How content entrepreneurs like you have earned over US$3.5b using this online suite of tools.

Jim James: 0:17

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the UnNoticed Entrepreneur. Today, I'm delighted to have Sean Kim, who is the President and Chief Product O fficer of Kajabi. Sean, joining me from LA. Welcome to the show.

Sean Kim: 0:27

Thank you for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

Jim James: 0:29

We're happy because Kajabi is like the gold standard for entrepreneurs and course creators to monetise what they do. Tell us about Kajabi and how it can transform a business for an entrepreneur?

Sean Kim: 0:40

Yes, Kajabi is the leading all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs to publish, market, and sell their products, such as online courses, coaching, newsletters, and podcasts. And we have creators across lots of diverse categories that includes like education advice, fitness advice, financial advice, cooking, how to sleep train babies, how to cook pies, there's a huge diverse range of creators that are being really successful on this platform. You can think of it as a build-your-own personalized masterclass for your audience. You build a website, you host all your valuable content behind a paywall, and you just decide how much you want to charge for it, so it's super easy. We only charge you the monthly fee to host the content, the tools, and then the creators takes a hundred percent of the earnings, so you keep what you earn. And, and to date, we've helped creators generate over $3.5 billion in sales from their customers.

Jim James: 1:28

That's amazing. So three and a half billion dollars, but then some perspective. How long has Kajabi been in business? And how many creators do you have on the platform?

Sean Kim: 1:37

Specifically, it's been rough around close to 10 years or so. On the platform, we have over 53,000 customers, and on average creators make roughly $30,000 a year. So, I think if you're looking at other platforms and looking at Kajabi at how much an average creator makes, it's, it's pretty good. So I think we're really, really happy about that. And you know, our mission really is to become the most creator-focused company in the world. We want to help creators at any stage build a meaningful business, and, and essentially, we want to make business as simple as possible for creators with this all-in-one solution. The best-in-class services that match customer service, so creators can focus on what they love, which is creating content.

Jim James: 2:17

So, let's just break that down a bit because many entrepreneurs have been running a business for quite a while. And then, the online and the course creation knowledge management side is a way to get recurring income, isn't it, from what we know. Can you take us, Sean, through the modules? And we can talk about pricing a bit later on, but what services do you offer? Because a course creator, an entrepreneur, might have to have maybe a WordPress website. They might have to have an email marketing like Convert Kit. They might have to have a podcast hosting and a video hosting, and something like Thinkific for the course. Tell us, Sean, how do you solve what's really an integration issue, let alone a marketing issue for people trying to be online?

Sean Kim: 2:55

Yeah. So, so the great thing about Kajabi, in what I've heard time and time again talking to our customers is that we offer everything. So, when you come to Kajabi, it's essentially an all-in-one solution. We provide everything you need to get started from zero to one. We give you the playbook on how to set up the best site, courses, emails. We offer you all the tools that you need in order to build an entire business under one roof. So, we know the customer's time is really valuable. We want to make it as simple as possible, as easy as possible to get everything done and under one roof. So you don't have to jump around and try to bulldog different types of services and to try to make your business run. And if you actually look at all those different separate services that you would typically use to run a business like this, it would cost actually more than just using Kajabi. We want to automate the entire email marketing funnel on your site as well. We offer that service. It basically comes out of the box. So we offer prebuilt funnels. We can customize the hydro how you want. They capture leads and convert them into paying customers. But that's also something we offer as well because I know like marketing is also like a really, incredibly important component of any website. And then, we give you access to a community of 53,000 customers that are in it to win it, right? So, you know, some of the most successful creators are on there explaining exactly what you need to do to become successful. They've already gone through it. There's also some creators there that are just getting started. They're really active community that are there to help you with.

Jim James: 4:13

Can you give us any examples, Sean, that some creators that people might've heard of that are using Kajabi?

Sean Kim: 4:18

Also, there's some really popular creators like, Brendon Burchard. He's like incredibly well-known has tons of amazing content on marketing. There's Amy Porterfield, who is also another well-known another creator as well. And just, a ton of like, smaller creators. There are probably the larger traders out there. But like, for instance, the other day, I was talking to a creator that, it wasn't your traditional creator. They were a PM at Google for a few years and then decided, "I want to help people get into Google." I have this knowledge of like, how to interview for Google. What kind of questions are going to ask? And, they don't have to have like a ton of followers on Facebook, and Instagram, and TikTok so on, but they had something really amazing in terms of valuable content for people that want to get into Google. So he put a course together and the interview questions, and so on. And I mean, this person is just killing it, like just took off, right? So I obviously can't share the exact numbers in terms of how much money this person made, but it's more than like he has a job at Google, which is likely to pay pretty well as well. So, that's just an example of like, how valuable this puff can be for major types of creators.

