Our growth team is going to launch and grow 3 companies (an agency, a D2C brand & a SaaS Company) to $1M each.

If we’re such a good growth team then why can’t we grow our own brands?

That’s the question we’ve been asking ourselves.

Our growth marketing agency has been lucky to be part of some insane growth stories.

• Brands featured on Shark Tank
• Startups that raised $65M, $85M, and $100M in funding
• Companies backed by A16z, Y-combinator, Techstars, etc.

But, we’re just the growth guys (and girls).

We don’t know operations, finance, customer service, tech, etc. We cannot run a business. 

Or can we?

We’ve decided to put our skills to the test.  

And we’re doing it in public.

Today, we’re announcing the $3M Challenge.

We are going to launch and grow 3 companies to $1M in sales. Specifically, an agency, a D2C brand and a SaaS Company.

And we’re going to document every step of the way.

Yes, we’re launching 3 businesses and we aren’t stopping til we hit 7 figures each.

[Hold for suspense.]

via GIPHY

So, you probably have some questions on why we would do this.  

So here we go. In a FAQ format …

Why did we pick D2C, SaaS and an agency as our focus? 

These are the types of clients we work with so we want to put our knowledge of working with 150+ startups to work.

Why are we doing this?

It aligns with our bigger goal of building a portfolio of companies and launching a startup studio.  We call it Hit Lab Ventures. More on this in a future post.

Plus, we want to work in public.

It’s a 2 birds with one stone type of deal. 

Are we fundraising for this?

No. We’re going to fund everything ourselves. 

But, if you really want to invest in us then convince me I am wrong. 

When will we be doing updates on these companies?

Expect Bi-monthly newsletter updates, podcast episodes, youtube videos, and late night cries for help on Twitter.

Are we going to post when we mess up?

Yes. And we will probably be making lots of mistakes. Hopefully you can learn from us.

Okay, so what are the companies?

For the D2C startup, we’re launching our own brand.

For the SaaS company, we’re acquiring a company and hiring a CTO. (If you know any aspiring CTOs then hit us up.)

For the agency, we’re documenting what we did at GrowthHit to hit 7 figures.

How do we know your Revenue Numbers?

We’ll be updating our progress meter every month.  Here it is below.

Alright, so what’s next?

Here are some of the topics we’ll be covering:

• D2C: How we decided what problem to solve
• D2C: How we built the MVP of a brand name and look
• D2C: Our process for validating if we have product market fit
• SaaS: What type of SaaS do we want to acquire based on our skills (and limitations)
• SaaS: How we’re attempting to acquire a SaaS
• SaaS: Why we walked away from a $300,000 deal
• Agency: How we messed up pricing on day one and then fixed it
• Agency: 20 things we did to hit $2M ARR

Have thoughts or questions?  Then please hit us up on twitter at @jimwhuffman or @growthhit.