How to build a 40,000-strong paid community from scratch with Jo Hutton, Yoga For Tired People

0:01I started having these absolutely crazy panic attacks when I was teaching yoga and it was really frightening because I was like oh my god who am I if I can't teach yoga. When I look at my stats on Substack I've got 47 ,000 subscribers but from there only 7 ,000 of those people on Substack have come from other platforms. So the 40 ,000 is actually in platform growth from Substack. It's such a great growth engine. I always think if you've got a growth problem, you're probably not saying what you do enough. And if you've got a retention problem, you're probably not doing what you say enough.

0:44Juliet:A lot of people who burn out step back or stop. Jo Hutton steps sideways and then built something bigger than what she had before. After 16 years as a yoga teacher training more than 50 teachers, she hit a wall in 2022. Rather than rebuilding the same business, she went back to first principles, found a framework that worked for her and started writing about it on Substack, which has resulted in 47 ,000 subscribers and an open rate of 42%, 177 ,000 Instagram followers and a debut book publishing later this year, plus her own podcast Before the Work Begins. She built a loyal, paying community around ideas rather than products without a publisher's platform or corporate backing.

1:25Juliet:For any founder who has wondered how to turn an audience into a business, Jo's story is a practical case study. Thank you Jo for coming on How to Start Up. It's great to have you here talking about a subject we haven't discussed yet which is sub stack and newsletter growth. Before we get into all of that I'd love it if you could give an overview as to who you are and the businesses that you've started. My name's Jo Hutton. I am a yoga teacher. I've always been a yoga teacher. Well, I was a child first. I went to drama school and when I was at drama school up in Glasgow, they basically forced me to do yoga.

1:58So I had no interest in yoga whatsoever. And then by the end of the four years, I was completely head over on heels in love with yoga. I had specialized in marketing for theatres. So I had come out of university with this love for yoga, a love for marketing, but also in the middle of the recession. So there was no jobs anywhere. I found yoga teacher training school in Glasgow and I basically went to them and said, I've got no money, but if I do your marketing and I help you like with your marketing and I help you with your admin, will you train me to be a yoga teacher? And they very kindly said yes.

2:35And then I came back down to Newcastle and I set up yoga classes again. I went to a yoga studio. I said, I haven't got any money, but I have got marketing experience. I'll do your website. I'll do you Instagram in exchange for studio space. And they said yes. And then I managed to make a name for myself as a yoga teacher up in Newcastle. I founded a business called Happy Yoga Newcastle. And it was all about making yoga accessible and fun. I ran my yoga studio for about five years. And then I started to notice a really high turnover of yoga teachers. And I was like, what is this? Why are there so many yoga teachers being trained?

3:14But why are people not able to do it long term. I had a look into it and I was like what we need as a yoga teacher training school that is not just about a nice experience but also how do you actually run a class and how do you make it a sustainable thing so you can also make money and pay your bills as a yoga teacher and I looked and I was like no one's doing that I suppose I'll have to do it then so I set up a yoga teacher training school called Newcastle Yoga School that's still running and I was just happy training yoga teachers having my yoga studio hootling about and then as we all know 2020 happened had to close my yoga studio set up online but my online stuff was very much just for my community so I never really did outreach or growth stuff then when the studio reopened half the people wanted to come back to the studio half the people wanted to stay online.

4:11And so I was now literally running two businesses for the same amount of money that I was doing before. So I had the same number of customers. It was just spread over two businesses.

4:22Juliet:Two ways of operating, two interactions. You've doubled your workload, but not your profit. Exactly. It was totally, for everybody, it was absolutely, it was awful. A long sustained period as well. 2020 with COVID happening, but then the aftershocks from that 2021 and then more lockdowns and more changing regulations. And then it's reported that in 2022, you went through a period of burnout. Yeah, 100%. And I think it was all because of that. I think it was holding it all together because also at that time, there was a lot of people who had very loud opinions about everything. So in the space where everyone was feeling very anxious, you were having to manage conversations.

5:01And so I think I was just very on edge for about two years. And then when we got to the other side of it, I was like, oh, I'm on the other side. And I started having these absolutely crazy panic attacks when I was teaching yoga. So this beautiful thing in my life that I'd always considered a respite. And it was really frightening because I was like, oh my God, who am I if I can't teach yoga? This isn't just my job.

