Amy Porterfield Shows Her Fellow Content Entrepreneurs How To Succeed Despite Pivots and Challenges

Entrepreneur: Amy Porterfield

Biz: Amy Porterfield Inc.

Tilt: Helping people succeed as online entrepreneurs

Scene: Website, Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, Two Weeks Notice book, courses  

Snack Bites: 

• Amy left her job as director of content development for Tony Robbins to be her own boss. She started consulting but soon realized each client acted like her boss, so she pivoted to digital online courses.
• Her first digital course earned $247. But then she listened to her audience, and her second course earned $30K in the launch.
• Amy has built an eight-figure business around digital courses, podcasts, and, most recently, a book.

Why We Stan: Amy didn’t hesitate to make a pivot when she realized consulting didn’t work for how she wanted to operate a business. She also didn’t quit when her ideal business model didn’t first succeed.

The Story of Amy Porterfield

Amy Porterfield’s story resonates with many content entrepreneurs on several points, from quitting her job and thinking consulting was the answer to seeing her first product fail. But it’s also a story of perseverance and eight-figure success.

For six years, Amy was the director of content development for motivational speaker and business coach Tony Robbins. But one day, she walked out of a meeting and realized she wanted the freedom to work for herself.

“It took about six months for me to think, ‘Could I really do this? Could I really be my own boss? Could I start something from scratch?’” she tells Foundr. She eventually knew the answer was yes and gave her two-week notice in 2009.

She jumped all in, making her full-time endeavor instead of a side hustle while she kept her 9-to-5 job for the next few years. “When you burn the boats … the only thing you can do is look forward and figure it out,” she says in the Foundr article.

Her first venture? Social media consulting. But, as Amy explains on her website, she built the wrong business. “I traded one corporate boss for 10 clients who were basically bosses,” she says. So, in 2010, she pivoted to a digital course business model.

But that didn’t go well at first. “I rushed to get something in the market without figuring out my expertise. My course was about launching a book using social media, which I’d helped people a bit with but I’d never done on my own. Big mistake,” Amy tells Forbes.

“I also had no idea who I was marketing to and was trying to figure the whole thing out on my own. I ended up spending several thousand dollars creating the course and only making a whopping $247.”

But Amy didn’t let that stop her. “I started to pay really close attention to what my audience needed: reading their comments on my blog, paying attention to their questions and stories, and uncovering their fears, challenges, and hopes,” she explains to Forbes.

Her second course made $30K, and she still hasn’t looked back.

In 2013, she launched the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast and earned $915K from all her content products that year. She hired her first team member in 2015 and was listed in the Inc. 5000 in 2021.

Over the years, the business has earned over $82M and had over 50K students in her online courses. The podcast receives more than 1M downloads a month.

This year, Amy added a book to her revenue streams, Two Weeks Notice: Find the Courage To Quit Your Job, Make More Money, Work Where You Want, and Change the World.

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