Episode one of Bootstrapped Secrets: the ClickFunnels co-founder retraces the 150 funnels that came before his first big win, and explains why he thinks an AI app builder called Overskill is the second one.
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Most skilled entrepreneurs stall because they aim a level 10 skill set at a level 2 opportunity, and the only way to find a bigger opportunity is to keep shipping smaller ones until your capacity is ready for it.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A marketer, coach or agency owner who is genuinely good at the work but stuck at a revenue ceiling that more skill hasn't moved.
A founder who has launched several small products and is wondering whether to keep going or wait for the one big idea.
Someone watching AI erase parts of their current business who needs a model for deciding what to bet the next decade on.
A ClickFunnels or funnel-marketing follower who wants the backstory on how ClickFunnels started and what came after the 2.0 relaunch.
SKIP IF…
You want a tactical tutorial on building apps with AI. Overskill is described and pitched, not demonstrated.
You want a framework for evaluating markets with numbers. The opportunity test here is a story and a question, not a scoring model.
Faith-based framing puts you off. A central section explains idea flow as God testing who is a good steward of ideas.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Skill and opportunity are separate dials, and turning up skill rarely beats switching to a bigger opportunity. A friend's line during a safari ride in Kenya named it: a level 10 marketer running a $10M company watched a level 2 operator sell a company for a billion because he was plugged into a level 10 opportunity. The catch is that you cannot sit and wait for that opportunity. Over 150 launched funnels, a failed WordPress plugin and dozens of small software products built the capacity and the pattern recognition that turned a Leadpages funding headline into ClickFunnels. The same loop repeated a decade later: after the ClickFunnels 2.0 stumble and AI pressure, 20 to 30 small AI-built tools came before one, Overskill, stood out. Keep shipping, then ask whether your skills are aimed at the right opportunity.
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Cold open: $20 software, ClickFunnels to $1B, and the promise to show how to find a level 10 opportunity before the AI wave passes.
00:50 – 01:20
02 · Welcome to Episode 1
Show intro and the rebrand to Bootstrapped Secrets.
01:20 – 02:31
03 · Who I am: 25 years, 3 books, ClickFunnels
Credentials: 25 years in direct response, three books, ClickFunnels bootstrapped to over $1B in sales in under 10 years.
02:31 – 03:37
04 · The new company: Overskill
Introduces Overskill and the plan to document building a second billion-dollar company in an AI world where old lessons may not hold.
03:37 – 04:50
05 · The pre-journey before ClickFunnels
Newly married with three kids in 18 months, no big idea, just trying anything.
04:50 – 06:50
06 · Zip Brander: $20 to a guy in Romania
A $5,000 quote he couldn't afford, a $20 freelancer, a $67 price and a sales page copied element by element from Armand Morin: the birth of funnel hacking.
06:50 – 07:31
07 · 150 funnels before the one that worked
The Wayback Machine count: over 150 fully launched funnels, some making $20, some making real money.
07:31 – 09:34
08 · Kenya: the trip I didn't want to take
Donating to a friend's charity, a classroom video watched in a church hallway, and the trip his wife insisted on.
09:34 – 10:46
09 · Level 10 skill set, level 2 opportunity
On safari, a top marketer running a $10M company describes a less-skilled friend who sold for a billion. The diagnosis lands on both of them.
10:46 – 11:37
10 · WP Undies and the ideas that failed
Back home, the hunt for a level 10 idea starts with a WordPress plugin and an underwear logo. Nothing works for a while.
11:37 – 13:14
11 · Why bigger ideas find good stewards
The faith-based stewardship model: act on the ideas you're given and you get bigger ones, like the parable of the talents.
13:14 – 14:17
12 · The morning Leadpages raised $5M
A funding headline for 'the simplest software' and a co-founder who says he can build it today.
14:17 – 15:26
13 · The birth of ClickFunnels
A week at a whiteboard adding order forms, upsells and downsells to the Leadpages idea, then buying the domain. 150 at-bats made him ready.
15:26 – 16:33
14 · The $500M offer we turned down
A $1B opening valuation narrows to $500M over eight months; they decline to build ClickFunnels 2.0.
16:33 – 18:37
15 · ClickFunnels 2.0, the dark years, AI
An early launch, 18,000 signups in a day, white-label clones, the death of CEO Dave Woodward, a public misstep, and competitors predicting AI would erase their category.
18:37 – 19:53
16 · Starting over: hunting the next level 10
Products doing a million dollars apiece and 20 to 30 AI-built tools, all good, none a decade-long bet.
19:53 – 23:14
17 · The software that stood out: Overskill
Hunting for a challenge bonus, one tool stands out: software that builds full apps with databases and payments. It felt too big for months, until newer models fixed what was broken.
23:14 – 24:30
18 · Accepting the call (again)
The hero refuses the call first. Deciding to commit the team, time and resources while keeping ClickFunnels running.
24:30 – 27:13
19 · The 24-hour hackathon: 2,500 apps
A livestreamed all-nighter from Atlanta: 5,000 to 6,000 registrants, 2,500 apps built, 994 entries for a $10,000 prize.
27:13 – 29:54
20 · The one idea to take from this episode
Audit your opportunity, not just your skills. Keep putting things into the market until you're ready for your level 10.
29:54 – 30:58
21 · How to try Overskill
Pitch for overskill.com: talk and it builds software, payments and member management included.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Most entrepreneurs never hit their big break because they are running a level 10 skill set inside a level 2 opportunity, not because they lack talent.
A level 2 operator in a level 10 opportunity can sell for a billion dollars while a level 10 operator in a level 2 opportunity tops out around $10 million a year.
Changing the opportunity usually makes more money than any further improvement in skill.
Over 150 funnels were designed, written and launched before ClickFunnels existed, and many of them made only $20 or $30.
The first software product cost $20 to build through a freelancer in Romania and sold for $67 on a sales page copied from a competitor.