5:30Juliet:body sending you like physical alarm bells like you're not listening same happened to me the only thing I need to do in my job is use my voice and I keep losing my voice and I've got a dysfunctional larynx it's my body going it's the one thing I'm going to take away until you listen I'm like oh I'm gonna have to do some physio this is really annoying but for you was it that moment of actually shit I need to do something about this yeah but I didn't listen which is crazy the first time it happened I was like oh that's a bit weird and also I just thought well I know how to deal with this I'm a yoga teacher.

6:00Like I know about the nervous system. I know about stress. Like, of course, if anyone can deal with these panic attacks, it will be me. So what I need to do is more yoga. What I need to do is more, like I need to get up earlier. I need to go for a run. I need to like, because all of these things are things that had helped me in the past. When you've got capacity. When I've got, when I had capacity, but like you say about your voice, your body just goes, no I'm gonna I'm gonna really make you listen I'm gonna make you listen it's a hard stop there's a non-negotiable yeah yeah it wasn't uh it wasn't oh I could power through this at all it was literally like all I could do I joke about this now but it was absolutely awful at the time like all I could do was lie on the sofa and watch the twilight films and I have no interest in twilight ever I don't like them like I'm not a twilight person zone out you like just and it

6:54Juliet:It doesn't matter if you fall asleep. And yeah, that sort of mindless numbing. But how long did it take you to feel like you were coming out the other side? Because burnout, ironically, burnout is not surprisingly one of our most popular topics on this podcast. Because a lot of people, when you're starting a business the first time and you don't know what your job is, you have a hundred hats to wear and you race and you go and it's adrenaline field and then you hit a wall. Most people will then try and fix the original problem. Whereas you effectively started a completely new business model. At what point in that burnout recovery did you have the epiphany?

7:27Well, I just couldn't keep going. And it took a long time to recover because I think for a while I would be like, okay, I'm going to recover and just enough so that I can get going again. So I was stuck in this cycle of burnout and it was very yoga led for me. So I had this horrible identity crisis where I was like, oh my God, I can't even, I can't practice yoga. I can't teach. who am I like what is this and then I had to give myself permission to do literally nothing and it's very easy on the other side to look back and go well obviously I had to do that because I know there's another side but when you're in it you're like this could just be it forever now so it's

8:07Juliet:really frightening because it's your income and it's your what you used to love and as you said who even am I when you're self-employed work gives you so much purpose and it's a lot of your personal identity. It shouldn't be, but it is. I mean, I used to work at Chanel and a lot of friends would introduce me. So this is Jules from Chanel. I'm actually just Jules, but they identified me through work. But for you, what next? What happened next? Well, I let myself not do the yoga. And then eventually I started being interested in yoga again, but I was, and I've always been interested in yoga philosophy and yoga philosophy has always been right at the bedrock of everything that I've always talk.

8:43But I read the Yoga Sutras because I've got a copy by my bed. And I was like, oh, there really is very little about the Asana in this. And I knew that, but it just came like a bolt from the blue and was like, how about I just really focus on the other limbs of yoga and I'll let Asana go for a bit. And then it was a very, it probably took about two years before I got back. And as I was getting back, I was like, oh, maybe this wasn't the thing that I needed to do until I felt better enough to go back to what I was doing before. Like maybe this is what I should be teaching and doing. And this is just the next evolution of everything that I've been doing.

9:23And so I thought, right, well, how do people who are really tired, how do they access yoga? Well, it's probably online. What are the barriers to doing yoga? Well, if you're tired, you can't, you don't want to get your mat out. You don't want to have to change your clothes. You don't want to have to go onto a different platform so I was like right I'll make short videos like you don't have to change your clothes you don't have to get your mat out and I'll make it for tired people and I was like well if that needs to work well I'm gonna have to work out how to grow an audience I can't just speak to the audience that I already have so I've always used Instagram but I've never really up until that point I've never really used Instagram to grow.

10:04I just used it as a nurture platform. And I remember really distinctly going up to my husband and saying, Andy, I'm going to have to be cringey online. So you're just going to have to deal with it. I'm doing it. I'm going to be cringey online. People in our network are going to see me online. and so you're gonna have to I need you to rehearse this yes she is posting online I'm very proud of her and he was like and he in fairness he was like yeah of course like this is what you need to do of course you can but I just remember distinctly going into the bedroom and being like I've made a decision and then it happened very quickly after that well I love that you called it yoga for tired

