Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - ClickFunnels Startup Story - Part 2 of 4

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

On today's episode you will hear part 2 of 4 of Russell's interview with Andrew Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Here are some of the awesome things you will hear in this part of the story: Find out from an employee of Russell's, Brent, why he stuck with the company through potential bankruptcy and jail time for Russell. Find out who thought Clickfunnels seemed like a scammy company and therefore didn't want others to know they'd worked with them. And hear how Clickfunnels actually finally came to fruition after many other failed software company attempts. So listen here to hear how Todd and Dylan became cofounders of Clickfunnels and together got the project off the ground. Transcript - https://marketingsecrets.com/blog/183-clickfunnels-startup-story-part-2-of-4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to Smart Water Alkaline 9.5 plus pH with antioxidant, there's nothing to overthink. So, while you may be performing mental gymnastics over whether the post-work gym crowd is worth it, if you'll be able to find a spot for your yoga mat, or if that spin instructor will make you late for dinner again, don't overthink how you hydrate. Life's full of choices. Smart Water Alkaline is a simple one. All right, everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast.

I hope yesterday you enjoyed part one of the ClickFunnels Startup Story interview at the Dry Bar Comedy Club with Andrew. Ah, I love the way he interviews. I hope you're enjoying it as well. So we are going to dive right into part two of four from this interview. And again, if you're liking these interviews, please, please, please take a snapshot on your phone, post it on Facebook, Instagram, or wherever you do your posting and tag me

in it and use hashtag marketing secret so I can see that you're talking about it. I would appreciate it. With that said, we're going to keep the theme song. When we come back, we'll start in on part two of the interview of the ClickFunnels startup story. So the big question is this, how are entrepreneurs like us who didn't cheat and take on venture capital? We're spending money from our own pockets. How do we market in a way that lets us get our products and our services and the things that we believe in out to the world and yet still remain profitable? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers.

My name is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing Secrets. You know what? I've talked to a few of your people because they're so good. Dave could really be a leader on his own. Could start his own company. He's got his own online reputation. The whole thing, I keep asking them, why do you work for Russell? What is it that lets you be second to Russell who's getting all the attention? And I've got some answers. Would you mind coming up here in a second? I'm going to ask you. Just like, no, come on back here and I'll just bring you up in a second.

Actually, you know what? It looks like you can come come pretty fast i thought that it would be a little bit more i know i i thought i thought it would be more of a thing to get mics on people and i realized if collect and doing okay honestly dig down deep why why did you want to stick with him through through all that stuff yeah oh i don't know my heart was just racing he started telling that story just makes me like sick my stomach as you scroll down and look at all those businesses of like for years, like just like every, every 30 days there was a new business launch. Like it was, um, it was crazy. Uh, how I, why I stuck with them is, is, uh, you know, Clint mentioned that spirit, like just, he's absolutely different than anybody else I've ever met in my entire life. Like, a friend.

Give me an example. Let's be more specific. Back then, not today, when he's got this track record, adoring fans, I ask him to do an interview, everyone wants him on his podcast. Back then when it wasn't going so well. Give me an example of something that he did that let you know, this is a guy who's going to figure it out eventually, and I could possibly go down, watch him go to jail, but I believe that it's going to go up. Well, at the time when things were crashing, you know, I saw him as the income stopped, and he had started a program. He loves obviously

wrestling, and he brought an Olympic wrestling coach to Boise, and he brought all these amazing wrestlers to Boise, and he wanted them to build a train and get to the Olympics. He wanted to help them get there and live their dream. And, you know, he was supplementing, you know, at the time the business was paying for these guys to do some little bit of work for us. They weren't doing very much for us. But I saw him out of his own pocket be paying for these guys, and I knew how hard he wanted to support them. And there was a day that, you know, my wife and I, we were struggling because I was concerned about him financially. He was supplementing his, trying to keep his business afloat.

