The Inspirational Story of Russell Brunson and Click Funnels

This guy bootstrapped a billion dollar SaaS company that did $160M in revenue last year.

His journey is interesting, having previously sold everything under the sun from potato guns to supplements.

The inspirational story of Russel Brunson and Click Funnels 👇 pic.twitter.com/zYYD0alaFd

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Meet Russell Brunson, the founder of ClickFunnels - a popular software platform that helps businesses create and optimize their sales funnels.

Last year, Clickfunnels clocked $160M in revenue.

It continues to grow like crazy...

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Russell Brunson was born and raised in Utah by a family of entrepreneurs.

His father and grandfather were both successful business owners.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Growing up, Brunson was always interested in finding ways to make money.

His first business was selling screen projectors.

We all start somewhere!

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

But, his first success as an online marketer came in 2003 when he started selling a software called ZipBrander.

ZipBrander was an online marketing tool that would drive traffic to your website. pic.twitter.com/MFKJ0mQVxn

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

In 2005, Russell had his second success.

He made hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling a guide on how to build a potato gun.

Yes, a potato gun.

Brunson realized the sheer power of the internet and his capacity to potentially make an obscene amount of money online. pic.twitter.com/dHMcIgM65a

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Brunson hustled hard from 2005 to 2014, building multiple online businesses from scratch.

He forayed into real estate, health supplements, and info products

He also became a master of online marketing and sales funnel optimization.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

After years of tinkering with email marketing, he perfected something that would ultimately become his biggest success:

Sales Funnels.

Sales funnels are the secret sauce that turns curious visitors into paying customers.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Think of them as a series of carefully crafted steps.

They guide potential customers towards a purchase, taking them from awareness to action with ease.

A killer sales funnel can help businesses boost conversions, increase revenue, and dominate their market. pic.twitter.com/qorfUt88Yx

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

However, sales funnels were difficult to build.

Brunson's team would spend 4 to 6 weeks building out each funnel.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Russel realized that it's a BIG problem that ANYONE selling online has.

So...

ClickFunnels was born.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

They initially created the tool to help their own team quickly build out funnels and websites by 'templatizing' them.

But, Brunson and his co-founders, Todd Dickerson and Dylan Jones, knew they had something special here. pic.twitter.com/K95HPus8Fo

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

So they packaged it up into a SaaS that any online seller could leverage.

- In it's first year, ClickFunnels had 10,000 members and made ~$10 million.

- The second year, that climbed to 30,000 members and ~$30 million in revenues.

The best part: It was all self-funded.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

There were three things that propelled ClickFunnels to where it is right now:

• Network effects
• Solving a real problem
• Turning customers into sales reps

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

#1. Network Effects

When a user would leverage t it would be branded with 'Made with Clickfunnels'

Every person going through one of their funnels would see this.

That's like seeing an ad for the same company every time you swipe a credit card.

Impeccable product placement. pic.twitter.com/GdYqFr16FX

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Folks working through the purchase process noticed how convenient and streamlined it was.

Customers that had their own e-commerce businesses would notice that and add it to their own online stores.

This button alone brings in over $1m per month in revenue (!).

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

#2. Solve a problem that matters

Too many entrepreneurs create 'nice-to-have' products.

NEED TO HAVE products increase revenue or protect it.

Clickfunnels increases a customers revenue.

In b2b that's gold.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

#3. Turn your customers into sales reps

Your best sales rep is a customer.

ClickFunnels offers affiliates a 40% commission on lifetime subscriptions, which is higher than typical SaaS commissions.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

To attract affiliates, ClickFunnels automatically installs an affiliate account for customers.

If you refer 100 people to the free trial, you get a $500/month lease, and 200 referrals gets you $1,000/month.

How cool is that! pic.twitter.com/nL0q59frpt

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

These strategies propelled ClickFunnels to a $160M revenue in 2023. pic.twitter.com/YAw791BxSI

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

Russell Brunson was the perfect person to create ClickFunnels in 2014 because of his decade of experience selling online.

There are no shortcuts to SaaS success - ClickFunnels is an accumulation of all of Brunsons learnings via his previous ventures.

It's compounded quite well.

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023

I hope you've enjoyed this thread. Like/Retweet the first tweet so others can as well.

Follow me @lukesophinos for more. https://t.co/9OGcjPWZAN

— Luke Sophinos (@lukesophinos) March 27, 2023