Here we are at the end of another year, Foundr family.
Another trip around the sun near-complete, and what a year it was.
We want to share everything we’ve achieved this year and celebrate the progress we have made together. After all, everything we do is to help you succeed as entrepreneurs, and everything we accomplish is thanks to your support and engagement. 2020 wasn’t the easiest year, and we like to think of 2020 as the year of growth and change.
In 2020, we launched a lot of new courses, published dozens upon dozens of blog posts, and created some of the most popular YouTube videos in the entrepreneurial world. We welcomed new team members, watched our community grow, and enjoyed impromptu guest appearances of beloved pets during Zoom meetings.
In this post, you’ll find a full rundown of Foundr’s year. If you’re new to Foundr and its community (welcome!), this will be a great entry point into the kind of things we do.
Either way, we’re happy to take you behind the scenes and let you see what we’ve been up to for the past 365.
New Courses Launched
This year saw hundreds of hours of Foundr content filmed, and a grand total of 7 courses launched and rebooted. With every new course, we got much closer to achieving our mission of helping tens of millions of entrepreneurs launch or grow their own businesses or grow.
Producing content this year was our biggest challenge yet. For each course production, we had a dedicated mask-wearing-socially-distanced skeleton crew who placed top priority on maintaining a covid-safe environment.
After thousands of hours of Zoom meetings, remote filming, and mandatory Covid testing, we managed to produce the same number of Foundr courses this year as we did in 2019. With 20+ courses under our belt, this year we can proudly say we enrolled more than 15k+ new students from across the world!
Here’s a quick breakdown of the courses we worked on this year. Some are brand new courses that were inspired by the community, some of our old courses being updated. We are pretty proud of all we’ve accomplished this year, for sure!
Instagram Domination – Full Reboot With Nathan Chan
Rolling back to the beginning of 2020 (which feels like a lifetime ago!) we couldn’t help but notice a strong demand for one of our original courses—in fact, THE original online course from our then-humble little startup—Instagram Domination, taught by Foundr’s very own CEO and Publisher, Nathan Chan.
This O.G. Foundr course was a breakthrough for the brand and a huge hit among our audience. Instagram Domination alone has helped to generate tens of millions of dollars in combined sales through social media marketing, and we wanted to reboot and update so that it continued to impact more people across the globe.
Our incredible team member Zack Kinslow flew a grueling 36-hour flight from NYC to Melbourne, and production began. After hours of filming, editing, planning, and lots of strategy days, we managed to create:
- 45+ new video lessons filmed
- Over 7 hours of in-depth content (not including 4 additional hours in the bonuses)
- Countless examples, screen-shares, and data-driven tactics.
- Even more, recent case studies of successful business owners who implemented the course strategy grew their followings and learned how to make money on Instagram.
Highlights from the course include:
- Instagram foundations – Getting you set up for success, regardless of where you’re at in your entrepreneurial journey
- Nathan’s signature “Unicorn Strategy” – A tactic that can 5x, 10x, or even 20x the engagement on a single post
- How to develop your content strategy – Knowing exactly what content to create, curate, and post that resonates with your audience
- How to find the right influencers – Including how much to pay them to promote on your behalf and drive more sales
- The “Influencer Marketing Product Outreach Machine” – A strategy for working with influencers at scale, which can be run virtually on autopilot. This is how Nathan gets 100-200 influencers posting on the company’s behalf every month for Healthish.
- How to keep your audience engaged – Maintaining a loyal community of true fans (and even how to re-engage a dying IG account)
- How to create your own sales funnel using Instagram – For ecommerce, digital products, services, and even brick-and-mortar businesses (whiteboard funnel-mapping)
- An entire “Growth Hacks Toolbox” – Even more tactics to get followers, engagement, leads, and sales through Instagram
Want to learn more about the new and improved Instagram Domination course. We will see you there!
Deal Flow – With Daymond John
The next course we produced in 2020 was the highly anticipated “Deal Flow” with Daymond John.
This ability to put together winning deals is something that Daymond John has mastered in his business empire, and also understands extraordinarily well from reviewing 1000’s of pitches and business deals on ABC’s Shark Tank – every single week. And we decided that Daymond would be the best person to teach an incredible course on negotiating the deal.
Here at Foundr, we decided to partner with Daymond to create a 100% free and actionable mini-course where he teaches you about deal flow, influence, and negotiating.
In this course, Daymond shared his unmatched knowledge in which he explains how to develop the negotiation skills necessary to make it to the big time. We developed Deal Flow as a way to help you reduce the misconceptions and confusion around this topic, so everyone can develop this critical skill (without the BS often associated with it).
Highlights from the course include:
- How to Establish Influence and Brand Power – Learn how to figure out what your influence could be and how to develop a powerful brand around you and/or your business.
- 5 Multi-Sensory Pitch Prep Essentials – How using your five senses can help you improve your pitch and negotiation power.
