This guy makes $2M with 0 employees - Justin Welsh, the king of one-person businesses

This guy makes $2M with 0 employees. He works ~10 hours a week and spends the rest of the time with his family. Justin Welsh - the king of one-person businesses 🧵 [img:IwKDAw0qx]

Jutin went from being fired from 3 companies at 28 to helping build 2 companies doing $50M in ARR. Has ~800k followers across Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Doing $2M/year with no employees in your business is rare.

And Justin does that easily. He only works a few hours every week. Posts content on Twitter and LinkedIn every day. And enjoys other parts of his life like he enjoys the business part of it. [img:Lt-hsLkwJ]

As SVP of Sales at PatientPop, Justin led the company to raise $50M. At ZocDoc, he built a sales organization from scratch and drove $70M+ in annual revenue.

Now, he runs a solo $2M/year boutique advisory in Nashville, Tennessee advising early-stage SMB and SaaS founders on how to scale their businesses. Currently, he has ~800k followers on social media. But, how did the transition happen? Let's dive in 👇 [img:oZ51N2zM9]

Justin started his career in sales. He entered the field of pharmaceutical sales, inspired by his father who worked as a salesman for 50 years. But he struggled with it.

Initially, Justin lacked the maturity and commitment needed to succeed in his role. So he did not go to work regularly, and he wasn't meeting the quotas expected of him. This got him fired from his very first job after 11 months.

Justin got another job in the pharmaceutical industry. This time he tried to blend in and meet the team quotas. But he was fired after 3 years of working at the company.

Because he got caught lying about the sales calls he made. It was a difficult time for him. He desperately needed another job.

To experiment, Justin switched from pharmaceutical sales to medical devices. He established himself as a good associate after working hard. However, he was fired after 10 months when he was caught interviewing for another job.

By 28, Justin got fired from 3 different companies. He felt lost and unaccomplished like anyone would.

But, Justin didn't let these early career setbacks define him. Instead, he saw them as opportunities to learn and grow.

He knew he needed to make changes to his approach, so he started being more disciplined and committed. He used blogs, podcasts, and webinars to improve his skills and knowledge.

Justin's life took a 180 when he discovered the tech world. He landed a job at ZocDoc in New York, and kicked off his journey as a newbie account executive. But he didn't stop there. [img:t1J55Jb4O]

He hustled his way up the ranks and soon found himself reporting to the CEO. He worked at ZocDoc from 2009 to 2014 and helped ZocDoc reach $71M yearly revenue. In 2015, he became the VP of Sales at Patientpop. [img:PTFUgIszL]

And he absolutely crushed it. In just 5 years: • Grew the business from $0 to $50M+ in recurring revenue. • Hired and led over 150 sales employees But this took a toll on his health. [img:gXp_0ReGr]

ZocDoc and PatientPop were intense and ridden with a lot of stress. In December 2018, Justin had a panic attack. The stressful environment he was being subjected to was the cause of it. He knew he had to cut back.

So he decided to become his own boss. Never having gone down that road before, he started writing online to grab "attention" to start his business. After 8 months, he left his job at PatientPop.

Because before he knew it, his side hustle had turned into a full-blown consulting business. He started helping SaaS businesses doing $1M-$10M by advising them how to scale to $50M+

But that's not all. From 2019-2023, Justin has gathered 750k+ followers on social media and got enough "attention" for his business :)

This detour has morphed into something beyond his wildest dreams. He runs a $2 million-a-year solo business while only working a few hours per week. A big W for Justin.

Justin started to work for a living instead of living for work. He goes on hikes, and trips, and relaxes while still feeling motivated to kill it in business. Don't we all want that? [img:nZm5tiHBd]

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