And we talked about things, and I came into the office one day, and I asked if I could talk to him and sat down and kind of spoke in language that I normally don't speak in. I might have dropped a bomb or two. But it was, it was, I was, I was so concerned. I pretty much told him like, I, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep watching you, you know, every month pulling the money you've saved for your family to try to try to, you know, keep jobs for other people. Like I said, I will, I'll leave, you know, if that, that helps you. And the fact that he stuck with people.

And that was the true character of who he is. He kept paying your salary, kept sticking with you, and also constantly launching things you were telling me before. Absolutely. You've never seen anyone implement like him. No, no. Some people call it faith or belief. He has this inherent belief that he can truly change people's lives.

That's it. Even when he wasn't fully in control of his own. All right. Thanks. Thanks for giving him a big round of applause. Thanks for being up here. I feel like this is the thing that helped get you out of trouble and potentially get it out of potential jail. What is this business that you created? Yeah. So during the time of that and this, there was time. It was probably a year and a half, two years that we were trying all sorts of stuff.

And again, marginal success on a lot of them. Nothing like. And this was the one um we actually um this was before like we had done i've done a lot of webinars and speaking from seminars and stuff like that but this is right when auto webinars were coming out and mike phil something just an auto webinar a couple people and like i feel like that was gonna be the future things and right but what do we do the webinar on we didn't know and um we flew out to ryan dyson perry belcher's office for like two days and pick their brains. We flew out to Rich Sheffrin's office for a day.

And then on the flight home, I was just like sick to my stomach. I couldn't figure out like what's the thing that we can serve people with the most right now. And on the flight home, I was like, I'm like, all the internet marketing stuff we do works for like internet marketers. It works way better like local business. Like a chiropractor implements like two things, it works. If a dentist does it, like, but I was like, I don't want to be the guy going to dentists. But like we could be the backbone for that. What if we create an opportunity where people come in, we train them and we connect them with the right tools and

resources and they could go and sell it to, to, to chiropractors and dentists. And that's what the idea was. We created, turned to an offer called.com secrets local. Uh, it was a thousand dollar offer at the time, did the auto webinar for it. And it launched within, um, within 90 days, they've done over a million dollars, which covered payroll taxes and then got, got us out of debt to the point now we could like stop and like dream again and like believe again and try to figure out what we really wanted to do. Dot com secrets local to a million dollars within 90 days. And how did you find the people who are going to sign up for this? A lot of us will have landing pages like this. We'll have these funnels. How did you get people in this funnel? Yeah. And this was pre Facebook too. So it's like, it wasn't just like, go turn Facebook ads on. Um, but you know,

one thing that happened over the last, you know, all the years prior to this, I met a lot of people. I've gone to a lot of events and get to know everybody. And, um, everyone I met that, you know, you meet a lot of people who have lists, they have followings, they have different things like that. I just got to know them really, really well. And, um, and in the past I'd, excuse me, I'd promote a lot of their products. They'd promote my products. And so we had this one and we did it first to my list and it did really well. And so I then called them like, Hey, I did this webinar, my list, these are the numbers. You did awesome. Do you want to do it to your list as well? And they're like, Oh, sure. That sounds like a great offer. And we did that

list and they did good for them too. And we told the next person. And then, and if you have a webinar that good, it's kind of like, it's like the speaking circuit, right? Like if you're good at speaking, then people will put you all over the place. Same thing. If you have a webinar that converts, then it's easy to get a lot of people to do it. And so as soon as that one worked and it converted well, then people lined up and we just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. And, um, it was really quick to get that spot pretty quick. I was on Facebook recently and I saw webinar slides from Russell Brunson. I went to a landing page, click funnel page, and I signed up. And I'll talk about it maybe later.