Jim James: 5:20

One of the issues for entrepreneurs that build a course for either a new business or a way to monetise their existing knowledge is competition. And if someone goes onto Udemy, for example, there's this huge catalog, and it becomes almost like a supermarket. And there seems to be this kind of commodity slide price goes down according to how many clicks you go through. How do you help the business owner, course creator, content creator, to have its own brand within Kajabi so that it's not just fighting against 53,000 other creators on it?

Sean Kim: 5:52

Yeah. That's a good question. So we don't have a marketplace where you're competing against other creators. You are your own brand. You have your own personalized website. So, you know, we don't want to you know, make this assumption that, or we don't want to tell people like, "Hey, just because you build a coop on a cup," right? I think when you build a website like this, it's going to require some trial and error on the customer's part. I'm not going to say that, like, "You're going to make a million dollars in your first year." Like anyone that tells you that it's also full of crap, right? As an entrepreneur, I think you got to find that niche problem that you want to solve for your audience. You got to do the research, understand what type of content will resonate with your audience. You test on social, for instance. You'd be amazed on the feedback that you will get. And once you've proven that you have all your solving real problems for people, and then we take care of the rest like, we make that building the business super easy with education, services and tools. So we'll provide you the all-in-one solution, the email photo hosting, website design, payment platform, and then host all your content like video pockets, newsletters, and live stream. We'll provide you the playbook. A playbook on how to work for the top customers. We'll provide you coaching. We'll provide you 24/7 customer service, which is really well known in the industry. And we'll provide you that community with top experts. You can ask any questions. Everyone's super engaged, and the most successful people are in there. So, you know, I think we're looking at the stats, like, in terms of types of content that's performed really well. Personal development fitness has ranked in the top as top industries on Kajabi, and earnings have increased 101% a year over year.

Jim James: 7:21

So it's not a marketplace. You, You really, as a business owner have Kajabi as your platform, and that's transparent to the outside market. Is that, is that right, Sean? It's not a sort of a branded Kajabi, and you're kind of another vendor within the environment.

Sean Kim: 7:35

That's correct. So when you come to Kajabi, you're building your own brand.

Jim James: 7:38

Yeah.

Sean Kim: 7:38

You have your own personalized website, you have your own domain, and we give you all the tools to help make that successful.

Jim James: 7:44

That's really nice. Tell us, you know, this whole idea about, " We build it. They probably won't come." What's your experience? And I know you're on TikTok previously. What's your experience on how to get people to come to the course that you've built. If you've got a beautiful, fully functioning course and platform, maybe you've got the podcast, and you've got the videos. Sean, how do people then get that noticed and get people to come to that?

Sean Kim: 8:06

It's also a good question. You know, people use different types of ways to drive awareness it's like something, you know, the most successful obviously have email addresses of people that are really interested in the content that they're producing, and the value they're offering to customers. But there's a lot of testing that's being done on social - Facebook, and Instagram, and TikTok, but building that audience from people that are really interested in the type of content you want to learn about it's something that people are constantly testing on these different social platforms. So I think audience building is a really crucial strategy. And, you know, we have 600 videos in our Kajabi University. A lot of them are dedicated to how to build an audience, how to nurture those leads, and how to ensure that they become customers. So we have a lot of training material on this. We have experts in this area that are here to help you as well. We have coaching that's available as soon as you join - how to do this. So you're not alone, right? There's, there's a lot of people in the community that literally going through the exact same thing you are, and they're providing you the best practices, like zero to one, here's how you do it, right? Here's the playbook. Here's what's worked for them in your industry. So all this really critical knowledge is available to share for entrepreneurs to ensure that they become successful with their business.

Jim James: 9:18

Okay. And we've talked about the number of course creators and content creators on the website. Can I ask about the international realm? I know that you mentioned that the companies had in Northern California, you're out of Irvine, and you yourself are in LA. Is this a multi-lingual platform? Could people in China use it? People in Japan use it, or is it really sort of a one-language platform?

