602: (Solo) What I Learned From Alex Hormozi’s $100M Book Launch

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey guys, Nathan here. Welcome back to another solo episode, Founder to Founder. These are short bite-sized episodes where I share everything that I'm learning as I build Founder. I've been building over the past 10 plus years, so I've got a ton of gold to share with you. And today, I want to talk about what I learned from watching Alex Homozi's book launch, that$100 million launch. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship.

1:19Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:25So he basically broke the internet over a month ago now. And for those who haven't seen it or saw what he did, it was basically a theatrical masterclass on how to do a product launch. And I want to break down everything that I learned, things that we'll be taking away, and also some really good fundamentals. Like he really just mastered the fundamentals. So I interviewed Alex a couple of years ago, super smart guy. And honestly, when I interviewed him, I didn't know that he would become as big as he is now. He is one of the most well-known, seen entrepreneurs online today. And all credit to him, what he did with that book launch was super impressive.

2:05So the first lesson that I want to share with you is you want to launch like a founder, not an influencer. And what do I mean by that? building that book launch, you can see he left no detail spared. Even he had the green people, like with the green costumes because the book was green. I saw so many different ad creatives. It was clear that they were testing so many different ad creatives to work out what ads actually worked to get the creative super dialed in. I thought it was really strategic how not only did he have a live event around the book like Steve Jobs would. You know, Steve Jobs, a typical Apple-style event to launch and reveal a new product.

2:48Not only did he do that, but to make the paid advertising work, he had the VIP session. So they were liquidating the ad spend. So the unit economics working. I thought that was genius. The long-tail value that that guy created through YouTube, email, podcast in the lead up, the follow-up funnel to capture email subscribers. Like he provided a lot of value before he actually got to the pitch. So what was really cool was it wasn't flashy, it was engineered. And most influencers just post, he planned it out. And this was so well planned, so well executed. And he wanted to prove a point, right? He wanted to prove a point, the$100 million models, he actually showed all the tactics and actually proved that he did a$100 million launch, which was absolutely crazy.

3:40You know, the fact that he used the upsell, the one-click upsell for anyone that purchased, I think it was a couple of hundred books. So it was a very, very smart, architected, engineered launch, and it was really incredibly planned out. I also thought that it was so clever that he planned out the whole book series around this book being the final book for the series. He had to do this book to make sure it lined up with everything else because the last book, he sold all these programs and then he gave it all for free if you just get the book. So I thought it was very, very, very clever. So he was thinking and planning and strategizing well in advance.

4:20He knew he was going to do exactly this two, three years ago. The second lesson I learned is the best launches aren't about the product. Now, I know that might sound quite counterintuitive, but when you think about it, I keep going back to the Steve Jobs analogy. People get so excited. It's something that you should be excited around. There's anticipation. People love to be delighted and people, they love to buy, but they hate to be sold to. And it wasn't a sales event. It was a performance. And there was so much excitement and people were waiting to see, I wonder what Alex does next. When I went, I didn't go to buy.

4:56I went to experience something. I went to see how like a true master of their craft was going to actually promote this book, sell this book. And it was really, really clever and well done. And I think when it comes to any event that you run, any promotion, any launch, you want to make it an experience for people. Obviously, you want to, you know, promote your product, but you want people to be excited and you want to build anticipation. And that's what the best launches do. Like you think like how Steve Jobs used to do the Apple stuff. People were excited to see what he had next for them. And people would line up.

5:32Once they knew what was coming, they would line up out the front of Apple. There were people be camping. How many people do you know camp out the front of a retail store to buy something? That's how crazy, that's how gangbusters he made people go, right? To buy a product. So what happened was off the back of this launch, The first launch that Alex did when he did his book launch, his brand exploded and his list grew and then deal flow increased. And this had so much more than just selling a product. He built a lot of goodwill in the marketplace. He built a lot of trust. He built a lot of authority.

6:07So when he came to his third launch, he built up so much goodwill that he was able to actually sell. If you think about it, his first two launches, he didn't sell anything. He just sold a book. And this time around to make the money that he made, he had to sell the book bulk buys and then he had his special coaching upsell, which I thought was really, really interesting, really, really clever. The next lesson that I learned was the power of pre-launch, but more so the depth of the pre-launch and the infrastructure. So most people, they might do a pre-launch and they might do like maybe two weeks, four weeks of pre-launch content.

6:40He did literally like six months, six months of daily pre-launch content. So he grew his YouTube, his podcast, his social media audience for such a long time in preparation for this particular lodge. So he'd been building his personal brand for three years before he even considered really selling anything beyond a book. And he did the repetition of the core concepts around skill, character, and belief. And then he had strategic partnerships and placements. And to be honest, we were actually supposed to interview him. It never ended up happening because I couldn't find a time to actually go overseas to interview him in person.