But I bought it. And I know other people did. And I've seen other people say, Russell's webinar technique is a thing that just works. I'm wondering how you figured it out. How did you come across this and how did you build it and make it work? Yeah, so rewind back probably 10 years prior to this, it was when I was first learning this whole business. Um, and I went to my very first internet marketing seminar ever. It was Armand Morin's big seminar. Do you ever go to a big seminar? Anyway, I went to it

and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be like, and I showed my laptop and I was going to like, I thought we're a bunch of geeks going to do computer stuff. And the first person got on stage and they started speaking. And at the end of it, he sold like a $2,000 thing. I'd never seen this before. I saw people jumping up and running to the back of the room to buy it. And I'm like this little like 23 year old kid. And I was counting the people in the back of them doing the math, you know, doing the math. I was like, that guy made like $60,000 in an hour. And next I gets up, he does presentation. I watched this for three days and I was like, I'm super shy and introverted, but like I, that skill is worth learning. If I,

someone can walk on a stage and make a hundred thousand dollars an hour, like I need to learn how to do that. And so I started that and, um, it was really bad for the first man, probably eight or nine months. I, I tried to do it. I'd go to places and I just, I couldn't figure it out. And then I started, um, asking the people to work good. Cause I, you'd go there and all the speakers kind of talk and hang out. And I watched the ones that always had like all the people were in the back of the room and I'd ask them questions. I'm like, what did I do wrong? I feel like I'm teaching the best stuff possible.

And they're like, that's the problem. It's not about teaching. It's about telling stories and breaking beliefs. And so for the next about two years, I was about once a month flying somewhere to speak. And then when I would go there, I'd meet all the speakers and find out what they were doing. And I'd watch them and I'd take notes on the different things they were saying

and how they were saying it. And then I kept taking my presentation and tweaking it and tweaking it and tweaking it. And, um, you know, now 12 years later done so many webinars, like kind of work. The process works now. You are a really good storyteller and I've seen you do that and you've seen you do it here. I know you're going to do even more. Um, what I'm curious about is the belief system that you were saying, breaking people's, what was it that you said? False beliefs. Breaking people's false beliefs. How do you understand what, like, as you look at this audience, do you understand what some of our false beliefs are?

If I knew I was selling, I could figure out for sure. If you knew what you were selling. All right. We're selling this belief that entrepreneurship does work. And I know that we're all going to go through a period, like some of the ones that you had, where things just aren't working. Other people aren't believing in us. It's almost failure. What's at that point, the belief system that we have to work on? What, what do you recognize in people here? So usually there's like three core beliefs that people have. The first is about like the opportunity itself, right? So like the entrepreneurship, like the first belief that people have is like, can I actually be an entrepreneur? And so some people who already believe that they're like,

I'm in, they, that's like an easy one. But for those who don't, there's a reason. And usually it's like, they saw a parent that tried to do it and the parent tried to be an entrepreneur and wasn't able to, and they saw that failure or they tried in the past and they failed or whatever it is. And so it's, it's showing them that like, even if you tried in the past and show different ways, like, let me tell you a story. And for me, I could show 800 different failures, but it's like, but eventually you get better and you get better and you get better until eventually you have the thing that actually works. So I tell a story to kind of show that to make them believe like, Oh my gosh, maybe I just need to try a couple more times.

And then the second level of belief is like beliefs about themselves. Like I sure it works for you, Russell or Andrew, but not for, not for me. Cause I'm different. It's helping them figure out their false beliefs. And if you can break that, then the third one is like, then they always want to blame somebody else. Like, Oh, like I could lose weight, but my wife buys lots of cupcakes and candies. Like I could do it, but because that I can't. So it's like figuring out, well, how do you break the beliefs of like the external people that are going to keep them? And how would you know what that is? How would you know who the external influencers are that your potential customers are worried about? Um, I think for most of us, because the thing that we're selling is something that, that, uh, one of our, uh, Nick barely said, uh, our mess

becomes our message. Like for most of us, what we're selling is the thing that we struggled with before. So I think back to my, I think back about Mike, me as 12 year old Russell watching Don the pre like what would have kept me back? And I'd be like, I can't afford classified ads. Like if you show me like how I can, like, if you can tell me a story of like, oh my gosh, I couldn't afford classified ads. That belief's gone. And now I'm going to go give you money. It's just kind of remembering back to the state where you were in, when you were trying to figure this stuff out as well. Who was it who I met when we were coming in here? We said that they're part of Russell's mastermind. And I asked how much did you pay? You said, I'm not telling you.