Funnel hacking started as pure imitation: same header image, same headline layout, same product box, same long sales letter as the one seller who was already succeeding.
Big opportunities do not show up for people who wait; they show up for people already in motion shipping smaller ideas.
Each idea you act on increases your capacity to handle a bigger one, and capacity is what makes you ready for the level 10 opportunity.
ClickFunnels began as a reaction to a headline: a $5M funding round for Leadpages, software simple enough that a co-founder said he could rebuild it in a day.
The jump from landing-page builder to ClickFunnels came from one question: what would you want beyond those features? The answer was order forms, upsells, downsells and full funnels.
A $1B valuation can shrink to a $500M offer over eight months of buyer due diligence, because acquisitions narrow like a funnel.
Relaunching a mature product can invite tens of thousands of white-label competitors in a few months if the platform is easy to resell.
When the vision for your next big thing arrives, it usually feels too big, and the instinct to reject it is the normal first step of the hero's journey.
A product that stalled on model limits can suddenly work a month later because the underlying language models got smarter, so revisit shelved AI projects.
A 24-hour livestreamed hackathon produced over 2,500 apps and 994 contest entries, a dramatic demonstration that launched a product without a traditional sales event.
AI app builders that generate a front end but leave databases, payments and member management to a developer leave most non-coders stuck.
Takeaway
Fix the opportunity before you fix yourself.
WHAT TO LEARN
Your results are capped by the opportunity your skills are aimed at, and the only reliable way to find a bigger one is to keep shipping smaller ideas until you're ready.
06Zip Brander: $20 to a guy in Romania
Start with a cheap first version: a $20 freelance build sold for $67 was enough to learn traffic, pricing and sales pages from real buyers.
When you don't know how to sell, model the one person already succeeding in your niche, page element by page element, then adapt.
07150 funnels before the one that worked
Volume beats precision early: over 150 launched funnels, many making $20, built the instincts that later spotted a billion-dollar idea.
09Level 10 skill set, level 2 opportunity
Rate your skill and your opportunity separately; a top-tier operator in a small market will be outearned by an average one in a huge market.
Ask whether shifting your opportunity would make more money than any further skill gain, and treat the answer as a real decision, not a daydream.
11Why bigger ideas find good stewards
Big ideas tend to arrive for people already acting on small ones, so momentum is the precondition, not the reward.
Each idea you finish raises your capacity to handle a bigger one; skipping the small launches leaves you unready when the big one appears.
12The morning Leadpages raised $5M
Watch funding headlines in your space: a simple competitor raising money is evidence that the category is bigger than you assumed.
13The birth of ClickFunnels
Ask what you'd want beyond an existing product's features; adding order forms, upsells and full funnels turned a page builder into a new category.
14The $500M offer we turned down
Acquisition offers shrink as buyers dig in, so the headline valuation is rarely the final number.
15ClickFunnels 2.0, the dark years, AI
Easy-to-resell software can spawn thousands of white-label competitors in months; weigh that before relaunching a mature platform.
A new market shift can make your current business shrink fast; build many small experiments and watch for the one that clearly outclasses the rest.
17The software that stood out: Overskill
AI projects that stalled may work a month later as models improve, so revisit shelved tools before writing them off.
18Accepting the call (again)
If the next opportunity feels too big, that reluctance is the expected first reaction; judge it on merit, not on how heavy it feels.
19The 24-hour hackathon: 2,500 apps
A dramatic public demonstration, like a 24-hour live build that produced 2,500 apps, can launch a product better than a standard pitch.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Level 10 opportunity
A market or business vehicle large enough that even average execution can produce outsized results, as opposed to a level 2 opportunity where excellent execution still hits a low ceiling.
Funnel hacking
Studying a successful competitor's sales process page by page, then modeling the structure of your own pages and offers on it.
Funnel
A sequence of web pages that moves a visitor from first contact to purchase, often including an order form plus upsell and downsell offers after the initial sale.
Upsell / downsell
An upsell is an extra offer shown right after a purchase; a downsell is a cheaper alternative shown to someone who declines the upsell.
White label
Rebranding another company's software and selling it under your own name, often through a reseller license.
Bootstrapped
Grown from customer revenue alone, without venture capital or other outside investment.
Two Comma Club
An award ClickFunnels gives to users whose single funnel has generated over $1 million in sales.
Hero's journey
A storytelling pattern where the hero receives a call to adventure, initially refuses it, then accepts and is transformed by the journey.
“Most entrepreneurs never hit their big break. And it's not because they're not good enough. It's because they're stuck in what I call a level two opportunity with the level 10 skill set.”
complete thesis in two sentences, no setup needed→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
10:15
“I know way more than that guy, but I'm stuck with the level 10 skillset and level two opportunity.”
relatable frustration in one line→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
11:30
“Those things don't just magically show up. It's you being in pursuit, you being in momentum and motion that makes it possible for those things to appear.”
direct rebuttal to 'waiting for my big idea'→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
13:50
“Lead pages is the simplest software. How did they get $5 million in funding?”
origin moment of a billion-dollar company in one question→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
20:50
“When you get the vision for the thing you're supposed to do next, your call to adventure, it feels too big.”
“If I shift the opportunity, I'll make more money than I ever could by increasing my skill sets anymore.”
contrarian against the 'learn more' instinct→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
27:40
“150 funnels before I found ClickFunnels.”
specific number that reframes overnight success→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
The Script
Word for word.
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metaphoranalogystory
This is my next billion dollar business. 25 years ago, I was a kid selling a software product that I paid a guy in Romania $20 to build. And a decade ago, my partner Todd Dickerson and I bootstrapped ClickFunnels from zero to over a billion dollars in sales.
And today, I'm going to be doing it again in an AI world that's about to race half of the tools that we were using when we started ClickFunnels. The reality is that most entrepreneurs never hit their big break. And it's not because they're not good enough, okay?