10:49Juliet:people it does what it says on the tin and people go that's a bit of me yeah one of the first things that I learned from marketing like a long time ago when I was building websites on Dreamweaver if you remember Dreamweaver and Moonfruit was that SEO is say what it says on the tin so name it something that people would google well hence how to start up it was the same so how do I start a business and I was looking for podcasts that were going to teach me as I was in lockdown I'm like well there isn't one I'm just going to have to start one fine and call it how to start up and it's like start up one word or hyphenated or how does it come up in search it's that kind of thing that yeah but yoga the time he was like oh the relief of i can do that because i've the same as you i find yoga quite intimidating and it's like quite it's quite commitment but if i'm tired and i'm allowed to do it then sign me up and it's and i think as well there is so many there's something culturally at the minute as well isn't there where we are just all it's a bit tongue-in-cheek because we're just so tired there's different levels of tired but there's just something in the water culturally where we're just like we're tired of this shit well the year of the goddamn horse I was like I'd like a donkey slow it down a little bit please and my aim for this year when someone says how are you rather than saying really busy it'll be like yeah I'm a bit bored actually I'm gunning for that day where I'm like I've actually got a couple of hours but not much to do it's like as if but when you're an entrepreneur or a founder or running your own business of course you can always do more and I think I'd been trained for it because PR and communications is always proactive and you have to go out to market and the more you pitch the more you might get coverage and it's never ending so as long as you're a piece of that it's absolutely fine but then you see the evolution in marketing businesses and you see the rise of instagram tiktok sub stack is now very much part of the mix i'd love to chat to you about why your business was suited to sub stack and how you have got that insane open rate and if anyone doesn't know what an open rate is it's the rate that people who receive the email will then click through and open it and that is a very good metric of success and yours is I think between 14 and 42 percent yeah and the average is something like five to ten or something like that so yeah tell me everything about Substack how did you discover it how did you get into it how does it work for you share all your secrets well I'm lucky because one of my yoga teacher friends David Venus his wife Claire Venus is Substack educator and you know when there's people in your world you'll know this way because everyone has like business besties, don't you?

13:15And there's people who started about, and they might not necessarily have the same business as you, but they operate in the same kind of circle and they're at the same about level as you. And so you end up voice noting them or like having a bit of camaraderie of what's it like being a woman at a business around about this size. And so she had been one of those people for me for years, years and years, but we weren't like best mates, but we were like in each of the circles. And she started talking about this thing called Substack. And I was like, oh, what's that? And then she contacted me and I just had the blue and was like, Joey, you need to get on Substack.

13:50Like the stuff that you're doing would be so suited to Substack. And she's got like a Substack community thing about people starting Substack. So I did that. And then it was just such a welcoming community. I think the thing with Substack is that it's almost a refuge for people who find the other social media and platforms too fast so it's oh it's really nice to just go somewhere where it feels like everyone's like having a breather on sub stack very much for journalists to be able to have a platform so a

14:22Juliet:magazine would obviously pay them to write the story but not much whereas if they could publish direct they could make the revenue themselves directly so it was long form i say it slowly because it's like podcasts it's a more of a commitment when you're reading or listening but it's a more restful experience you're not doing scrolling every five seconds new pieces of content you're really investing in that piece and you're committing to that story that article that opinion that feature that podcast and i think that's where that branding of it's come from because you go to it because you know it's more restful you're in it for a while you don't need to rush and i've seen the evolution of stuff recently obviously now they're doing video content so it is merging into that more video rather than just written and audio so I worry it is going to become more like an Instagram and more frenetic what are your thoughts on that well I love so one of the things that I found really exciting about Substack is because I am an early adopter like that's just my personality I love being at the beginning of something and I'm a bit of a market nerd so I love whereas I know that a lot of people find learning about platforms and I think they find like a necessary evil like I am a total like I'm an internet native and I like oh let me have a look see how that works behind the curtain and what I really enjoy about Substack is that they as a team the people who run it are so transparent and so it does feel like we're growing together and obviously they're in charge like it's their platform and the other thing with Substack as well is like you own your audience so if at any point it doesn't feel like maybe on other platforms where you're a little bit, you're a bit more captive of the platform because it's like, well, you've got 167 ,000 followers here.

16:08If you move, what are you going to do with the followers? With Substack, it's like, well, you just would upload them. So it feels like a much more...

16:16Juliet:So you can export the database of email contacts, which is the value. That is the absolute golden piece of content. You're right, because on Instagram, if you leave Instagram, it stays in Instagram. Yeah, that feels far more ethical. and I know that Farrah's store is ex-magazine world and is one of the leaders there at Substack and she's really led that you can see the brand ambassadors they've got it kind of it it works for that reason and I love the fact it's succeeding so I was like oh the long form is dying I was like no this is great and obviously the rise of podcasts as well same thing people are wanting richer deeper content they can have a relationship with but for you you've got over 40 ,000 subscribers.