I can't see who that person was, but I know you've got a mastermind. People are coming in. I'm wondering how much of it comes from that. Working with people directly, seeing them in the group, share openly, and then saying, ah, this is what my potential customers are feeling. 100%. At this point, especially, people always ask me, like, where do you go, Russell, to learn stuff? And it's my mastermind. Because all the people come in, and they're all in different industries

and you see that you see the roadblocks hold people back but then they also share like the stuff that they're doing and it's like that's 100 now is where i get most of my my intel because people ask me why you get a software company why in the world do you have a mastermind group it's like because the reason why our software is good is because we have a mastermind group where they're all crowdsourcing they're doing all this stuff and bringing it back to us. And then we're able to make shifts and pivots based on that. Somehow we just lost a Apple, but that's okay. It's back. It's back. Good. There we go. This is the next thing. Rippling, right? I forgot I put that one in there. I went back and I watched the YouTube video explaining it. It's a, it's a cartoon.

I thought it was a professional voiceover artist. No, it's you. You're really comfortable getting on stage and talking. But basically in that video that you guys can see in the top left of your screen, it's Russell through this voiceover and cartoon explaining, look, you guys were around in the early days of Facebook. You told your friends. Here's how many friends you would have said.

For the sake of numbers, let's say you told seven people. Let's say they told seven people. And that's how things spread and the same thing happened with pinterest and all these other sites don't you ever wish that instead of making them rich by telling stuff you made yourself rich well here's how rippling comes in and then you you created it and rippling was what um so rippling was actually one of my friends um uh ideas um, and he is a network marketing guy. So he's like, we're sure we're building network marketing program. And I'd, I'd like dabbled in network marketing, never been involved with it. And, uh, he came in and was like, Hey, be part of this. I was like, no. And they sold this on the whole pitch and the idea and

network marketers are really good at selling you on vision. And I was like, okay, that sounds awesome. And, um, and then my role was to write the, write the pitch. And so I like, okay, that sounds awesome. And my role was to write the pitch. And so I wrote the pitch, did the voiceover, did the video. And then we launched it. And we had in six weeks, it was like 1.5 million people signed up for Ripplin. And I thought it was like, this is the thing. I'm done. My downline was like half of the company.

And I was like, when this thing goes live, it's going to be amazing. And then the tech side of it, what we were promising people in this video that um the main developer ended up dying and he had all the code so they had to restart building in the middle of this thing and like all it was like thing after thing and by the time it finally got done everyone lost interest was like eight months later and like i think my i think my biggest check i got was like 47 bucks from the whole thing i was just like i spent like six months of my life. It was like a penny a day. It's horrible. I'm just wondering whether I should ask this or not.

Go for it. So I stopped asking about religion, but I get this sense that you believe that there's a spiritual element here that keeps you from seeing my downline is growing, the whole thing's working. Do you, is any of this, does it feel divinely inspired to you? Be honest. Business or? Business, life, success, things working out. So much so that when you're at your lowest, you feel like there's some divine guidance, some divine hand that says, Russell, it's going to work out. Russell, I don't know if I got you, but I know you got this. Go do it. I feel that from you. And I,

yeah, I a hundred percent believe that you do every bit of it. I believe that, that God gives us talents and gifts and abilities, and then watches who would do with it. And if we do good, he gives us increases our capacity to do more if we do good they give it if you earn it capacity that if you do good if you use what god gives you then you you get more and so you think that that is your duty to do that and if you don't do more if you don't pick yourself up up after rippling you have let down god do you believe that is that it or that you haven't lived you express it how yeah i don't think i feel like i let down God. Do you believe that? Is that it? Or that you haven't lived, you express it. Yeah. I don't think I feel like I let down God, but I definitely feel like, um, I haven't lived up my potential pretend, you know, but also I feel like a lot of stuff, like, as I was putting