7:19But I was supposed to interview him in prep. So the interviews that he did beforehand, he really made that build up so strong and he left no stone unturned. So this was not an overnight success. He'd been building and he cashed in on all this goodwill that he'd been building for the past three years. And so that pre-launch, it happened well before he was just even talking about the book, six months ago, it happened the moment that he used to say, my name is Alex Homozi and I've got nothing to sell you. And then over time, he stopped saying that. If you notice, he stopped saying, I've got nothing to sell because he knew that eventually, after a good couple of years, he would sell his coaching and he would do that$100 million launch.

8:00Now, the other lesson that I took away from this is you don't need a lot of followers to have a successful launch, right? Because let's be honest, not everyone has Homozi's budget, team or production value, but that's not the point. The point is you want to package your ideas with clarity and really try and find out what ideas work to get that cut through. So when you're kind of putting out content for your brand, you want to use social media and your organic channels as really kind of a testing ground to see what angles work, to see what hooks work, to see what stories work, to see what messaging works.

8:40So then over time, you can build up a big book of stories, a big book of methodologies, frameworks, and things that you know get cut through and angles and hooks. So then when you do go to do perhaps a Black Friday promotion, you already know what's working and you can just pull it all through and have a massive promotion versus trying to work it out on the fly. Another thing that he did was he led with value. And that was a big part of the pre-launch. He built so much goodwill, so much trust in the marketplace that when it came to this launch three years later, that's how he was able to do$100 million, like$100 million in literally like a couple of days.

9:23It's crazy. Another thing that he did as well is he showed up. He was super consistent. And when I think about founder and what's taken the brand to where it is now, it's that consistency. just showing up every single day relentlessly serving. And that's what he did. He put out so much content. And I remember as well, he talked about when he first started getting into the content game, he spoke to a few people that were doing really well and they're like, you need to up your volume. And it's so true, right? But it's not just content at scale, it's quality content at scale. And he was able to do that in a very, very, very big way.

9:56So the thing is, even if you have like 500 people on your email list, obsess over the value, Serve first and ask later. Use every touchpoint you have to build belief, but make it about them, not the product. That's really, really, really important. And just try and serve and build that trust. So a good example is one of our students, Tori, Tori Gill. So she launched her e-commerce brand. She's a Founder Plus member. She launched her e-commerce brand, Son and Daughter. We've done an interview with her. Make sure you go check it out. Such incredible interview. And she made close to$100 ,000 in three months.

10:36And the way that she was able to do that was before she launched the product. She built so much goodwill. She had her wait list, started putting out content. She started speaking to people. She was building so much trust that when she launched, like I think in the first week, she made like$5 ,000. It was crazy. These are some of the things you can take away. When you're building your pre-launch, you don't need a large audience. You don't need a large following. She didn't have that. but she had an incredible launch and now her business is absolutely booming. We're probably gonna get her back for another episode one year later.

11:07So she launched on Boxing Day, December 26th. It's almost been a year and she has a million dollar plus business now which is absolutely crazy. But it all came off that incredible launch, building a great product and then building that momentum along the way which is what she's been doing. So the launch isn't about the size of your audience. It's about the relationships you have with the people that are in your community. So guys, I've launched a lot of things over the years, many different courses and programs at Founder. We've done a Kickstarter launch. We've raised close to$200 ,000. We've done massive program launches.

11:43We've done million dollar launches. We've done so many different things. And my reminder and takeaway for you guys is it's all about the fundamentals, but mostly and first and foremost, it's about not polish positioning. and you will have an incredible pre-launch, incredible Black Friday if you get the positioning right. Alex didn't sell a book. He created a category and that's what you have to take away. He created a movement. He made it about his community. He didn't make it about a book because let's be honest, who wants to buy 300 books? What are you gonna do with 300 books, right? It wasn't about the books.

12:24It was about the movement. It was about the offer. He put together an incredible offer. But most importantly, he made it about the people. And he really, really, really focused on playing the long game and the positioning. And he created that category. So guys, I hope you found this episode valuable. For those of you that are doing a big Black Friday, Cyber Monday, I hope you took away a few tips and, you know, he had an incredible offer. Make sure your offer is incredible. We'll add a link below this show so you can listen to the interview I did with Alex a couple of years ago. If you would like more help with your e-commerce brand, we are running live workshops and training on how to have an incredible Black Friday.

13:06You can sign up. Just go to founder.com forward slash trial. We have live workshops. We bring in experts. We have some incredible training on how to have an exceptional Black Friday. If you want to do an epic launch, we're here to help you. So go to founder.com forward slash trial. And I'll speak to you soon. Thank you.