Friction: Your Secret Weapon to Making More Money, and Keeping Your Sanity
Why you should make 2025 the year you finally say "No."
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Holy shit.
January 2025 might have been the longest month in my human existence.
I promised you monthly updates on my new “newsletter” business & the funnels attached to it, as well as areas where I need improvement.
A lot has changed, and even more is changing for February…so without beating around the bush…let’s get into the numbers.
Revenue Update:
For our reporting purposes, I’m treating anything that happened before January 1, 2025 as null and void.
This is a new year, new publication style, and new funnel…
Therefore, we’re going to act as if this was a brand new business I’m starting from scratch.
Here’s the results so far:
The Automation Lab - Community
17 new members
Monthly Recurring Revenue = $1245
0 Churned
January Goal = 30 new members
Fell short of the goal by 13 members.
My initial goal, having never run a subscription community before, was 30 new members inside the community. We had a nice little surge of new joiners at the beginning of January, mostly because of seasonality.
I figured, 1x a day is a steep but doable goal, but I didn’t do any outbound whatsoever…which in hindsight would have probaly put me at the goal.
The Skool Community landing page URLs are only shared in 3 places:
YouTube video descriptions
LinkedIn featured section
Substack articles & signoffs
I’ve collected feedback, and a majority of these new members are coming in 2 different funels:
Funnel 1 = LinkedIn → Newsletter article → Binging YouTube videos → Skool Purchase
or
Funnel 2 = YouTube / LinkedIn → binging Newsletter articles → Skool purchase
It’s interesting to see where people “found me.”
The 1 consistency is that almost all of them told me “I binged your content and then signed up.”
This is why I loved the video + newsletter play so much…it just works. It nurtures a new subscriber faster than any short form Tweet or LinkedIn post could ever do.
Besides…is “binging” LinkedIn posts even a thing?
Areas for Improvement:
The Skool “About Us” page is basically the only landing page for this offer…and I haven’t updated it in months. I could do a better job explaining more about the community and what’s inside of it on this lander…it needs an update ASAP.
I’ve been so busy writing newsletters, building our operations, and providing content & community service that I stopped doing any outbound prospecting. For Feb, I’ll be slowly doing some more follow ups to people who said they were interested in the past but haven’t joined.
This “90 Day Autopreneur” course is my Holy Grail. It’s also the most challenging offer I’ve ever tried to create → Some of the classroom modules I’ve recorded, then had to re-record 3 or 4 times when I would uncover holes in my own systems.
I want my students to be on the clearest path as possible to owning and building their fully automated business models. Because of this → I’ll be removing old modules within the community, and only including this 90 Day Course as the core content.
1 to 1 Private Business Coaching:
2 new students at current price
Revenue = $6000
Available coaching spots left = 1
I only promoted the coaching in 1 (maybe 2?) newsletters for the entire month of January, because those 2 slots sold out within the first week.
However, I have a few coaching clients off-boarding in the next 60 days, and will only be taking on 1 more coaching client at this current pricing.
My mentor told me last week, “It’s time we add more friction.”
…and he’s exactly right.
Areas for Improvement:
Coaching for me is less about revenue and more about the fulfillent of helping someone else win. However, now that I’ve stopped taking on agency clients (done-for-you), any coaching clients I decide to take on will need to be more “aligned” with how much my time is actually worth.
The amount of time I currently invest into helping my coaching clients, I’m actually losing money downstream. I started my coaching offer at $3000 for 6x hour long calls and mistakenly said, "That’s $500 an hour.” But what actually happens is I end up giving away automations, building a few, spending more time answering questions inside of emails and DM’s, and just generally doing solo-work and research to make sure my students have the best experience possible. My “real” coaching rate ends up around $175 an hour. I could either start putting a time limit on how many off-call hours I devote to each new student, OR, like I said above just increase my total offer pricing. Still unsure on this yet.