together the document, all the pages, like, um, it's interesting. Cause like each one of them looking in hindsight, like each built upon to the next thing in the next, and there's twice, we tried to build click funnels and each one like was the next level and each one's a stepping stone like rippling if i wouldn't have done rippling like that was my very first like viral video we ever created i learned how to pitch things i'm like when we did the click funnels initial sales video like like because i had done this one like i knew how to do this one right yeah so for me it's less of like i let down god as much as like um it's just like the the piece it's like what are you going to do with this are you going to do something with it and then it doesn't mean it's it's less of like i let down god as much as like um it's just like the the piece it's like what are you going to do with this are you going to do something with it and then it doesn't

mean it's gonna be successful but it means it's like if you do well with this then we're gonna increase your capacity for the next step and the next thing but we definitely and especially in time the office we talk about a lot like we definitely feel what we do is a spiritual mission like it's you do 100 yeah i don't i don't think that it's just like we're lucky. I think the way that the people have come, the partnerships, like how it was created is super inspired. You know what? A lot of us are selling things that are software, PDF, guide, this, that. It's really hard to find the bigger mission in it. You're finding the bigger mission in funnels.

What is that bigger mission in funnels. What is, what is that bigger mission? What, how really, how do you connect with it? Because you're right. If you can find that bigger meaning, then the work becomes more meaningful and the people you're working with become like, it's, it's more exciting to work with and more meaningful to do it. How'd you find it in funnels? What is the meaning? So for us, um, and I'm thinking about some of my members in the inner circle, but, um, so right now, as of, I think today we had 68,000 members in click funnels, which is like the big number we all brag about. But for me, it's like, that's 68,000 entrepreneurs. Each one has a gift. Right. And so I think about one, like one member, I'll, I'll mention his name's Chris work. He runs crispy's cancer, crispy cancer.com.

And Chris was someone who came down with cancer, gave him the death sentence, and instead of going through chemotherapy, he decided, I'm going to see if I can heal myself. And he did. He cleared himself of cancer. And then instead of just like, cool, and then go back into work,

he was like, man, I need to help other people. And so he started a blog, started doing some things, and now he's got this thing where he's helped thousands and thousands of people to naturally cure themselves of cancer. And that's one of our 68,000 people see you're focusing on him where i think a lot of us would focus on here's one person who's just a smarmy marketer and here's who's creating right but you don't that's not who you are look i see you in your eyes you're shaking your head

that's not it at all it's not even because for me it's like i get that because i understand i get all the time people like oh he's this guy slimy marketer like the first time people meet me all the time first time they introduce that's a lot of times the first impression. And they get closer and they feel the heart. And it's just like, oh my gosh, this is, I had you wrong. I get that all the time. Brian, sorry, Ryan and Brad are either of them here?

Ryan and Brad. Would one of you come up here? Yeah, come on up. Because they felt that way, right? I don't know about them. Oh, I know. I don't even think about. I don't know about them. Oh, I know. I don't even think about. I think it's Theron.

Oh, I guess it was Theron. Oh, is it the other? No, no, stay up here. Stay up here as long as you're here. Theron, come on up. If it wasn't me, I'm going to sit back and see. You're nervous? How is there another Ryan and Brad?

It's a different story. It's a different story. All right. Do you want to come up? Theron had no idea we were bringing him on stage. Come on over here. Let's stand in the center so we can get you on camera. Does this help?

Do you want me to introduce Theron real quick? Yeah, please. So Theron is one of the Harmon brothers. They're the ones who did the viral video for us. I have no idea what you want with this. I heard that you felt that he was a scam. What was the situation and how did you honestly feel? I don't know that I, well.

