Tiago Forte
How a course creator with 6,000 email subscribers tripled his list, 8X'd his launch revenue, and landed a six-figure book deal in 9 months.
Before
When Tiago came to me, he had a good course and a growing reputation, but his business was constrained. Six years of work had produced 6,000 email subscribers. His course launches were plateauing at around 180 students, growing maybe 10-15% each time. He was doing everything himself.
He knew he had something valuable. People loved his course. But he couldn't figure out how to reach more of them. Everything he knew about marketing had been discovered by accident or borrowed from a random webinar years ago.
“It felt like having my hands tied behind my back where I wasn’t able to take even the actions that I knew how to take, just because I lacked the knowledge and the skills.” — Tiago Forte
What we built
Tiago went through my accelerator program first, then hired me for a year of one-on-one coaching. The work was not complicated. It was disciplined.
We started with the basics. He had hundreds of blog posts with no subscription forms on them. People would email him saying they wanted to sign up for his newsletter but couldn't find how. We fixed the template so every post had a clear call to action. Simple change, massive impact.
Then we built a welcome sequence. Instead of dumping new subscribers into silence, we created a series that educated them over a week and a half. The sequence built trust, delivered value, and only mentioned the product at the very end.
I also introduced Tiago to what I then called the "Chain of Beliefs" (now the Five Lightbulbs framework). The idea: before anyone buys, they need to believe a specific sequence of things. You can map those beliefs and build content that cultivates each one, so every piece of free content moves people closer to a decision instead of just being noise.
6,000 to 18,000 subscribers
The combination of these changes produced exponential growth. In eight to nine months, Tiago's email list went from 6,000 to 18,000 subscribers, tripling what had taken six years to build.
“He’s kind of old school. It’s not about chasing the next thing and then the next thing. It’s like sticking mostly with the basics and with what works, and that’s email.” — Tiago Forte
180 to 800 customers
Over six years, Tiago had launched his course nine times. Each time, sales grew by 10-15%. His biggest launch had brought in 180 customers.
On the tenth launch, using the marketing system we built together, he brought in over 800 customers. Same course. Same content. He also doubled the price. That single launch generated approximately $350,000 in revenue.
“It almost feels like the first nine cohorts were just like beta tests. They were like prototypes, and now is like the real product, because it’s such a completely different scale.” — Tiago Forte
The book deal
Tiago used the same principles from our work together to write his book proposal. Instead of a typical summary, he constructed an argument designed for the editors at publishing houses, using the same belief-building approach he'd learned for marketing his course.
Four of the five major U.S. publishers bid on the book. The auction closed well into the six figures, an exceptional result for a first-time author. Building a Second Brain became a Wall Street Journal bestseller, with $2.5 million in worldwide sales as of the end of 2023.
“If you really want to know what powerful copy is, it is the most deeply empathetic seeing the world from their point of view that I’ve ever come across.” — Tiago Forte
What changed
With the revenue from these results, Tiago was able to give away 70 scholarships to his course for people who genuinely couldn't afford it. He hired a team. He travels, spends time with his family, and focuses on the parts of his business he enjoys.
Billy is credited in the acknowledgments of Building a Second Brain.
The return
“I’m certain, conservatively, that working with Billy has returned 5 to 10X easily, probably more, in terms of just straight up dollars. And that’s not including quality of life, peace of mind, these sort of intangible benefits.” — Tiago Forte
Build your argument
If your product is strong but your message isn't landing, I can help you find the argument underneath your marketing and build the system that keeps it alive.