- How to Negotiate like the People’s Shark – Learn how to research your negotiation partners, so when you sit down you will know exactly how to speak to their pains and interests.
- ‘Relationship Capital’ to Build Lasting Partnerships – How to develop what Daymond calls “relationship capital” to achieve long-term success.
Ready to master the art of negotiation? Head this way to the Deal Flow course!
Start Your Side Hustle – With Daniel DiPiazza
Our next course, Start Your Side Hustle, was an incredible collaboration with serial side-hustler and entrepreneur-extraordinaire Daniel DiPiazza.
A long-time friend of Foundr, Start Your Side hustle was one of the first courses we produced during Covid. The course was filmed in LA via New York and Melbourne. The course teaches students how to find their idea, launch their side hustle, and get their first customer in 30 days.
Designed for speed, this risk-free proven formula helped thousands of students on their entrepreneurial journey towards replacing their 9-5 income and turn their passions into profits.
Highlights from the course include:
- Finding your winning side hustle idea – Learn how to identify your key skills, and how to productize your service so you can get more clients
- The Circle of 5s Technique – The importance of networking, and how to make it easier to connect with others
- Client Acquisition Methods – Everything from the “marsupial method” to the “warm canvassing approach”
- The Art Of The Pitching – How to pitch your service and position yourself as an expert
- Delivering Excellence – Onboarding clients, tracking your cash flow, and the anatomy of a six-figure hustle
Thinking about starting your own side hustle? Well, here’s the push you need: How To Start Your Side Hustle in 30 Days or Less
Master Any Skill – With Ulrich Boser
2020 kept on rolling by, and we kept on producing incredible courses through remote production teams and even more Zoom meetings.
Our course “Master Any Skill” takes you on a step-by-step journey with scientifically-proven accelerated learning strategies to learn faster & smarter without feeling overwhelmed. With Ulrich Boser, world-renowned learning scientist on learning as our instructor, this course set out to examine why people learn better, how to acquire information faster, and how to retain it long-term.
Highlights from the course include:
- Meta-learning – Learn how to learn better, and the mistakes every entrepreneur makes when it comes to new information
- how To Set Up Your Learning Systems – Actionable Learning, the TedX principal, and Boser’s renowned 5-hour rule
- Tactics For Business Growth – How to master the art of decision making, and how to find and learn from mentors
- Overcoming Procrastination -Stop avoiding, and start doing, and a proven method on how to finish what you’ve started
Learn how to learn better! With Master Any Skill
How To Run Facebook Ads 1.0 – With Nick Shackelford
The last course produced in 2020, and one of our most popular, How To Run Facebook Ads 1.0 with Nick Shakelford.
In our most challenging production to date, our Melbourne HQ team were working remotely to coordinate with the NY team, who were then working with a remote production team in Los Angeles. Luckily, all the pieces of the puzzle came together, and we finished off 2020 with a bang.
Designed for business owners who were wanting to scale faster, this course revealed how to create “algorithm-proof” ads with an ex-Apple marketer, Nick Shakelford. With more than 9 million business advertising on Facebook, we had long wanted to do a course on optimizing Facebook ads and we finally had the perfect instructor to work with.
Highlights from the course include:
- Nick’s Trademark: Make Good Decisions Framework – An insider’s insight into making better business decisions and getting new leads
- Easy To Follow Action Blueprints- A beginner’s guide to creating winning Facebook ads from scratch
- Scaling and Planning For Any Budget – How to make the most out of each dollar spent on ads, and how to build a steady flow of new leads
- “Hands-Off Scaling” – A complete playbook on Facebook ads creation designed to give you complete freedom, as well as a handy troubleshooting guide
Learn how to learn better! With Master Any Skill
Coming, Early 2021
As a teaser for next year, we have some killer courses in the pipeline. Get pumped for them!
Mental Toughness – with Joe De Sena
Coming early 2021, our Mental Toughness course with the newest Foundr instructor: CEO and founder of Spartan and the Death Race, and NY Times best-seller and all-around badass: Joe De Sena.
The production of this course was an adventure for everyone involved. The whole crew and production team got Covid-tested before getting to Joe De Sena’s farm in Vermont, and filming took place on the exact course at the site of the original Spartan race. Our incredible Video Course Producer Jessica Jimenez woke up at 5 am on the morning of the shoot to go for an intense hike with the Spartan himself, and in between takes, the entire team would do squats and burpees.
Here’s a little sneaky peek behind the scenes from filming on that day:
The Systems-Driven Business – with Vinay Patankar
The “Systems-Driven Business” with instructor Vinay Patankar was shot in Barcelona via NYC.
Patankar, originally from Australia, lives in San Francisco where he runs his startup, Process.St. During the pandemic, he fled to Panama where he was quarantined for several months, then decided to head to Barcelona for the rest of the year. This meant that the Foundr team was chasing him around the world in order to do the course. Ultimately we decided to just come to him, and make it work remotely with the Spanish crew on the ground.
