- Cyber Patterns by Jason Levin
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- I Stole Greg Isenberg's Sales Funnel
I Stole Greg Isenberg's Sales Funnel
Copy the ACP Funnel
I stole Greg Isenberg’s sales funnel.
You’ve seen Greg going viral with his startup ideas and spicy takes. But what you don’t realize is that last December, Greg and I had lunch in Miami and I secretly went into his wallet and stole the diagram for his sales funnel like Plankton stealing the krabby patty secret formula.
I must now share the secret formula with the world.
For all my best posts every Sunday make sure to subscribe here.
Ok onto the secret formula.
Sorry Greg (not sorry).
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/29834057-9636-45fd-bd14-2918abf13521/image.png?t=1720810331)
I STOLE THE SECRET FORMULA! 🍔
How Greg Isenberg’s Sales Funnel works:
Most people start businesses by building a product.
But then they run into a few problems: How do you get your product in front of people? And more importantly, do people even want the product you built?
Greg’s “ACP Funnel” solves this.
ACP: Audience → Community → Product
Instead of building a product first, you build an Audience first, then a private Community to have 1-to-1 conversations, THEN based on the problems you see your community facing, you build Products to solve them.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/d5682dff-13b1-4850-8253-ccb839568957/IMG_4270.jpg?t=1720905594)
Peter Thiel explains why the ACP Funnel is smart
“Most businesses get zero distribution channels to work: poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure. If you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business. If you try for several but don't nail one, you're finished.”
The ACP Funnel solves this problem.
You’ve got built-in distribution!
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How I’ve used the ACP Funnel:
When I first met Greg in 2021, I had zero ACP funnel.
But after 3 years of writing online and many thousands of cups of coffee, my ACP funnel is looking pretty, pretty good.
![Season 9 Premiere GIF by Curb Your Enthusiasm](https://media4.giphy.com/media/d2jjIRvGomz6GMkU/giphy.gif?cid=2450ec307an0ytx80pmk3cgur0d3oy8e8ldo4iafw19o1kfw&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
AUDIENCE: 50,000+ nerds across X, LinkedIn, and newsletter.
COMMUNITY: I run a private community called The Strategists for startup marketing nerds. Just as Greg said, during our weekly community calls, I learn about new problems I can solve in the marketing space. The key to finding problems you can solve is to stop yapping and shut up and listen.
PRODUCTS: I’ve built a suite of products and offerings in the social media space at all different price levels ranging from my book Memes Make Millions ($18) to my meme course ($69) to my ghostwriting services ($5k/mo+) and more. Most recently, I launched Meme Alerts, a $6.9/month daily newsletter with new viral meme templates so you can go viral by capitalizing on trending topics. This idea came to me because of my community; we were using our Slack to send viral meme templates and I realized that should be a product!
Because I followed the ACP Funnel and built an audience and community of marketing nerds BEFORE launching the product, the launch was a hit. Here, my co-founder Charlie explains our revenue projections. He’s basically Charlie Munger and I guess I’m Jimmy Buffet? 😂
I just grew my new startup to 3 figures in MRR in just 3 days
At this rate, we'll be a 12-figure MRR business by next week
That's $100 billion in monthly revenue
This startup stuff is too easy
— Charlie Light (@charliewrich)
2:15 PM • Jun 24, 2024
We’ve since 4xed this in 3 weeks all organic from our audience and community. Not bad for dank memes in your inbox. Everyone knows MRR stands for Memelord Recurring Revenue!
Compare this to me in college.
Dropshipping from Alibaba was all the rage, so I tried starting a jewelry brand with my girlfriend at the time. We had no audience, no community, and honestly quite terrible products. We managed to grow on Instagram a bit and sold a few hundred bracelets but it felt like swimming upstream.
Meanwhile, selling a product after you have an audience and community feels like riding a lazy river. You let the current take you. You just add in your product to whatever audience/community building stuff you were already doing! I’ve been posting dank memes for years way before I was making money on it. Now I just plug Meme Alerts underneath my viral memes and get signups. That’s the benefit of building a product in a community and niche you actually love.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/525f36be-0285-4ca7-aaf5-bd12ab9f9573/Screenshot_2024-07-13_at_11.04.40_AM.png?t=1720883114)
The plug underneath has 3k views alone
Nothing pisses me off more than seeing someone start a company in a community they have literally no connection with. I’m not joking—the number of tech guys I’ve met who have talked about building SaaS for farmers without ever meeting a farmer or stepping on a farm is insane. Bro, go build in something you love and understand. This is how you never burn out.
Build an audience and community around something you love—then build products to help your homies solve problems. That’s how you make your community stronger and hopefully make a few bucks along the way.
P.S. If you wanna see Greg and I chop it up about building audiences and communities, check out the pod I recorded with him. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube, got a very special pod coming out next week 😉
To get my posts in your inbox every Sunday, subscribe here:
My adventures this week
I got an AI wearable and have been using it to take notes for me | I went to an exhibit on concert stages at Cooper Hewitt in NYC (this is a model of The Weeknd’s mask) |
Tech Memes of the Week
Not gonna lie, I had some memes ABSOLUTELY POP OFF this week
The wolves are currently fighting inside of me.
— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin)
6:00 PM • Jul 9, 2024
SF has high amounts of:
- crime
- rich single tech brosHow is there no Batman????
— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin)
2:19 PM • Jul 10, 2024
Inside Out if it was filmed in my head
— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin)
1:59 PM • Jul 6, 2024
Just wait until they find out it’s not my boat
— slow stroke👑 (@strokahontus)
10:39 PM • Jul 11, 2024
Thanks for reading nerds.
Create some cool shit this week.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/8b8a4f0b-4be7-41ae-bfc7-1f4ea5826912/cyberpunkpfp.jpeg)
Jason “The Memelord” Levin
Head of Growth @ Product Hunt, Author of Memes Make Millions