Be honest. Oh, I know, I know. I don't think that I felt that ClickFunnels itself was a scam. But that it. was a scam. It just felt like that so many of the ways that the funnels were built and the types of language they were using, it was just not, it felt like it was that side of the internet, right? And so I became very, well, basically, we were kind of in a desperate situation where we had a video that had not performed and not worked out the way we wanted it to work out. The video that you created for Russell? No, for another client. Another client, okay. And so our CEO had used ClickFunnels' product to help drive, I think it was attendance to a big video event.

And so he had some familiarity with the product. And so he goes to Russell. And at the same time, Russell's like, I'm a big fan of you guys. And he's coming to us. And these things are happening. Yeah, it was almost the same day. And so we're thinking like this. And we're like, well, they seem to really know how to drive traffic,

to really know how to drive conversion. And we feel like we know, they seem to really know how to drive traffic, to really know how to drive conversion. And we feel like we know how to drive conversion as well. But for some reason, we missed it on this one. And so we're like, well, let's do a deal. When you say missed it, what do you – okay, go ahead. We were failing our client. Okay. We were failing our client.

We weren't getting them an ROI. Okay. And so we said, let's do a deal with Russell and we'll have our internal team compete with his team. And then we're humble enough to say, hey, we're failing our client. We want our client to succeed. Let's bring in their team and see if they can make a funnel that can bring down the cost per acquisition, bring up the return on investment for our client. And they were able to do it, right? And then we said, well, what do is we'll we'll write a script we'll take you through our script writing process but we don't want to we don't want to do the video because we don't

want to be affiliated the contract said you can't tell anyone ever the harvard brothers wrote the script for you wow because you didn't want to be associated with something that you thought was a little too scammy for it yeah yeah We just didn't want our brand kind of brought down to their brand. Which is super arrogant. And really wrong-headed. And in any case, so we

go into this script writing retreat, and I wasn't following his podcast, I wasn't listening to enough. I mean, Red.com Secrets, those kinds of things were like, wow, there's some really valuable stuff here. This is really interesting. And then as we got to know each other and really started to connect, like you said, heart to heart and to feel what he's really about and the types of team, the people that he surrounds himself with, I was like, wow, these are really, really good people. And they have a mission

here that they feel. And just like we feel that about our own group. And in any case, by the end of that two-day retreat, we're like all off in private saying, well, first of all, we like what we've written. Second of all, we'd really like to work with these guys. And I think we're plenty happy being connected to them and associated with them. And so it's been a ride and a blessing ever since so what we're about to start video number two ah anyway we love them all right give me a big round yeah thanks what's up everybody this is russell brunson i've got something really cool for you today from my friend Taylor Wells.

Taylor spoke at our last Funnel Hacking Live because I wanted him to share a really cool concept about what he calls the revolving pricing method. And today he decided to sponsor the podcast to give you guys more access to this super cool strategy that you are going to love. It's something we've been implementing into our high-end coaching program as well, and it is amazing. But to kind of give you some context about this offer he's making for you guys, as you may or may not know, a few years ago, JPMorgan Chase did a study, and guess what they found? They found that the average small business only has about 28 days of operating expenses in reserve. That's right, less than a month of cash on hands.

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And if you go over to wealthyconsultants.com slash secrets, you can grab the Revolving Price Method book and over $150 worth of bonuses and get this all. It's at 70% off. And I promise you guys, as a customer of this, you are going to love it. So if you're serious about growing your business with real stability, this is the model you need to add into your funnels. So go over to wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets, grab your 70% off deal, and let's start turning your clients into long-term revenue. Again, that's wealthyconsultant.com slash secrets. Do not miss out. Hey, this is Russell Brunson, and I want to jump in really quick to share with you a new assessment I found out that is

