Real talk from a serial founder

There are some lessons you only learn when life hits you hard. This week’s master stared down the loss of his business —

“All of Q4 was the biggest punch in the face for me that year. It was the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life.”

— and came out the other side with a six-figure agency. Today, he shares the kind of vulnerability and real talk you rarely get from entrepreneurs.

And his advice just might help you duck a punch.

Ryan Atkinson

Founder and CEO at Spacebar Visuals; Host of The UpFlip Podcast

Fun fact: In business school, Ryan got the lowest grade in a class called Founders Club. He went on to grow his own six-figure business.

Claim to fame: Named to Austin’s 25 Under 25 and the Tippie Young Alumni Board. His podcast about entrepreneurship has hit over 2 million downloads.

Lesson 1: Don’t just grow to grow.

If you believe the hustle-culture hype that thrives on LinkedIn, the only way to get ahead is to eat and breathe the grind, right? I’d say “eat, sleep, and breathe,” but the grind never sleeps.

“I thought when I [created] Spacebar, I wanted to grow as much as possible, hire as much as possible,” Ryan Atkinson says. And his business did grow — second only to his stress levels.

“This is probably TMI, but I had canker sores from stress. I couldn’t even listen to music, because music would make me anxious,” he confesses.

Atkinson reached a point where he had to reevaluate both his business and life goals and consider what he was growing toward. (Something that many entrepreneurs won’t admit.) His advice to you solopreneurs, startup founders, and small business owners?

“The goal is still growth, but it’s not growth at all costs. Grow to hire correctly. Grow profitably. Grow mindfully.”

Lesson 2: It’s okay to start cheap.

Video is no longer a nice-to-have for marketers, but that doesn’t mean you have to drop half your net worth making the next Marvel movie.

“Let’s say you’re a startup company, where you have a limited budget. You can’t spend 20 grand on a video. Honestly, Upwork is a great place to get started.”

I took a sip of my tea just so I could do a spit-take. The solution isn’t to write a check to his video agency?

“It doesn’t have to be Spacebar,” Atkinson laughs. “But you can’t do an iPhone type of video if you want to make a good first impression on prospects.”

“If you’re a startup marketer, you have 1,000 things you need to be doing. You have reporting. You have campaigns. You have email marketing. And video is not easy to get right. So, go to Upwork, find someone that can do it for $500, $900.”

To be clear, he’s not talking about dropping that cash on run-of-the-mill TikTok posts. This is about investing in videos that meet your audience at key steps on their buyer’s journey.

“You want to have a top-of-funnel explainer video because people need to know who you are. You want a brand overview video. And you want a product demo that brings your product to life. If you could only do three assets with video, do those.”

Atkinson went on to break down exact recommendations for each of those videos, but since I couldn’t squeeze ’em into one newsletter, I’ve linked a longer guide down below.

Lesson 3: Podcast for a different purpose.

As a fractional podcast host, Atkinson has helped launch more podcasts than most people have consumed. So I asked him the key to getting a successful show up and running.

“Growing a podcast is incredibly hard. It’s almost impossible to do it independently now,” he admits. “I love podcasting so much, but the more I get into it, the more I’m realizing it truly is pay-to-play.”

Atkinson explains that unless you can pay for broad distribution, or unless you’ve got a ready-made audience — say on LinkedIn or in a newsletter — it’s unlikely you’ll grow to a point where monetizing your podcast is worth the time you put in it.

But even if you’re never a top 100 podcast in your niche, there are other reasons to do it.

“Podcasts can be reused as a blog post, email, [or] for SEO.” Not to mention repurposed for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn. So even if the podcast itself is slow to gain traction, the effort can pay out in cross-functional content.

And your show can even be an icebreaker for those hard-to-reach clients:

“We use it sometimes to let us talk with prospects and get introduced to them. Reach out to your [ideal customer profile] like, ‘Hey, you want to be a guest on our podcast?’”

Once you interview them, it opens the door to further collaboration and conversation.

Just “don’t think you’ll be a top 50, even top 100 podcast in two weeks.”