The Systems-Driven Business course is one to get pumped for!
Student Wins
We love seeing success in our community!
Here are just a few of our community member’s biggest wins in 2020. We can’t wait to see what magic they make in 2021!
2020’s Most Popular Blog Posts
This year we’ve published over 200 blog posts. Out of the hundreds of posts, we put together, the five most-read posts that our readers really loved have been:
- How to Choose the Right Color for Your Logo: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet
- How Much Should I Charge As A Consultant
- How To Create An Awesome Online Course Like Foundr
- 21 Reasons To Start A Business Today
- How To Write The Perfect Consulting Proposal With The Best Tools And Templates
The Top 5 Most Popular Podcast Episodes
Our Foundr podcast continued to grow in leaps and bounds. Featuring some of the best-known names in the game and industry leaders, in 2020 we’ve featured big names such as:
- Drew Houston, CEO Of Dropbox
- Dylan Mullan Founder & Director Of Happy Skin Co.
- Christina Stembel, Founder of Farmgirl Flowers
- Malcolm Ong, Founder of Skillshare
- Thor Ernstsson, Founder of Strata, Alpha
- Matt Mullenweg, Co-Founder of WordPress
- Andy Frisella, Founder of 1st Phorm
From the hundreds of podcasts published this year, our most episodes from this year were the following:
- 284: Mastering the Art of Paid Media: Spending Over $85M on Facebook, With Structured Social Co-Founder Nick Shackelford
- 285: The Art of Mind-Blowing Open Rates, Email Flows, and Authentic Email Marketing, With Boundless Labs’ Chase Dimond
- 287: How July Founder Richard Li Grew His Luggage Company From $0 to $5 Million in 1 Year
- 283: Splasheo Founder Gideon Shalwick on Video Marketing, Personal Branding, And Discovering Your ‘Why’
- 299: From $0 To $20M In 2 Years: How Happy Skin Co. Founder Dylan Mullan Went Viral
Have you subscribed to the Foundr Podcast? Tune in, and find out why we are quickly becoming one of the best podcasts in the entrepreneurial field.
Celebrate the Wins!
Before popping the champagne, we want to share some of our biggest wins this year.
New Team Members
This year, the Foundr family grew by a whopping 18 team members from 5 different countries around the world!
Every Friday, our team would jump onto Zoom for games nights, pub quizzes, and other remote socializing. We celebrated birthdays, wins, and celebrations through screens, and made sure that we all stayed home and stayed safe.
Partnerships
Teachable & Thinkific
We partner with 2 of the industry’s best course creation platforms to empower our students to turn their knowledge into a business alongside Nathan’s course – Rapid Course Formula!
Agorapulse
We love using professional tools that amplify results, and Agorapulse does just that. This year, we were super excited to partner up with Agorapule. It enables business owners to drive engagement and build authentic relationships on one platform.
Maropost
We only partner with businesses with tools that we believe in, we’ve been using Maropost in managing Foundr’s email marketing and we find great synergy in our relationship. Maropost is an extremely useful Marketing Automation System, and we couldn’t be more excited to see what we can achieve together in 2021.
Wild Digital Conference
It’s the 2nd year we’ve collaborated with them. This year, we participated as a media partner. WILD DIGITAL is a premier digital conference by Catcha Group, one of Southeast Asia’s leading internet companies. Top tech players, entrepreneurs, founders, chief executives, and investors gather at Wild Digital to share insights into the future of technology and digital creativity.
Publishing “From Idea To Brand”
Our brand new book, From Idea To Brand, was printed!
We loved seeing footage of the printing press hard at work in Texas, US, and we are super excited to see the book in person in 2021.
If you can’t wait that long, you can order a digital copy of the book here!
New Foundr Home Office!
At the start of 2020, Foundr got the keys to our brand new Melbourne HQ!
An awesome space located in South Yarra, the Melbourne office has become a hub of activity and fresh ideas. Re-opening in December with Covid-safe protocols in place, our newly updated space is ready to become ground zero for an awesome 2021!
Foundr’s Unofficial Mascots
In possibly our cutest win of the year, working from home conditions meant that we all got to meet our team’s furry friends during Zoom meetings.
Meet the real stars of 2020: Foundr’s Pets!
TKTK
Let’s Make 2021 Even Better!
2021 was a year filled with many challenges, opportunities, successes, and setbacks. That’s the life of the entrepreneur. It’s a rollercoaster, but one that we wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
We’re continuing to grow this amazing community of like-minded founders, just like you. All the support we hear from you in messages, comments, and emails, and all the growth we’ve experienced thanks to your passion and interest, is what drives this company and its team forward.
Let’s make 2021 the year where we take our businesses to the next level.
We’ll see you next year!
The post Foundr’s Year in Review: Here’s Everything that Happened in 2020 appeared first on Foundr.
via https://AiUpNow.com December 22, 2020 at 08:58PM by Perrie Kapernaros, Khareem Sudlow,