It's because they're stuck in what I call a level two opportunity with the level 10 skill set. During this episode, I'm going to show you how we found our next level 10 opportunity and how you can find yours before the next wave passes you by.
Welcome to Bootstrap Secrets. His ideas have literally shaped how we view modern day marketing. He has impacted the bottom line of more businesses than any I've ever known.
And of all the people that are going to change the world, it's entrepreneurs like you. Hey, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to episode one of Bootstrap Secrets podcast and YouTube channel. So excited to have you guys here.
And this is something that This rebrand, this new fresh direction has been a long time in the making. I've not enjoyed creating content for a long time.
And when this idea finally came around, I'm like, okay, this is something that I'm really excited to do. So the goal, if you watch the episode number one, the intro or the intro channel intro episode, my goal with this is to help take you guys on the journey of us building our second billion dollar company. If you don't know who I am, my name is Russell Brunson.
I've been playing this internet marketing direct response game for like 25 years back before it was cool. Back before MySpace was here, I was playing this game and I'm obsessed with it. I've written a lot of books on it.
There's three that have been published, Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets, which was a New York Times bestseller. I love talking about funnels and growing. And I wrote this book series when I launched my company with my co -founder, Todd Dickerson.
Our company's called ClickFunnels. You've probably heard of it. Okay.
It took the world by storm a decade ago. And what was fun about as we started growing.
And, you know, it was my first time as a CEO, my first time, like, you know, before my businesses prior to me, just like hustling and, you know, selling things here and there. Like I sold a DVD teaching people how to make potato guns. I sold software that I'd made, you know, had outsourced to Romania.
And like, I had little businesses. But ClickFunnels was the first big business where I was like a CEO and we were hiring staff and employees and all these things. And we grew that company from zero to over a billion dollars in sales in less than 10 years without taking on any outside funding or capital.
We did the whole thing through Funnels. Like it's, you know, we are a case study of the philosophy that we were teaching, which I'm very proud of. And so that's kind of, that was my first business.
And now we're launching a new company. And depending when you're watching this, you may or may not have heard of it. New company is called Overskill.
And this is, the next level 10 opportunity, the thing that I think will become my next billion dollar brand. And I want to document that journey.
But I'm doing it from a kind of unique spot, I think, right? Where I've done it once and now we're doing it again. We did it once in a world where...
the internet and the world was different. Now we're doing the AI world. So there's like, there's lessons that we learned before that won't work today.
And there's things that, uh, that didn't work before that may work now and vice versa. And so my job and my goal with this podcast is to kind of look back and be like, Hey, here's something we tried. Here's how we're doing over here.
And then not becoming and just like teaching you what to do, but more like, uh, like. go on these experiments with me. Like I'm trying this thing out.
Let's see what happens. And hopefully you'll learn along the way. And selfishly, it's for me to just document my journey.
So I'm pumped. There's not a lot of people out there who built a billion dollar company who talk about it and share it. And so that's kind of my goal to do those things with you guys.
So that's the plan with this channel. I hope you love it. If so, make sure you subscribe, listen in.
We'll be dropping these once a week. And if it becomes more fun, maybe we'll increase the volume, but it just depends on how much you guys love this. Okay, so we're talking about first, because I know a lot of you guys, your job and your goal may not be to build a billion dollar company, which is fine, but you're building something right now, right?
And so I want to talk about the pre -journey for me before we launched ClickFunnels and the pre -journey before we launched Overskill, because they're very similar in kind of a strange way for me. So I'll go back to the ClickFunnels journey first. So if you rewind back, man, 15 or so years ago, maybe longer than that now probably, but I was out there and I was trying to figure out how to start a business on the internet, right?
I'd met my wife, we'd gotten married, we fell in love. We had twins right out of the gate and another kid, we had three kids in 18 months, which is chaos. Which now, by the way, all three have moved out of our home.
They're all in college or missions and it's just, it's, anyway. It's a sad story. Uh, when your kids start leaving as you guys will find out if you got kids, but, um, it was way back when we're starting and I didn't know what I was doing.
Right. Like, um, I didn't know what, what my, my big thing was. And it's funny cause I look at a lot of entrepreneurs nowadays who are like, they're waiting for their thing.
They're waiting until like the, you know, their big opportunity comes like, when's my click funnels going to show up? Then I'm going to go and put it and put everything into it. But back then I didn't, I didn't have anything.
I was just trying anything. So like, You probably heard my stories.
My first product, actually even before my potato guns, my very first product idea I had was this thing called Zip Brander. It was this little software product that in my head, I was like, this will change the world. Basically the concept is like, I wanted a software that would like brand a zip file.
So you open a zip file and you'd see an ad before it'd give you the contents of. the zip file. Right.
And I say now it's like, that seems really dumb. But for me, like as a 21 year old kid, like I was like, this is the greatest idea in the world. Like, and so I wanted to build it and I couldn't because I didn't have the resources to build it.
Right. I tried to hire a company that they wanted $5 ,000. I didn't have that.
And eventually I started learning how the internet worked. I found websites where I could hire people. I hired this guy named Cyprian in Romania and I paid him $20 and he built the first one for me and I put it up on the internet.
I started selling it for $67. And, um, This is actually where funnel hacking first started.
Like I didn't know how to sell it, but I was looking around and there was this guy, his name is Armin Morin. And some of you guys may know him and Armin. had like 10 different software products.
And so I was like, I watched how he was selling. I'm like, this is how he sells. I'm going to sell mine that way.
So he had a sales that had like a header image with like the picture of the thing and his name on it. And then he had a headline and then he had a picture of the software box and he had a long sales there. So I literally just made mine identical.
So he had e -cover generator. I had zip brander and like I hired someone to make the banner ad look just like his banner ad, but with my branding. And then he had a headline.
So I wrote my headline and I did it all in front page. That's the only thing I could figure out how to use. And I do the whole thing.