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Go check it out at workinggenius.com and enter the promo code secrets for 20% discount. Take this test for yourself and for your team. And I promise you, it'll change the working dynamics amongst everybody and help your company to grow. This was pivotal for you guys. Lead Pages, there's an article about how Leadpages raised $5 million. You saw that and you thought? Well, what happened was Todd. So Todd's the co-founder of ClickFunnels and he was working with us at the time. He would fly to Boise about

once a quarter and we'd work on the next project, a new idea. And that morning he woke up and he saw that and then he forwarded me the article. And he's atlanta so it's east coast i'm still in bed and then he's got a four-hour flight to boise and he's just like getting angry because todd is todd's like a genius like he he literally he when he landed in boise and he saw me he's like we can build lead pages tonight i will clone it i will beat it we can launch this this week while we're here like he's he's that good of a developer like he like i've never seen someone code as fast and as good as him. He's amazing, right? And so he comes in.

He's mad because he's like, this is the stupidest site in the world. We literally cloned this. Let's just do it. And I'm like, yes, let's clone it. And we're all excited. And then he's like, do you want me to add any other features while I'm doing it? I'm like, oh, yes. We should do this.

And we should do this. And then the scope creep from the marketer comes. And we end up spending an entire week in front of a whiteboard mapping out all my dreams. Like, if we could do this and this, and what if we had a shopping cart, and what if we could do upsells, and what if we could actually move things on the page instead of just having it sit there, and what if? And Todd's just taking notes and everything, and then he's like, hey, I think I can do this. And he told me, he's like, but if I do this, I don't want to do this as an employee. I want to do this as a partner.

And at first I was like, ah, because i've never wanted to do the partnership thing and then um the best decision i've ever made in my life outside marrying my wife was saying yes to todd i said let's do it and then he flew home and and built click funnels well and this is after trying software so much i have screenshots of all the different it's not even worth going into it of all the different products you created there was was one about, it was digital repo, right? Digital repo, man. What was? So I used to sell eBooks and stuff. People would steal it and then email it to their friends. Can I read this? How to protect every type of low life and other form of human scum from cheating you from the profits you should be making by hijacking, stealing, and illegally

prostituting dot, dot, dot your online digital products. Theron, why did you think we were, just kidding. So no, it was a really cool product that would like you take an ebook and it would like protect it. And then if somebody like gave it to their friend, you could push a button. It would like take back access. It was the might, it was like the coolest thing in the world we thought. And there was software that was going to attach your ad to any other software that was out there there was software that was going to oh what are some of the other ones it's going to hit me later on but we're talking about a dozen different pieces software a dozen different attempts of software what what's the one i thought somebody remembered

one of them just the kinds of stuff you'd never think of there was one that was kind of like click funnels an early version of click funnels for landing pages. Why did you want to get into software when you were teaching, creating membership sites? What was software, what was it that was drawing you in? I think, honestly, when I first learned this internet marketing game, the first mentor I had, the first person I saw was a guy named Armin Morin. And Armin had all these little software products, like e-cover generator, sales letter generator, everything generator. And so that's what I kept seeing. I was like I need to create software because he made software. In fact I even shifted my major from

I can't remember what it was before to computer information systems. I was like I know how to code because I couldn't afford programmers and that's kind of just what I'd seen and then I was trying to think of ideas for software and every time I would get stuck instead of trying to find something to do I'd was like, let me hire a guy to go build that. And then I can sell it to somebody else as well. And that's kind of how it started. And it was a lot of different tools, a lot of different attempts. And then this one was the one that you went with.

