Thread by @Nicolascole77

6 years ago, I scaled my first business to $180k/month.

But the stress put me in the hospital with shingles.

These were my 13 most painful mistakes: 🧵

My 1st company was a ghostwriting agency.

In 18 months, we grew from me and one of my best friends working out of his 1 bedroom apartment to:

• 20 full-time employees
• $2 million in revenue
• 80+ clients

Unfortunately, we made every mistake in the book:

Mistake #1: Trying to scale "me"

We decided to scale an agency since I had been ghostwriting on my own.

• I was charging around $1,000 per article
• Based on 30-minute calls
• And 1 hour of writing

Unfortunately, finding writers "like me" was very hard—and expensive.

Mistake #2: Making everyone full-time

Since we were trying to scale "me," we thought contractors couldn't work—we needed people full-time to really train them.

So on Day 1, we started incurring salaries.

Which caused our overhead costs to skyrocket.

Mistake #3: Trying to hire cheaper writers/editors and train them

With 5 employees, the company was perfect.

We were doing $800k in revenue, and my co-founder & I were taking home $200k.

This was amazing (for about 2 months), until:

We decided to try to scale further.

But instead of paying high salaries for really good people, we tried recruiting entry-level writers/editors out of college.

"We can train them."

As we hired more and payroll increased, this became unsustainable because of client churn:

Mistake #4: Not scaling pricing with demand

We were the first agency to offer "Thought Leadership" as a service—our package was $2k/mo.

And it took us almost 2 years to realize we could charge 3x that.

(Ouch!)

Our clients would pay more for this simple reason:

Mistake #5: Not having clients on auto-pay

We sent manual invoices each month, which meant everyone paid at different times.

This made predicting our cash flow nearly impossible.

To the point where we never knew if we were making (or losing) money.

Mistake #6: Chasing shiny objects

In 2018, we brought on 2 (awesome) angel investors to help us leverage our service into a product/tech platform.

But trying to do both at the same time led to insanity.

And only hurt our ghostwriting agency.

Mistake #7: Slashing our salaries instead of letting people go

During the crypto boom & bust in 2018, we lost half our clients.

But instead of firing people, we cut our own salaries.

My co-founder and I were making less than our lowest-paid employee.

Never. Again.

Mistake #8: Not taking any money out of the business

From 2018 to 2020, my co-founder and I didn't take any money out of the biz.

On paper, we were each worth nearly a million dollars.

But in cash, we barely had $8,000 of savings each.

(And we were working 60+ hrs/week.)

Mistake #9: Thinking the goal was "to exit"

Whenever things got tough, we would remind ourselves, "It'll all be worth it in the end."

But... what end?

Most agencies don't get acquired.

Instead, focus on creating cash flow for yourself:

Mistake #10: Jumping in and doing the work ourselves

Whenever there was a problem in the business, my co-founder and I would handle it ourselves.

This works when you have 2-3 employees (not 20+).

All this did was mask the real issues.

Mistake #11: Taking on individual consulting work to fund the business

When our cash got low, I would take on consulting gigs outside our core service.

But then run the cash through the company.

So I'd work harder to keep the lights on—and earn nothing for myself.

Mistake #12: Saying 'Yes' to every meeting/opportunity

Since growth was based on my credibility as a writer/ghostwriter, I'd take calls randomly throughout the day.

Which tanked my productivity.

Instead, I should have done this to increase my efficiency:

Mistake #13: No personal space/boundaries

For 2.5 years, I poured my entire life into that business.

And as a result:

• I was anxious/depressed
• My relationship with my now wife suffered
• And I ended up in the hospital with shingles

Big mistake.

In hindsight, I realize we should have stopped scaling our agency at the "sweet spot" with ~5 employees.

And then build a hybrid agency (we would have been happier and made a lot more money):

Despite these mistakes, becoming a Premium Ghostwriter was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

60 days after I quit my minimum wage job, I was making $200k/year as a ghostwriter.

So I created a free, 5-day email course to help you get started:

x.premiumghostwritingblueprint.com/?el=ColeP25071…

That's it!

If you enjoyed this thread, follow me @nicolascole77 for more threads on digital writing and ghostwriting.

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