And so it looked very, I modeled him as close. as I could because he was the only person I saw who was doing it. So I paid $20 for the software and I started selling it for 67.
And then first nobody showed up. I had to learn how do you drive traffic? How do you get things?
So I started selling that, right? people started buying that. I was like, this is crazy.
And that's where I came up with another idea. My next one is another software. I think it was called the article forum fortunes.
The next was, it was the thing. Like I wanted to be able to track posts. I made in forums.
They would notify me of some comments. I could go back and I could, you know, so I call it forum fortunes. I paid someone a hundred dollars to build that one.
And I launched that. And then I made one called article spider. And like, I just kept doing these little software companies.
And then I started creating information products and, um, and I launched just dozens and dozens of these companies. And I say dozens, but it's actually more than that. One time at Funnel Hacking Live, we went back in time to see how many we had actually, how many had actually done.
And I was able to count, I could find on the Wayback Machine over 150 funnels. And this is not ideas for funnels. These are funnels that were done, you know, designed, sales letter, order form, launched onto the internet, over 150.
And so, um, and I look at those and I remember looking back at him. I'm like, some of these ideas were horrible, right? And maybe the horrible ones made 20, 30 bucks and some were really good.
They made a lot of money. Right. But I was just trying these different things over and over and over again.
And, uh, and I know, I mean, again, I was a young kid at the time. I was like, I don't really know what I'm doing other than I'm just going to make that made money. Let me do another one.
And just kept doing these things. Right. And, um, and so that's kind of how I got started.
And I remember about that time and I built a pretty good company. We had, we had staff and employees and stuff, you know, things were happening. And, um, about that time, My friend Stu McLaren and his wife Amy, they started charity.
And back then it was called World Teacher Aid. They've changed the name now to Village Impact. But they started these fundraisers.
I remember because Stu was like, hey, Russell, do you want to donate to our fundraiser? I was like, yes, I would love to because I love Stu and Amy, right? So we donated the fundraiser and they did these telethons.
We'd be part of the telethons or the teleseminars and all these different things. And then one day he invited me, you should come to Kenya with us so you can see what... you know, the money does.
And I was like, I'm not going to Kenya, dude. Like if I'm going on vacation, I'm going to Hawaii or Mexico or something. Uh, he's like, you gotta come.
And I didn't come. And it's funny. Cause him, he went out there, him and David fried a bunch of my friends went out there and, um, And some of the money that we had helped fundraise built a classroom.
It's a classroom. They had our night of Russell and Clep Brunson room or something. And we had funded this classroom.
These kids were in school in Kenya. So they filmed a video of this and they sent it to me. I remember cause I was sitting in church.
I get this text message randomly from David Fry and church got, I walked down the hallway and I was watching this video and it's Dave and Stu and they're like, Hey Russell, uh, we're in Kenya right now. And there's a message from these kids in the classroom that you sponsored. They want to say something and they walk in this classroom and there's you know, 30 or 40 of the most beautiful kids in the world.
And, uh, in their broken English, they go, thank you, Russell. Thank you, Colette. Um, and, uh, you know, uh, and I'm sitting there in the hallway of church, just bawling my eyes out.
And then my wife comes, she's like, what's up? What's the matter? I show her the video.
And, and she's like, what's this? I'm like, well, we've been donating to this thing, but they wanted us to go, but I, you know, I didn't, we don't, we don't want to go to Kenya. And she hits me.
What are you talking about? I want to go to Kenya. I'm like, oh man.
So next year we got to Kenya and, um, And we experience what it's like. We don't just give money and, you know, whatever.
Like we gave money, had a chance to experience and see what it was like. And that is what changes you. I don't know if you had a chance to do that with your givings, but if you have a chance to actually see the people it's affecting, like it'll change you forever.
And so we went to Kenya and we ended up going multiple times. I think on the second trip out there, this is before ClickFunnels had happened. I was in a car.
with a guy, Bill Harrison, if you guys know Bill, and one of the smartest marketers in the world. And we're driving around in this little, on a safari in this little Jeep or something. And it's just me and him.
And we're driving around for like four or five hours. And so we're just geeking out. Like he's a book nerd and I'm a book nerd.
And we're just talking and sharing stuff. And a couple hours into it, he says something that changes my life. He tells me, he's like, man, Russell, it's so frustrating.
He's like, I feel like I and you have a level 10 skills. We are the best marketers in the world. But it's like, I feel like I'm working in a level two opportunity.
And I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, he said, our company is great. We do like, I can't remember.
It's like $10 million a year, which is great. He's like, but I have a friend and my friend is, he's got like a level two skillset. He's not that smart.
He doesn't understand business or marketing or anything, but he plugged into a level 10 opportunity and he just sold his company for a billion dollars. He's like, I know way more than that guy, but I'm stuck with the level 10 skillset and level two opportunity. And he looked at me and he said, I feel like you're the same way, Russell.
He's like, you got a level 10 skillset and you're in a level two opportunity. I started looking around at all my products, my business. I was like, dang, he's right.
What would happen if I focused my efforts on a level 10 opportunity? I don't even know. So I get back from Kenya on this trip.
And Todd Dickerson, who was a friend at the time, who's working with me, I tell him this story. And we're at a traffic and conversion event. And we're like, well, what's our level?
What's our level 10 opportunity? We got to start thinking big, right? What's our level 10 opportunity?
What's the biggest thing in the world? And we started brainstorming ideas. I still remember because the first version, we had this idea.
We're like, because WordPress at the time was like the biggest website builder in the world. Like, what if we built something that plugs into WordPress that does, I don't know. And we're like, we should call it WP Undies.
And I remember getting a logo design, had the WordPress logo and it's wearing like tighty -whitey underwear. And we're like, this is our level 10 opportunity. It's going to change the world.
So we started working on that. It never came to fruition. We tried another thing.
We kept trying these different things. Nothing was working. Nothing was working.