16:57Juliet:How did you start and then how did you grow that? So I deliberately didn't move anyone over. So I haven't, I didn't upload a mailing list that I already had because I was feeling a little bit hemmed in because I'd pivoted and I was experimenting with a new niche. I was like, oh, I don't want to take, because you know, sometimes when you've got a mailing list, I don't know if this is just me, but I do think this, this does happen with everyone where if you have a mailing list for some reason there's just certain names that like you have them in your head and I was like well I don't want those people yeah you like I don't want them seeing what I'm doing here well so in your existing business you obviously have a mailing list but you didn't want to move that you wanted to start completely from scratch completely from scratch and also from Instagram as well because I had I had an absolute explosion in growth on Instagram and I had found it incredibly overwhelming and it wasn't quite the right audience.

17:54So one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Substack is because I basically just wanted to have a bit of fun on the internet because I love the internet and I love creating on the internet. And I was like, Instagram was starting to feel a bit for me like, I was feeling a bit hemmed in. I was like, oh, I don't really know what I'm doing over there. And well, I do know what I'm doing over there and I'm bored by it. So I just want some creative freedom. So I didn't put a list over and I didn't immediately start trying to get people from Instagram over. And when I look at my stats on Substack, so I've got 47 ,000 subscribers.

18:27I think I've got 55 ,000 followers. But from there, only 7 ,000 of those people on Substack have come from other platforms. So the 40 ,000 is actually in platform growth from Substack.

18:46Juliet:Incredible. Yeah, it's such a great growth engine. What do you put that down to? What do you feel in your gut has kind of led that following? I think it's because I show up a lot and I really believe with marketing, it's going to sound really simple, but I really believe if you're a content creator or you have a small business, the main thing you need to do online is you need to say what you do and then you need to do what you say and repeat it. And that's, though that sounds really simplistic, it's actually so hard because you get bored. So you want to start saying other stuff. You get bored.

19:28And so you start wanting to do other stuff. So I always think if you've got a growth problem, you're probably not saying what you do enough. And if you've got a retention problem, you're probably not doing what you say enough.

19:39Juliet:Well, this is it because you're so close to it yourself. You think you're repeating yourself. And I remember this when I was at De Beers. Oh, we need to change the ad campaign every three months it's like we've seen it to death we've been working on this for a year of course we're saturated we've bought three ads 20 30 000 people may have glanced it once like there's no way the market saturated that's like we need to do it for run those same images because i think it's three to eight times the brain needs to see something before it actually wakes up to it but that's it you're so close to yourself it's hard to pull yourself out the weeds and keep doing it and not do it and cringe okay i've said this a hundred times and that's it with the podcast so everyone's like what is it and I say it in a bit of a glib way and as I've said it so many times I feel it's a bit corny now but it's the first time they're hearing it so I should really own it oh god this is music to my ears thank you and it's repeating it and you just have to get used to being a bit irritating as well to yourself to yourself yeah 100 % and also understanding that it actually takes a long time to get that clarity so it's very easy for me up the other end of it to be like, well, you just say what you do and you do what you say.

20:45But I think it takes, that's actually a process that takes a long time to refine that, but you have to do it to get to it, if it makes sense. So you just have to throw quite a lot of spaghetti at the wall and then you'll move yourself closer and closer. But it does take time for you to like narrow down and get that little nugget. Like the clarity takes time to get.

21:05Juliet:It's practice makes perfect. And we always talk about this and we, so we teach founders how to own their PR in-house so they don't retain a PR agency and we say it's not an elevator pitch it's a one breath if you can explain your business in one breath you've nailed it but it took me a good six to nine months to get that down and it's iterating playing with it like the more you say it the more it kind of beds down and suddenly you hit it you're like that like we enable founders to own their communications in-house done and then of course we do affiliate marketing podcast production and then we've got three businesses under the umbrella but let's not look at that too closely but it's that it's practice in that iteration it's really hard when you're in the weeds to do it and especially because you want nuance like you want the nuance and you want people to know how brilliant you are and you worry if I simplify this will people be able to understand but if you don't simplify it no one's going to be able to see you at all so it's like you've got to do it and at what point for you did you think Substack to stop being that creative outlet for you and a bit of fun and it became a business in its own right well I actually still feel like Substack is a creative outlet and is fun like I really enjoy Substack.