2025 was for me the “Year of Increasing Leverage.” Unfortunately, as much as I do enjoy it, and with some students getting a 25x ROI on their coaching investment…1 to 1 coaching is simply not a scalable offer. I’m considering a joint venture into group coaching with another “famous” digital entrepreneur you all most likely know and love. Our partnership would flip the business coaching world on it’s head, and provide a complete, 360 degree business mentorship for people looking to earn more and scale a business online. More on this to come…
Newsletter Sponsorships & Affiliates:
4 Sponsorship Meetings
0 Sponsorships Contracted
(Unknown) Affiliate Revenue
Wow. I had no idea that selling ad revenue (organically) to a newsletter would be so difficult lol.
Maybe I’m just not great at:
A) Selling it.
B) Promoting it often.
C) Making the offer compelling.
But in reality, the Truth is probably:
D) All of the above.
Areas for Improvement:
I’m probably being too protective of what I’ve built. But I believe your attention isn’t worth some cheap “space-filler” sitting at the top of this newsletter. Whoever we partner up for advertising is going be a company, brand, or software that is actually useful to you. I refuse to partner with just anyone who has the money. But there’s a catch-22 here…the sponsorship revenue would essentially fuel more growth in the form of ads. So being overly picky, might be a bottleneck to growth.
I only included a few affiliate links in maybe 2-4 newsletter articles. I need to do this way more often. Most of the time, I’ll forget and include a link to the product…only a week later realizing I have an affiliate link to it. Gotta keep a better system for accessing my links quickly, and also the back offices to which I can grab numbers for reporting purposes. I legit have no idea how much I made in the last 3 months from affiliate links! LOL
All in all its been an awesome month.
We upped our content from 1x week to 3x. I built a small team of people across two separate business units. Launching the best (and last) course I’ll ever create. Gotten plenty of high praise from people I respect in the industry. And met some kick ass entrepreneurs along the way.
We’re even changing the newsletter format to be more of what you want, versus what I initially thought you wanted.
We’re going to feature more AI Agent content, and less overall “news” content
Keep following along this journey, and share the newsletter with a friend who might like to read it:
Finding Ways to Protect Your Time
Most marketers and digital gurus will offer blanketed advice like:
“Don’t ask for a first name on your landing page and you’ll get more email signups!”
“Your about me section should have links to everything you offer.”
“Have different price points at every step of the customer journey, to increase LTV.”
But you know me…
When everyone goes right, I tend to Think Left.
I’ve been finding ways to introduce more friction, to make it harder to reach me.
And I highly suggest you do the same in 2025.
I suggest you create a business model that no one has ever thought about yet.
One filled with friction between you and everything clammoring for your time. One that serves you exactly what you want, on a silver platter. A business model that you start and stop during set hours & days of the week.
This is why a few months ago I stopped doing any calls on Mondays and Fridays.
I left corporate because I hated meetings…12 months later…I had meetings scheduled every morning again 5 days a week.
“How did I get here again?”
Today, unless you’re buying a one-time strategy call from me, or a potential business partner, close colleague, or client…
It’ll be borderline impossible for us to “catch up over zoom.”
Eminem is arguably the greatest rapper to ever exist.
And if you haven’t heard this story, I suggest you listen to this interview told by famous recording artist, Akon, when they worked together on a record:
As a fellow musician, an ambitious entrepreneur, and someone who is 100% dedicated to my task…This Totally Resonates With Me.
I used to write and record songs until 4am because I would be totally engulfed in the creative process.
We get so caught up in building a business, or trying to squeeze out that last little bit to finish up, that we forget we’re sacrificing tomorrow’s energy for today’s completion.
The internet glamorizes the “grind bros” and the “Hormozi nation” people who somehow think that running our batteries to 0 everyday is the best way to build a business.
Or that the only way to becoming internet famous is to be visible 24/7.
It’s not.
Introducing friction to your outside world, to your customers, and to your devices → is the only way you’ll survive in business.
Imagine how difficult it was for Eminem…when he actually set this 9 to 5 boundary on his business.
I imagine he’s locked in the studio, writing another platinum verse, fully emersed and in a flow state…
And then the alarm goes off, “REET REET! REET! REET!”
It’s 5pm and he has to pack up for the day…right in the middle of a certified banger.