And we're trying to figure out, you know, and in the meantime, we're still launching different businesses and trying to like, just to figure out like, you know, what's going to get some traction? Like, what's it going to be? And we didn't know.
And then, and actually I want to share one other story that ties into this because I think it's interesting that so many people will tell me that again, that they're waiting for their level 10 opportunity or their thing. And they don't understand that those things don't just magically show up.
Like it's you being in pursuit, you being in momentum and motion that. that makes it possible for those things to appear. I think about this, like, uh, when I got started 20, whatever years ago now, like my, the, one of the first things I did was the potato gun DVD.
Right. And we did it and launched it makes my zip brand or these other different things I made out there. And I just assume, and maybe I'm wrong.
I could be, I could be completely wrong. But my, my belief is that, um, God gives people ideas. And how many times have you seen something?
You're like, Oh, I got that idea. Like I Uber, that was my idea. You know, like I think God gives a lot of people ideas and he's looking to see who's going to be a good steward of this idea.
So he plants this idea in people's minds. And most people get an idea and they're like, whoa, that's cool. And they don't do anything.
But for me, like I would get an idea in my mind. I was like, oh, that's amazing. And I would go and I would do it.
Zip brand, right? I create it, launch it. And God's like, dang, he is a good steward of ideas.
I'm going to give him another idea. So he gave me another idea, right? A little bit bigger.
And what happens is he takes the bigger idea and he sees that I go and I take it. I run with it. I do it.
I launch it. Maybe I screw the whole thing up, but I did it. And he's like, wow, Russell is.
like I gave him the idea, he did something with it, right? It's like the parable of the talents in the Bible, right? And then I'm going to give him another one.
So what happens is each time he gives you an idea, he gives one a little bigger and a little bigger. So it increases your capacity, your ability to handle it and increases your capacity until eventually, right? For me, it was, I don't know, a decade and all of a sudden it's like click funnels, right?
So me and Todd, we're working on a level 10 opportunity, right? And all of a sudden it's like. I still remember the day, uh, Todd lives in Atlanta.
I'm in Boise. He was flying out. We're going to do a week long hackathon and figure out our level 10 opportunity.
And that morning lead pages got their funding for $5 million. And Todd reads the article. He's like, what?
And he emails it to me. He jumps on a plane. Then I wake up in the morning.
I read the article. I'm like lead pages. I was like, lead pages is the simplest software like that.
like how did they get $5 million in funding? Like we couldn't fathom that, right? Because most of our business is doing $5 million a year, maybe at their peak, like 5 million in funding, like it didn't make any sense.
And then Todd got there and he's like, I can build lead pages today. I was like, you could, I'm like, let's do it. And so that's kind of the beginning of this thing.
I'm like, maybe that's our level 10 opportunity. And then Todd asked a really good question. He's like, well, if I'm building this, like, do you want anything else besides the lead pages features?
And I was like, can you put an order for them? Could we have an upsell? Could we have a downsell?
And also, like, could we build a funnel? And we started going back and forth. And we spent a week in front of a whiteboard just mapping these things out and talking about them until eventually we came up with the concept.
And then from there, we bought a domain. And the domain we bought was called ClickFunnels. And that was the birth of ClickFunnels, my level 10 opportunity.
I share that because, like, some of you guys are waiting for your level 10 opportunity. But I had 150 shots, you know, what do they call them in baseball, like at -bats, where I got an idea. I did it.
God's like, you're a good steward. I'm gonna give you a better one. And I increased my capacity, increased it till I got stronger and better and better till eventually I was worthy of the big idea, right?
And I have the idea and we go and we start, we launch it. And if you followed, you know, the last decade of our life or the history, we blew up and everything, it changed. Like we went from zero to, you know, a hundred million dollars plus a year in recurring revenue, over a billion dollars in sales in a decade.
I think over three or 4 ,000 people have won a two comic club award. Most of the gurus who you see on stage, a lot of them have bigger platforms than me. They came through these doors.
They were. trying to figure out business. They came to our world, they read the books, they used ClickFunnels, went to the events, and then they launched their empires.
And it's so fun to see in every market, every industry, we had such an impact for a decade. And that was like, that was the journey from ClickFunnels. And again, we'll go deep into little nuances of stories, but it was all about doing a lot of things until you can prove that you're worthy of like getting your level 10 opportunity.
Okay, now fast forward. seven, eight years in ClickFunnels, we get an offer. They valued ClickFunnels.
Initially, I told the story of FunLock Live and people online, like, oh, it's not true. Like, completely true. We first decided to go sell ClickFunnels, went to market.
Initial offers came in. They valued us a billion dollars. But if you ever try to sell a company, what happens is you get 100 people who say yes, and then they start fighting against each other, and the people drop out.
It's like a big funnel. And you get down further and further, and they're trying to figure out why you're not worth a billion, and then why you're only worth 900 and 800. Anyway, by the time it all said and done, we got the offer like eight months later.
the offer we got valued us about $500 million, which is amazing. But cocky Russell's like, no, we're worth a billion. We should be worth more.
And because of that and other reasons, we decided to say no to it. We turned down a huge offer valuing us at half a billion dollars. And the reason why is we wanted to keep doing, like, we love what we do.
We didn't want to stop. And we also felt that the original ClickFunnels needed more. We wanted to build more stuff.
And so we decided to, instead of cash out and take the money, it's like, instead of doing that, let's go and let's build ClickFunnels 2 .0, the next version that we think will be what people need over the next decade. And so we spent two years building that. And honestly, I made a lot of bad.
mistakes along the way things i will walk you through in other episodes but we launched it we definitely launched it early i tried to position as a beta but people didn't see it that way there were problems, there were issues, things that we had tested for a year that worked. But when you get 18 ,000 people to join in a day, it was brutal.
At the same time, we had competitors come in who basically took our software and white labeled it and then sold white labels. And we went from having two or three competitors to having tens of thousands in a couple month period of time. It was brutal.
