems you know new skills to learn ways to level up and but it's very the same way he's lit up like i'm lit up i i feel energized again that was something um i think i'm I don't know, uniquely equipped for smart passive income because I actually created it.
You know, I have this $9 membership. Y 'all, at $9, you really don't have to deliver a lot. You're spending a lot of time at the beach.
And I spoke in 2025 at Craft & Commerce about that, about how much freedom my membership gave me. And now stepping in, I'm energized again. I'm excited about the audience.
I'm excited to fill these shoes as best I can and take it. to the next level and help creators. I love that.
Well, in a very authentic way to the SPI brand, you two have told the whole story of the acquisition publicly in the same way that you built niche sites publicly. Way back in the day, had the income reports and everything else. It's important for us to be open so we could show how it's done.
And if we don't do it right, you can learn from our mistakes too. That's always been the case. I've been, Chase Reeves was the one who coined me the crash test dummy of online business.
And that was more of a placeholder for a website he was building. And I loved it because it doesn't always go well. Sometimes I might crash, but hopefully this can inspire people to know that even though you might not get it right all the time, you can go to places that you didn't know you could go.
and i'm just so grateful again that you're all here listening thank you nathan for having us and and we're going on this little media tour now to start sharing this more publicly um and new adventures await yeah yeah i can't wait to be the new crash dummy because i've got a lot of ideas and i'm sure a lot will hit the wall and hopefully some of it uh you know will take us to the next level i love that well liz you've been an incredible partner to kit over the years uh your keynote at craft and commerce is fantastic anyone who's obsessed over the world of email and memberships and all that can learn so much from you so thank you for coming on pat i mean We go way back.
We do. And I'm not going anywhere. I'm still here with Kit.
Oh, yeah. Kit was a few thousand dollars a month in revenue when you came on. Now, you know, we're a few million dollars a month in revenue.
Doing pretty good. Yeah. I like to think I had a little bit to do with that.
Just a little bit. Just to play a little guiding hand all the way through. You always give me a lot of credit for, especially on the early days, certain decisions.
And I appreciate that. Oh, there's so many things. uh i'm i'm still in love with kit and will remain and i'm on the board and we'll continue to fight for creators through kit and still through spi um but we got big things coming yeah and i think seeing the new frontier of the creator world and everything you're going into is so exciting so thank you thank you both so much for coming on thank you if you enjoyed hearing pat talk about building something that can outlast him you might also enjoy the last time he was on the show in episode 90.
He breaks down how he grew smart passive income by putting relationships and community first, which is exactly what made what he announced today possible. Like the video if you enjoyed it, hit subscribe on YouTube or wherever you're listening. And I'll see you next week.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Pat Flynn built Smart Passive Income for eighteen years, then quietly sold it in April 2026, a moment revealed here for the first time. Email marketer Liz Wilcox, the buyer, spent six months operating as SPI's 'director of community' before either of them said a word about who actually owned it.
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James Clear returns to the Craft & Commerce stage eight years after his first Atomic Habits talk to unpack the newsletter, the positioning, and the publishing company behind the book's 30 million copies sold.
Layla Pomper hit the same course-revenue ceiling for years, then tripled her monthly income by layering a paid service on top of the course she already had.
A creator with 8 million followers and 5.5 years of daily posting breaks his whole content system into two teachable parts: how to stop niching down, and how to build hooks that stop the scroll.
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