✈️ If you're JUST starting out, do this first.

Welcome to the 'Brief,' your favorite newsletter where we simplify growth tactics for your business one week at a time.

Each week, I share valuable lessons bootstrapping my e-commerce companies to 8-figures: Urban EDC, Spotted By Humphrey, and GrowthJet.

Jetsetters, ready for flight FCF8?

Here's what we've got for you today:

• 💪🏼 Skill Fit vs. Passion Fit

• 📔 Brand Launch Playbook

• 🚀 Five Channels of Growth

• 🗯 How to Promote Your New Brand

• ❌ Why Your Audience is NOT Your Customers

Put your seat belts on — it's time for take off!

✈️ Episode Itinerary

After quitting my 9-5, I went all-in on my new project: an e-commerce shop focused on everyday carry gear.

I worked on my shop for months day-in and day-out, working late into the night. I nervously hit publish, and made the shop live.

I sent out my first newsletter... and then? Crickets.

I didn't get my first sale for 3 days.

I spoke to Jim James of the UnNoticed Entrepreneur Podcast about my early days of launching Urban EDC, my first business I started back in 2015.

We talk about my early days. Plus, I discuss a mini framework for how I would launch a new brand, if I were starting all over again today:

1. Partnerships

The beginning is always the hardest part. Going from 0 to 1 seems nearly impossible when you're just starting out. So, try to get a partners on board.

Identify potential collaborators or partnerships to help you when you first start. Sell them your vision, your dream.

They'll keep you accountable and you'll be motivated to keep going.

Trust me, you'll get a lot of 'no's but that's OK. It's all part of the process.

Once you get going, you build momentum, and your results compound over time.

2. Identify Your Values

Hone in on your brand values and get your messaging out to others. This is how you'll begin to attract your tribe of supporters.

Remember, you don't want to appeal to everybody because if you do, you'll appeal to nobody.

These values will determine:

• Your Customers

• Your Employees

• Your Partnerships

For example, if your value is sustainability, you don't want to form partnerships with companies that are known for causing harm to the environment.

Your entire business ecosystem depends on these values so choose them wisely.

3. Value Delivery

Once you have identified your brand values, you must make sure you deliver on what you promised to your customers.

If you have a weekly newsletter, don't let your audience down. Publish every single week.

If you're selling a product, follow-up with your customers after and make sure they're happy.

How you deliver value consistently determines the longevity of your brand.

The best part?

Your happy customers will become raving fans and they'll become a part of your growth engine through testimonials and referrals.

Nothing better than free marketing, right?!

Here's the full episode itinerary:

• How I Built An Audience (2:22)

• Why Your Audience Are NOT Your Customers (4:11)

• Why You Should Never Launch with Friends & Family (4:52)

• Building Accountability Through Feedback Loops (6:49)

• Strategies for Launching Your Brand (8:17)

• Building Your Product Through Your Community (10:59)

• How to Promote Your Brand in the Beginning (13:03)

• Why B2B Marketing Is Different Than B2C (14:33)

• Why Feedback Is Critical For Your Business (16:45)

• Ask Me Anything (19:31)

🧠 Weekly Lessons:

In addition to my podcast, I share bite-sized lessons that I learned from building my company. Hope you find these insights valuable!

Skill Fit vs. Passion Fit:

I had a tough week last week: one of my employees resigned unexpectedly.

Ultimately, this employee wanted to move into a different area within the company.

Which got me thinking... Skill Fit vs. Passion Fit.

This employee's skillset is in a different area than what the employee wants to transition into, which is the employee's passion.

But how do you make this transition smoothly?

Obviously, there are risks here. What if the employee is not great at the new position?

Ultimately, it's not an easy transition for either employee or employer.

💡 Lesson: Build your skillsets in an area you're passionate about.

Growth Engines:

Studying growth levers for ANY business, there are only 5 channels to growth:

• Virality

• Direct Sales

• Partnerships

• Paid Advertising

• Organic Content

The key is to dominate one growth channel in your industry. Once you've exhausted one growth channel, you can layer another channel on top.

You DON'T want to try all 5 channels and be OK at a few of them.

Become a master of one in your industry and you'll grow faster.

This is the same philosophy if you're a creator just starting out.

Pick one channel (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube), double-down, master the inner workings of the platform.

Then once you've mastered one channel, layer another one on top.

💡 Lesson: Become a master of one growth channel. Then, layer another one on top, but only once you've exhausted your first growth channel.

Tweetstorm Gone Viral:

So... something surprising happened.

I posted a Twitter thread on Monday (President's Day). And it was a dud. It had little to no engagement within the first hour, so I took it down.

Then, I posted the SAME thread on Thursday, and it's been my most successful tweet in for impressions:

That spike hitting 62k impressions was mostly from this thread:

So, keep this lesson in mind:

💡 Lesson: Your content might not be the issue — it could be a distribution problem.

🎛 Metrics Dashboard

I'm building First Class Founders in public. So each week, I share my numbers exclusively through the 'Brief' newsletter.

Podcast:

• 90-Day Downloads: 13,697 (+410)

• 30-Day Downloads: 2,283 (-736)

• 7-Day Downloads: 490 (-28)

👍🏻 Recommendation: Thinking of starting a podcast? I love using Buzzsprout.

Newsletter:

• Subscribers: 617 (+67)

• Open Rate: 44.5%

• Click Rate: 11.6%

👍🏻 Recommendation: Interested in starting a newsletter? I highly recommend Beehiiv.

🔍 Community Spotlight

This week, Chenell Basilio has the floor. I met Chenell through Jay Clouse's Lab and if you don't know Chenell, she launched her newsletter Growth in Reverse a few weeks ago and is one of the fastest growing newsletters today.

Chenell confirmed (yesterday!) that she'll join me on a future episode as a guest on First Class Founders. So excited!

Here's the pitch:

"Each week, I reverse engineer how a top creator grew from 0 to 50k+ subscribers. You get the roadmap to replicate their growth – and save 40+ hours of research."

Sign up for Growth in Reverse.

💬 Final Word

Funny story. I had my interview with Jeremy Enns, the Founder of Podcast Marketing Academy, for my podcast.

At first, I was impressed by Jeremy's new studio setup featuring the bold yellow color of his company.

It turns out, it's just the wall color at an Airbnb he was staying at. 🤣

Jokes aside, we had a GREAT chat about his EAR$ framework, which all marketers should use. I can't wait to share my conversation with Jeremy!

Have a great rest of your week!

Yong-Soo Chung — Serial Entrepreneur, Podcaster

P.S. If you enjoyed this, I would LOVE it if you shared it on Twitter with your audience. 🙏🏼

🤝 Let's Work Together

When you're ready, here are 3 ways we can work together:

1. Want to work directly with me? Apply here.

2. Want to cross-promote your newsletter or podcast? Email me.

3. Want to join our community? Join our First Class Founders Membership.