It was hard. And ClickFunnels started shrinking and things were falling apart. my business partner and one of my closest friends in the world dave woodward he was our ceo at the time he passed away which was another brutal thing and um it was just like thing after thing for a couple years where it's just uh it was hard i think all of us go through these cycles ups and downs and that was for me probably some of the darkest times in my life um i had a you know made some dumb mistakes at a wrestling match i got you know semi -cancelled like just it was brutal and for me i wanted to hide and kind of you know just not show my face for a long time and so we did um and click phones you know shrinking over time and then all of a sudden ai comes out and it starts shifting things and changing things um i remember having a call with uh our biggest competitors uh with the ceos of that company they said we're scared for ai we got for like two years and then ai is gonna gonna completely destroy our business i was like what like i don't i'm like i don't know if that's in my head i couldn't quite see it yet and then come 2026 and also i was like oh dang they were right
like in the very near future, them and maybe us are not going to be even needed. Like what, like, like AI shifted everything. And then for me, I was like, well, what does that mean for me, for my business, for my employees, for my staff, for my family, for everything?
Like, I gotta like, like what's like, where are things going? And I had to wake up, I had to get out of a slumber and come back and like, okay, how do I step into this? What do we have to do?
It was crazy. If I look at this, the, the, the, um, the similarities between these two things, I feel like I was starting back at the very beginning. I feel like, you know, um, we'd just been given the thought of like, you need to create a level 10 opportunity.
And me and Todd were trying to figure out what it was. I feel like that's this next window of a year. We're trying to figure out our level 10 opportunity.
And if you watch my company, you've seen, we've launched a lot of things. We've launched challenges and webinars and products and certainly all great things, right? You know, in fact, the products are insane.
I feel like it's like the equivalent of like, well, my potato gun zip brand or things like that were back, you know, 20 years ago. It's like our new version, they're way better. But they were saying things like, we've launched these things and, you know, they do a million dollars.
They do like, they would do okay, but it wasn't like. It wasn't like a level 10 opportunity. It wasn't something that I could build the next decade of my life on, right?
I could try and thing after thing after thing. And with AI coding, Todd, who's the smartest person I ever met, he coded like, I don't know, 20 or 30 different software companies. And every day he said to me, look what I built, look what I built.
And I'm like, dude, we could, like, that's amazing. And that's amazing. But they were all like, they were like level two or level three software.
I mean, they're all good. They're all good. And we launched some of them.
We gave some as bonuses. We did all sorts of stuff. But we still didn't know like what we were doing, right?
Like what's the future? Where do these things all fit in? And I feel like this was kind of the same time for us where it's like God's given us ideas and he's saying like, are they gonna be a good steward of these ideas?
Let's try this one and this one. And we were trying things and moving forward and doing our best with the ideas that came to us. And then in April this year, it was kind of crazy.
AI was at its peak. We were having a lot of success with it, doing different things. And we decided to do a challenge.
And as we're doing the challenge, putting the pieces together in the days and trying to mount everything together, creating a really, really good offer to sell at the end of it. And I'm looking at all the different things that Todd's created over the last year, right? And I'm looking at it more as like, what's a bonus we can include in this challenge?
And I'm looking at it and there's this one product that he built that completely stood out. above the rest. And it was this software he built called Overskill.
And it was software that would build software. Okay. It's an app that would build apps.
It was a software to build games. It would do like anything. And I remember seeing it.
I was like, oh, that seems too big. I don't know about you, but a lot of times. When you get the vision for the thing you're supposed to do next, your call to adventure, it feels too big.
You guys ever felt that before? Like, this is too big. I can't do that.
I think if I would have known what ClickFunnels was going to become, I think I was young and dumb. So I was like, let's just go. And we started running.
If I would have known what ClickFunnels was going to become, how much my capacity would have to increase to be able to handle the weight of that movement.
I probably would have, I would have been scared to death. I think with overskill, I was like, I see the vision and it's too heavy. I don't want to do that.
I actually knew about overskill for four or five months prior. In fact, when we were in Japan, opening ClickFunnels Japan in December, Todd showed to me, we talked about it. I was just like, that seems too big.
I don't think I want to go down that path. Like, it just seemed too overwhelming. So we didn't.
And in April, we're doing this launch and we look at it again. And I was like, I'm like, of everything we've created, like, that's the thing. That's the level 10 opportunity.
And I was like, is it good enough, Todd? You know, like, I don't know. Like I've, I've seen the competitors like lovable and base 44 and these other ones.
Right. And I've used them and they're like, they're kind of good, but they were kind of, it was kind of frustrating because you would use it and like you create something amazing, but it doesn't do anything. And then you like supposed to give it to a program and they develop it or you have to figure out how to hook up databases and member manage.
Like they weren't great. And I started using overskill and Todd's like, I built it. So they did all that stuff for you.
So like literally you prompt one thing and the whole thing's done, builds all that. You take away all the stuff that I hated about any of these other ones, why I never used them. he got rid of in this thing.
And so we started testing it again and there was a whole bunch of bugs and issues and stuff. And I was like, well, can we demo it on this challenge? And he's like, he's like, let me play with it this weekend.
So he started playing with that weekend. He started doing all sorts of stuff. And he messaged me like every couple hours.
He was so excited. He's like, he's like, dude, the language model, since I worked on this last, like a month ago have increased, you know, going from like, Oh, you know, whatever, something to Opus, Opus, like these different levels. He's like, he's like, they've gotten smarter.
And he's like, all the things I kept getting stuck on now work. I'm like, what? And so he's doing stuff.
And then he gets, pulls three or four guys and they're all like coding on this thing like crazy. They're using AI to code the AI and they're pulling all nighters for like a week straight.
And by the time the challenge happens, Overskill's ready. And not for everybody, but for beta. And we kind of showed it, but we didn't, it wasn't ready to give to people yet, but we showed it.