22:14Substack is by far my favorite platform to make content for I feel like because it was quite slow growth for me relative to Instagram because I was weird at the start that people were like oh no we're with you so I feel like they're like no we like that's what Joe does. So that's okay. But there was a point I did a birthday campaign. So it was not last August, but the August before I put a thing out where I was like, okay, I'm going to go paid. So I opened my paid thing up, said he has a founder here. And I made the money that like, I would normally have made in six months in that thing. And I was like, whoa, okay.

22:56So at that point I still had my studio open so I was like okay right maybe this is something that I can close my studio and I can go all in on this and that's what I did but it was very much like uh yeah this can be a proven to you yeah yeah and that's it with retention and we're talking about

23:16Juliet:people in the universe or people in the working world that are important to you mine is Hannah Spicer who's an email marketing CRM absolute wizard and very different businesses but we started at the same time she often talks to me about email marketing and emails generally and open rates and retention for us we talk about podcasting news and pop PR news in our newsletters but we see our open rate we see the retention it's really rewarding but there's a big difference between audience and community and you've very much built this community of loyal followers but a lot of creators have the former and struggle to build the latter what is the practical difference in how you show up for each?

23:53Juliet:Or do you just think community first? Well, I think for what I'm building, it needs to be community first because I have people in my mind who I'm like, they're the people that I want to be doing the yoga. Like I have people in my head where I know how transformational the yoga could be for them if they did it. And I think part of doing yoga at home is it's hard to get motivated. And I think because my background is in yoga studios and theatre, so that community building is like just integral it's probably just the soil in which like everything else that I do grows from because you know I went to university and studied how to create communities and how to do events and things so I think that's transferred over and I don't think it would be possible for me to not do it that way now because it's just the way that I and also because I'm really nosy so I think one is one of my superpowers is the fact that I am so interested in other people.

24:50Like I have no interest in just broadcasting my life.

24:54Juliet:So it's not, it's not ego led, which is so important with community. It's like, I'm just so nervous. I'm like, where are you from? What are you doing? How have you found me? Where, what? It's crazy to me. Like we've got people from all over, like literally all over the world. I think I've got, so I've got a follower in every single country in the world pretty much. And then I've got one in every state and I'm like, who are you? Where, what are you having for your tea? You let me see what's like, where are you doing your yoga today. And so I don't think I have to artificially create that. It's just, it's my personal, it's part of my personality, I think.

25:27Juliet:So do you think that's a big part of the retention? You're kind of showing up and I hate to use this word, it's very overused, but very authentically? I think so. And I think that because it's something that people weave into their day, so it becomes, I think with it, it's one of those things where you're either going to sign up and never use it in which case and we've all done it we've all done the best version of ourselves assigned up to something and then we're like when it comes down to it I'm not actually going to do that power to you I've done that with many things but I think if you do use it it becomes so much part of just your life and you know some people do it daily some people do it like not as often some people just have it some people just like having the comfort of having it there so that if they're having a hard day they can access it but because the whole premise is to weave it into your day I think that really helps with retention because it's just something that it's just part of your day.

26:21Juliet:So so accessible and it again does what it says on the tin in the sense that if you've not got a three-hour window to go to a gym wash your hair put the kid on and sign up to a class you can just do it at your desk that's wonderful. The main thing with subtext that is interesting you said you put in the paywall and you put in some tiered offers how did you learn how to price what you are offering. We're taking a quick 30 second break from this episode to ask, are you thinking of starting your own podcast? If so, this is great news because we run a course that will train you how to produce your own podcast yourself.

26:55Juliet:This course is for people who do not want to outsource and pay someone else to do it. You want to learn how to do it yourself. We teach you everything that you need to get up and running with your own podcast show and so much more just dm us at hello at fallowfield mason to book your spot well i've actually gone back so there's lots of advice out there and i think it you have to get really clear on what you want to offer what your product suite is but also how you are comfortable selling as well and at first i had it at a price and then i was slowly putting the price up so i slowly put it up and i had it at a price that was pretty sustainable it was I think that like a perfectly good price and then I just was not comfortable with it and I was like I wonder if there's a way to do this where I basically make it pay what you feel because at that point I was making the money that I needed to make it was really stable like this was not a financial decision at all it was but there was quite a number of members of the community who were really enjoying the free content but I just felt really uncomfortable putting the paywall there for the content that I was creating.