Easy to say you’ll do…
Even more difficult to actually put into practice.
Too often we treat our clients, our audience, our comments section, our customers, our business partners…
As if they were more important than our health, our families, and our own lives.
I’ll give you a great example of someone fully dedicated to friction:
Sean is one of the OG’s of digital marketing. I’ve been a huge fan for years. Using Sean’s psychotactics in your marketing is like playing chess, while others are playing tic-tac-toe.
He runs a “workshop” business model. Just he and his wife.
The goal?
Earn $500,000…then take the rest of the year off.
He’s not creating social media content, he’s not writing daily emails, he isn’t promoting his latest skool community…
The guy feels like a complete ghost.
When I first deconstructed his business model…my jaw hit the floor.
It's just too simple.
“Does this really work?”
I said to myself in disbelief. I’d been programmed by the Gary Vee’s of the world that the only way to success is by banging your head against a wall all day until it broke.
But more often than not it was my head…not the wall…that would cave in.
Check this out:
Sean runs a live workshop on a specific topic. He even sells the past workshop recording as a digital “course” on that topic, and will open the doors to purchase these courses sparingly throughout the year.
On his website you’ll find the entire list of currently offered live workshops / courses:
His entire schedule of offers is listed, through 2027, in just half a website page.
Then he gives you the 2 reasons why you should act quickly when the doors open:
No shit.
I’ve been on Sean’s email list for years and I maybe get 1 email a month, then a few more when he opens the doors to the workshop I’m waitlisted for.
So unfortunately that Landing Pages course you’re really excited about?
Yeah…you’re waiting until October 2026 to have a chance at buying it.
But what if you didn’t want to wait that long? What if you just wanted to buy the cartooning course he’s running at the end of 2025?
You can’t.
When you click on the link to buy you get directed here:
After you sign up for the waitlist, you get a simple email:
Thanks for signing up, we’ll let you know when we open it up the doors.
That’s it.
Sean “sells out” his courses in this way, before anyone even hands him a dollar.
By the time the doors open you rush to purchase so fast…that you never stopped to realize Sean engineered the sales process this way. He plays on your psychological desires to “not be left out” wondering when, and if, he’ll ever run that workshop again.
He isn’t building some 7 or 8 figure personal brand. He isn’t trying to be internet famous…
He’s shooting for $500k…then the year is done.
Minimalistic marketing at its finest.
Friction.
You and I both need more of it.
We need to stop rushing to our phones to respond to DM’s, to stop replying to every comment on our posts, to turn on “Do Not Disturb” mode and go deep into 1 or 2 big projects.
We need to charge WAY more for direct access to us.
Try booking a coffee chat with Justin Welsh…it’ll cost you a mortgage payment for an hour of his time.
Oh, and after you pay? You still only get like 3 questions to ask him (more friction).
Go out and buy 40 Tesla dealerships…and I guarantee you Elon would never even know your name.
The more distance between you and the world, the more valuable you become by default.
Less supply = greater demand = higher prices.
Consider this scenario for a moment:
If the doctor told you tomorrow that you had 1 week left to live…
How much would you charge someone for an hour of your time?
You might not even offer an hour of your life.
It would be priceless.
These are all questions to start asking yourself about how you run your own business.
Remember: You’re not an AI. You weren’t built to answer every human request around you. Or to respond to every notification that begs for your attention.
You’re a brilliant mind.
A beautiful soul.
A person of immense value.
Introduce more friction at your front door.
And watch the world respect you for it.
~ Ryan
If you made it this far…maybe you’re looking for more?
I want to help you achieve your business goals for 2025…here’s two ways we can work together:
My latest course, “The 90 Day Autopreneur,” will take anyone at any level of experience, and teach them how to build a fully automated business model in just 90 days. Follow my complete daily action plan, filled with templates and downloads, and level up your AI & Automation skills.
If you’re stuck on a business problem, and can’t find the answers you need in my free content…then I’ve got a methodology to help your business grow inside any niche. Click the link above to learn about some of my coaching clients and their success stories.