And I remember the reactions. People started freaking out, like, wait, what? And they were like, this is like, like just, it was different.
It was like the same thing when we showed ClickFunnels the first time. People were like, wait, what, what is this? They kind of, this second guess, right?
And, uh, and when the challenge was done, we sold something else and they got kind of a bonus so they could use overskill. Um, and I was like, Todd, I was like, dude, I think, I think this is the next one. This is, this is it.
And, uh, he was like, yeah, I think so too. And I remember thinking, it's like, if we want to go on this path, like again, if you, if you study the hero's journey with me ever, it's like the hero, here's the call to adventure. And then the first thing we do is like.
I don't want to do that. Like we, we turn away from it, right? Like that seems too much.
The hero always rejects the call. Um, but if the hero will accept the call and go on this journey, then, then everything changes. And so I think we're talking to him back and forth.
Like, we sure we can do this. We sure like we've done this in the past. We know what goes into this for us to build this and the team and the people in the community and the, like, it's not a light.
It's not like work. We're not like we were 20 years ago. We're like, we're, we're in our forties.
Well, I am Todd's younger me. Like I got some gray hair now. These are all, these are all click funnels, gray hairs.
Some of my kids, some of my kids too, but like, I said, we want to go on this journey. And for us, finally, we're like, yes, let's do it. Let's put in the time, the effort, the resources.
And so this is our second journey is building over skill. And again, ClickFunnels is still insane. It's working.
It's, we've got an amazing member base. We're still, we get over a thousand people. They still like signing up for ClickFunnels account.
Like it's not that we're abandoning that business. That business is structured. It runs, it's got a great team.
Like it's, it's perfect. But for us, it's like everything's shifting, AI shifting, like the world's changing. What's going to be our unique contribution and over skill.
I believe is the thing. And so that's where we're kind of leaning into. And so last week we did our first launch and it reminded me very much of the first launch of ClickFunnels where we tried three or four times to launch it.
And then eventually I got asked by Mike Filsaime to speak at his Genesis event. I can't remember if it's called Genesis something anyway, where I got on stage and we sold ClickFunnels and people ran the back when they signed up. We had a chance last week, we decided to do this about a month and a half before Funnel Hacking Live.
We thought, let's put together. a dramatic demonstration to launch it's like what should we do i'm like well people can build an app in a day like I mean, they can build it faster than they, but what if, what if we pulled an all nighter?
What if we actually took 24 hours and pulled an all nighter? And so I messaged Todd. He's like, yeah, let's do it.
And I messaged people off and everyone's like, yeah, let's do it. And forgetting that we're no longer spring chickens. We, uh, we flew to Atlanta and we decided to pull an, uh, 24 hour hackathon, which is actually longer than that because we woke up and like all day long, we're promoting and getting people excited.
And then we started at noon East coast time. Right. And, uh, from that, I think we had five or 6 ,000 people register, maybe more than that.
Um, and then we had those people come on this, this 24 hour thing where literally we're going live for 24 hour, like live streaming, like the kids do like Twitchers and streamers. I don't know what to call it. And we did this whole thing and we went and, um, and, uh, did for 24 hours and, and bill apps.
And during that time I was building 12 different apps myself. Like while we're doing, I'm showing people we're talking about and they're building apps. And, um, when the 24 hours was done over 2 ,500 apps had been built 994.
apps were submitted for our grand prize of ten thousand dollars um and they weren't just like crappy apps or crappy ideas like these were full -blown like we spent we had 24 hours after we ended to sleep and then wake up and go through all the submissions. And it was, it was so hard.
We'd use AI to go through it. And AI was looked at triangulating like 20 different things. They came back with like, here's our top 300.
Like we said, top 10 is like too many with 300 is the least I could do. Like what? So we took 300 and we had to go through them and eventually broke them down to the top 15.
But they were, I mean, they were all so good. So many industries, markets, ideas, and people made games. People made like software.
People made lead gen apps. Like, yeah, it was. It was insane what people were able to do in 24 hours and someone won the $10 ,000.
It's really fun and kind of kickstarted this. And right now there's a waiting list. We're kind of keeping it under wraps, but we're working now on like the plan and the model to grow and scale this.
And so this is my next level 10 opportunity. And while I'm nervous for the path ahead, I'm excited. And this whole podcast.
again, my goal is to, to talk about that, to take you guys on the journey, what we're doing. Cause I know right now you're building your own companies. Hopefully you're building an overskill.
Hopefully you're building out your entire software and your app and your continuity and everything on overskill. So if I can show you what we're doing to grow overskill, you can take these ideas and you can model them for your software, for your business, for the things that you're trying to build and create in this world.
And so that's kind of my goal, my game plan with this podcast. My goal this episode is to show you guys and help you understand level 10 opportunity, right? Alex Ramosi doesn't like to give people credit, but there's one time he did a podcast where he told the podcast host, he said, Russell Brunson told me this idea about a level 10 opportunity.
It changed my life, right? I've taught it to him. I've taught to other people.
And I want you guys to understand that if you had nothing else, this is the only episode you listen to. Think about that because you right now probably have a level 10 or level eight or whatever level skillset. And if you're not making the money you want, having the impact you want, you're probably in a level two opportunity.
If you can change that where you have a level 10 skill set in a level 10 opportunity, how will that change everything for you? And the reality is you're gonna have to go through a bunch of things before you find that, okay? 150 funnels before I found ClickFunnels, right?
We probably did, I don't know. 10, 12 different things before we found Overskill, right? So you look at that, it's like you got to be putting things out there into the marketplace.
Don't wait. They have to stop stopping. You have to put things out there and try and try and try.
And as you start doing that, what happens is your audience will find you. You're going to learn. You're going to increase your capacity.
Then better ideas will come. And if you're a good steward of those ideas, you'll get more ideas. You'll increase your capacity until eventually you'll be ready for whatever your level 10 opportunity is, okay?