I think this is an early version of the homepage basically saying coming soon, sign up. The first one didn't work out. And then you saw someone else on a forum who had a forum who had a version that was better what was his name this is i think yes okay so yeah so the story was so we taught about the first version click funnels and um and dylan who became one of our co-founders um i've been working with dylan as a designer for about six years prior and he is hands and we talked about. He's the best designer I've ever seen in my life. He is amazing. Um, he would, he would, but he's also, this is the pros and

cons of Dylan. Like he, um, I've talked to us on stage if I'm not saying this and he would, he would agree, but I'd give him a project and I couldn't hear, he wouldn't respond back to me. I wouldn't hear from him for two or three months. And then one day in the middle of the night, he messaged me. He's like, he's like, Hey, uh, uh, rent's due tomorrow. You have any projects for me? And I'd be so mad at him. And I look back at every project we've done the last three or four months that other designers had done. And I would just like resend them all the lists, like boom, give him 12 sites. And I go to bed, I wake up five or six hours later and all of them were done perfectly amazing. Like some of the best designs ever and then he sent me

a bill for whatever and i sent him money and he disappeared again for like five months and i could never get a hold of it and then like i need to tweak something he's just gone and that was like my pattern for six years with him um and then fast forward to when todd and i were building click funnels um we were at traffic conversion and we were up in the hotel room at like three in the morning trying to we were on dribble.com trying to find a ui designer to help us And we couldn't get ahold of all these people. And all of a sudden on Skype, Dylan popped in. I saw this thing pop up. I was like, Todd, Dylan just showed up. He was like, do you need some money? I'm like, I guarantee he needs money. So I'm like, Hey man. And, uh, and Dylan messaged back. He's like, Hey, I'm like, do you need some money? He's like,

yeah. You got any projects? I'm like, yes, I do. I'm like, we built this cool thing. It's called ClickFunnels, but the UI is horrible and the editor's horrible and there's any way we can hire you for a week to fly to Boise and just do all the UI for every single page of the app. And he kind of said no at first

because I'm developing my own website builder. I'm going to spend like six years on it, so I can't do it. It was this. He had something that was essentially ClickFunnels, right? Yeah. It was just pages, though, so we'd just do pages. There was no funnels. Closer to lead pages than to ClickFunnels. Lead? Yeah. It was just pages, though. So we'd just do pages.

There was no funnels. Closer to lead pages than to ClickFunnels. Lead pages, but amazing. You can move things around. But he didn't tell me that. He said, I'm working on something. So eventually we got him to come. He flew to Boise.

He spent a week. He did all of our UI. And then we went and we launched our beta to my list. So we launched the beta. We got some signups. And then a week before the launch launch was supposed to happen, all the affiliates were lined up. Everything was supposed to happen. All the affiliates were lined up. Everything was supposed to happen. He sends me the, I don't know if he sent you the video, but he sends me this little video. Um, that's like a 32nd video of him demoing the edit,

his editor he built. And I probably watched that video on at least a hundred times. And I was just sick to my stomach. Cause I was like, I hate click funnels right now. I can't move things on my pages. I can't do anything. I was just, and I sent it to Todd and then I hear from him for like an hour and he messaged me back. He's like, I'm pissed. I'm like me too. And then like, what do we do? And I was like, we have to have this editor. I don't even want to sell this thing. Like it. And, and I called Dylan, I'm like, would you be willing to sell? And he's like, no, I'm doing a, I'm selling it and we're gonna sell for a hundred bucks. And it's like a hundred dollars one time for this editor that designed all the websites. And I was like, dude, it is worth so much more than that, please. And we spent all night going back and forth and negotiating.

And finally, it came down to like, I will give you this editor if I can be a co-founder and be a partner. And Todd and I sat there and brainstormed and figured out if we could do it and finally said yes. And then him and Dylan and Todd flew back to Boise and for the next week just sat in a room with a whole bunch of caffeine and figured out how to smush Dylan's editor into ClickFunnels to get the editor to be the editor that you guys know today. Want more marketing secrets?

If so, then go get your copies of my two best-selling books. Book number one is called Expert Secrets and you can get a free copy at expertsecrets.com. And book number two is called Dot Com Secrets and you can get your free copy at dotcomsecrets.com. Inside these two books, you'll find my top 35 secrets that we've used to become the fastest growing non-VC backed SaaS startup company in the world.