From Side Hustle to 2.67 Million Subscribers...and Growing!
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- 11 employees
- Active Self Protection
- 20-50 million views/mo
- After-action reports
- Handgun skills
- Empty-handed skills
- Travel and teach
- Former Navy nuclear guy
- Former pastor for 14 years
- Started karate when he got his son in karate
- Was in retail and muggings and robberies were on the rise
- Got his CCW and started training martial arts in 2006
- Started ASP in 2011 to pay for his ammo and martial arts
Related episodes and posts
- Bought his first gun from the money he earned teaching on the side.
- Got his NRA certifications to teach handgun classes, but there was no money in it.
- His church members were upset with him posting gun stuff on his Facebook page so he made a new social media presence and he got a comment from someone in Ohio.
- He made good memes for self-defense
- Facebook started allowing video around mid-2014 to compete with YouTube
- A guy sent him a video of an attack in Thailand
- He took the video on his Blackberry Storm to his martial arts instructor on how to handle that
- He shared his commentary and it went viral
- Taught himself Adobe Premiere to edit videos
- "The John Madden of on-camera violence."
- Ah-ha!
- October 2014 he posted this on Facebook
- Made a YouTube channel to squat on his name
- YouTube sent him a message to monetize his channel
- April 2016 his YouTube took off
- Post 365 days a year
- 210,000 subscribers on his "baby channels"
- 20 unique pieces of video each week
- He was solo in the beginning.
- Hired an assistant in 2016.
- Hired another to help with video editing.
- Now has a CEO to run the company.
- Don't run your budget to your income.
- Leave some slack to weather storms.
- The COVID lockdown helped him with viewers.
- He has no control over YouTube AdSense.
- Biden was advertising on his channel and he told his followers to click on the ads so he could take Biden's money!
- "It's great being an entrepreneur. I get to work half days and I get to pick whether to work the first 12 hours of the day or the second 12 hours."
- "I'm like 7-11. I may not be making sales, but I'm always open."
- When he's out in public he has to always be on but he loves it.
- He keeps his schedule structured, but not overly so.
- He's an ESTJ, so he's a bit of a free spirit.
- Strong people live longer and are harder to kill.
- Works 9 am to 6:30 pm and works hard.
- Batches content like crazy.
- "What is my reservoir of content? Who is waiting on me?"
- He serves his staff.
- He gets his work done so they can get their work done.
- Stephanie is the CEO and her husband is the CMO out of South Dakota.
- Stephanie was his first hire. She came on board to monitor comments on his social media. She knew a little about self-defense but she worked from home and has five kids.
- Her adopted son was five at the time and is their "mascot," now at 16.
- Stephanie learned self-defense to protect him as they were foster parents at the time, which is how she found John.
- Called her the XO so she could drop the hammer and John was the "old man" CO that everyone could love.
- "You're not allowed to say yes, anymore."
- Trust your people to make decisions
- Neil does the negations
- Five years plus two years plus 4.5 years
You're not allowed to say yes anymore!" (John removing himself as CEO.)
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