I don't think I'm yet ready for my next level 10 opportunity. The growth it's going to take for me to be able to grow a company in an AI world we're competing against people with literally, you know, we are lead pages at $5 million in funding.
We're competing. There are people that have hundreds of millions of dollars in funding right now in the AI world. And that's who we're competing against fist to fist without taking out money.
that's what we're bootstrapping now. And so it's going to be a fun journey and I'm excited for the growth and the expansion and the learning and excited to come back and share these ideas and things with you. And hopefully it'll be useful for you as well.
So that's what bootstrap secrets is all about. This is episode number one, figuring out your level 10 opportunity. I hope that helps you.
Hopefully it helps you if you're stuck in, in these ideas that aren't working to keep pursuing them and keep putting them out there. So you'll become worthy of your eventual level 10 opportunity. And if you've got this right now, you've got a level 10 skillset and you're not where you're at yet.
Start looking at like, what is the opposite? am I in the right opportunity? If I shift the opportunity, I'll make more money than I ever could by increasing my skill sets anymore.
So what is the opportunity I'm focusing my skill sets on? Is it the right opportunity? And if not, what is that thing?
And start looking for your eyes wide open. When Todd and I started looking for the opportunity, we found ClickFunnels. We started looking for the opportunity we found over skill, but we had to be doing those things for them to show up.
And so I hope that's beneficial for you guys. If so, tell people about this podcast. Again, I'm excited for it.
The more people are listening, either on YouTube or here on Spotify or wherever you're listening to it, watching it. You know, the more excited you guys get, the more excited I'll be to share all these kinds of things.
So please share with other entrepreneurs and business owners. If you got some value from this one, please let me know in the comments down below. I do look at those.
I know people always say that, but like, um, I don't know. It's my new, a new YouTube channel, new podcast episode. I'm actually watching those things and really enjoying getting people's feedback.
So let me know. Um, other than that, I appreciate you. If you want to build something amazing, go to overskill .com.
Uh, if it's live, you can go sign up, not get on the waiting list. Um, and you'll be able to see literally you can just talk and it builds software. It's, it's crazy.
And it doesn't just build the UI or something like it finishes it for you. Like the payments, the member management, like, um, all those complexities are done. Um, Like I said, during the 24 -hour challenge, I was working at 12 or 13 apps.
I probably got... 20 that I'm working on right now. Some of them are already processing, taking orders in different markets.
I mean, I have one in the conspiracy theories market. I got one in the wrestling, like all my fun side projects I was wanting to do, but I never could justify me hiring a programmer to build a wrestling site for me. Now it's like, oh, I can just talk to Overskill and it does it for me.
It takes 15 minutes versus three months. Like it's literally crazy when you guys try to change everything for you. So anyway, that's the game plan.
Document the journey. I hope this is valuable for you guys. If it was, please share this with everybody else.
And with that said, I will see you guys on the next episode of bootstrap secrets.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The cold open stacks three proof points in 30 seconds ($20 Romanian software, ClickFunnels past a billion, doing it again in AI) and then names the enemy: a level 2 opportunity paired with a level 10 skill set. Everything after is the backstory that earns that line.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
09:50model
Level 10 Skill Set vs Level 10 Opportunity
Rate your skill set (1-10)
Rate the opportunity you've aimed it at (1-10)
If the gap is large, change the opportunity before chasing more skill
Results are capped by the opportunity, not the operator. A great marketer in a small market earns less than an average one plugged into a huge market.
Steal forpositioning a coaching offer around switching vehicles rather than learning more tactics
12:00concept
Stewardship of Ideas
Get an idea
Act on it and launch, even badly
Receive a slightly bigger idea
Capacity grows until the big one arrives
Ideas escalate for people who execute on the ones they already have. Waiting for the big idea breaks the loop that produces it.
Steal fora 'ship small to earn big' lesson for audiences stuck in idea paralysis
06:20concept
Funnel Hacking (original form)
Find the one seller already succeeding
Copy the page structure element by element
Swap in your own product and branding
The first sales page was a near-exact structural copy of Armand Morin's eCover Generator page, which became the funnel hacking method.
Steal forfirst-product launches where the seller has no copywriting experience
23:15concept
Hero Refuses the Call
Call to adventure
Refusal: it feels too big
Acceptance
Transformation
Feeling that an opportunity is too heavy is the normal first reaction, not a signal to walk away.
Steal fororigin-story content and launch narratives
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
29:54product
“If you want to build something amazing, go to overskill.com.”
Soft and late. Earlier in the episode Overskill is woven into the story, then the closing ask leans on his own use case (20 side-project apps, one taking orders) rather than a hard offer.
Add Modern Creator as a preferred source and Google shows you more of our breakdowns in Search, Top Stories, and AI Overviews. It only changes what you see, and you can undo it in your Google settings anytime.
Add to Preferred SourcesOpens your Google source preferences with us pre-loaded. Tick the box and you're done.
Brunson retraces every 'what if' of his career, from a teenage classified-ad hustle to turning down a half-billion-dollar buyout, then uses that same reframe to justify ClickFunnels' pivot into two new AI products.
Devon Levesque and Albert Matheny on building a nine-figure supplement empire without running a single paid ad for years -- and the philosophy that makes it last.
Vincent James, author of The 12 Month Millionaire, tells his story on a stage for the first time: a continuity empire built off magazine ads, a seized fortune, a book written 17 days before jail, 18 years as a fugitive, and the sales letter that got a 116-year indictment dropped.
Over a long lunch, Leila Hormozi interviews her husband Alex about the 1.2 GPA that rewired him, why he quit consulting, why passion made a bad business, and the one thing success cost him.
Dan Martell walks through the chief-of-staff bot he uses to spin up inbox, people, travel, family, finance, sales and team bots, each from a single plain-English prompt.
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