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For years, I’ve had a dream of building Tim Stodz Media.
I’ve had a lot of starts and stops, mostly because every time I built momentum, another challenge would pop up and halt my progress.
Now, I am ready to go.
Today, I will share my full plan to grow Tim Stodz Media, fully take over Substack, and explain why I am focused entirely on this platform.
LFG. 🔥
The Dream That Is Tim Stodz Media
When I hired my business coach, the first thing I told her was that I wanted to build a media company focused on newsletters.
My inspiration was James Altucher. I love his writing and I loved how he was making bank from top tier newsletters and publications. His media company was based strictly on newsletters, and as you know, newsletters have been very profitable for me.
My plan was to grow a collection of newsletters in what I considered “new age” spaces:
esports
sobriety
crypto
personal branding and business
But, life got in the way.
This was 2020, and that’s when Jules got pregnant with The Little Dude. It was a very difficult pregnancy, so after he was born, we decided we wanted to adopt our second kid. But as fate would have it, The Sweet Girl came into our lives.
Over the course of three years, we had two kids who are 17 months apart.
Since we moved to Denver, I sold Stodzy, started Quantum Leads and grew it to seven figures, Jules started her business, and I recently sold Copyblogger.
It’s been one curveball after another, but I feel like the time is finally here to dive into my vision and my dream.
Why Am I Going All In Now?
I’ve always known that I didn’t want to build a traditional media company that sold ads.
I don’t like the advertising model. It’s a race to the bottom, and I have better things to do than haggle with advertisers about click through rates, pricing, and returns.
My plan was ALWAYS to use my newsletters to generate leads for my businesses, specifically my agencies.
I’ve known through my experience with the Stodzy newsletter that small lists can generate big revenue if the list is specific enough and tailored toward the right ICP.
Last month, I finally committed to writing my weekly healthcare business newsletter.
I’ve sent out five issues so far. Out of those five issues, I’ve generated three leads and closed two deals.
I’ve added $12,000 MRR to my agency simply by sending a newsletter every Friday.
It’s incredible how effective this strategy has been for me. Seth Godin’s original thesis of “permission marketing” still works, and it works better than ever.
Why Am I Going All In On Substack
I’ve always really loved Substack. The main reason I moved timstodz.com from WordPress to Substack was simply because I enjoyed the text editor. It’s very easy to write and get in the flow.
But there have been a few recent updates that totally convinced me to go all in on Substack.
1. The all in one platform. Now, through Substack, I can:
stream live videos to paid members only
stream live videos to everyone
turn those live videos into clips and spread them to my followers
build a community right on substack.com
have private DMs and public chats with my paying members
I love it. It allows me to consolidate everything into one platform, making it very easy to create the systems and processes needed to run a media company.
2. Scott Galloway moved his entire operation to Substack.
Scott Galloway is who I model myself after in the media space. The way he created a media company with multiple publications, centralized through one unified brand, has always impressed me.
I like his vulnerability, his honesty, and most importantly, how he uses his media company to generate opportunities in investments, book deals, speaking gigs, and board seats.
I am at the stage in my career where I want to think bigger picture, so Scott is who I look up to. (Hey Prof G Media - call me maybe?☎️)
As soon as I saw that he moved profgmedia.com over to Substack, I knew it was time for me to bet on myself and go for it.
I’ve been saying for weeks that Substack is the future of personal branding, but I always thought it was too early to dive fully into the platform. Now that Scott Galloway has committed to Substack, I recognize the timing is actually perfect.
It is just early enough to be new, but not too early to be a first adopter.
I’m excited.
My Full Media Empire
Before I get started, I want to fully recognize that this is a long term plan. I have so much to do, and I am truly embracing this new philosophy of patience, essentialism, following my 5 major business philosophies, and allowing things to happen in their due time.
But here is the plan.