Sean Kim: 9:38

Look, the platform itself is hosted in English, but we have creators all over the world. We have creators in 140 different countries. So altogether, you know, we have a hundred thousand businesses created by these 53,000 customers. We have over 300,000 products created on Kajabi, right? And you know, the average creators making around 30K a year. This one person made a hundred million on Kajabi. 100 million in US dollars.

Jim James: 10:05

One hundred? Am I in, in US dollars, or in RNB, or in Yen?

Sean Kim: 10:09

So yeah, when I heard it too, I was like, "Wow." I mean, it goes to the testing of the tool. The tool itself is great, right? Like you have everything you need all packaged under one roof. But it's also the knowledge that we're providing you, the playbook in terms of how you get there, how to build your audience to how you set up the website properly, the design of the website, all the dollars you need to be successful. And then the community. I think the community is a really, really important part because, you know, you have people that are in the exact same situation. You are in this tool and, and you have people that really successful and they're really willing to help out.

Jim James: 10:39

Yeah, wow. Okay, I'm glad I was sitting down when you mentioned a hundred million dollars, because I think I would have been after hearing that number. That's amazing, shows the power of online learning. Sean, I did check out Kajabi, and I noticed that there's a podcast element. Tell me with podcasting or people that are on YouTube, you know, content creators. Are these people that are using Buzzsprout or some of these other hosts, or YouTube or Vimeo, are they creating this content on those other platforms and embedding it within Kajabi? Or are they hosting it within Kajabi? And that's like the hero.

Sean Kim: 11:11

So Kajabi is the hero platform, essentially, right? So the content creation itself it's done on other platforms where there's a video or podcast, and then you can host all that content within Kajabi. And we don't charge extra for the hosting. Which is also something that other platforms may do. But on here, you can upload as many videos or pockets as you want. So that's something that is a benefit of using this platform as well.

Jim James: 11:34

Yeah. So would you need to then upload your videos that you've already created? For example, in Vimeo, you would upload them into Kajabi, your audio that's currently on another website, you'd upload that to Kajabi rather than using say, RSS. And in terms of how does that affect the search? And just a bit technical here, but you're a product officer, and you're a fine with these questions, but for someone like me, that's uploaded my content, and it's already indexed. How would that impact me? Because really, what I'm talking about here is migration, right? Some people are going to start the whole business on Kajabi, but some people have already got a business that's distributed across different platforms. Sean, how would someone migrate their content into Kajabi?

Sean Kim: 12:09

Right. So that's something that we can help with a hundred percent. So, you know, I think there's many customers like that, one that have come to us about migrations and has very specific needs in terms of how they want to migrate and what they want to migrate, and will it affect them in terms of email delivery and SEO, for instance. So that's something that our teams, we have a deck full of staff here, obviously like lots of engineers have gone through this as well. So, you know, whatever the use case may be, we're here to help out and ensure that you're successful. Just one example, there was a customer in Australia that built their site on Kajabi. They were having this coaching service, and to her surprise she got 10,000 sign-ups for her coaching webinar. And she was actually like, you know, "Oh wow. This is really successful. And I'm a little concerned about how well this is going to go," right? And she called, reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, "Hey, I don't know if you're going to see this. But I built my business on Kajabi from somewhere else. And I got 10,000 signups on my webinars coming up in three days. Could you provide some type of support."

Jim James: 13:10

Yeah, that's right.

Sean Kim: 13:11

Immediately jumped on there. And so, of course we will, and I got my entire staff to help her, and review her content, and provide the support that she needed during those time in Australia, you know, when she was having on a webinar, and she was more than thrilled. Gave us, you know, amazing reviews, emailed me personally and said, "Thank you so much. It went so well." But that's the, kind of, like, customer service and support we want to provide for, you know, for our customers. I mean, I want them to know that they can reach out to us, right? So this is really important because I know how hard it is to be a creator, and you know, the ups and downs they go through with like the unknowns, they have to face the challenges and so on. So, you know, we, here, want to just make that as simple as possible, and just ensure that we have the best chance for success.

Jim James: 13:54

Yeah, that's great, Sean, because for content creators nerve-wracking enough to create the content and whether people will turn up is another anxiety, whether people will like it is another, but then that you can deliver on it from a technical point of view is another skillset. So it's wonderful to hear such great, amazing service. And also around the world that you don't have to be on an LA time zone to get that kind of support. We've talked about pricing a couple of times. You've got a suite of services in there, sean. You want to just walk us through, is this affordable for the average entrepreneur and course creator? Tell us about pricing.

Sean Kim: 14:24

Yeah, so, so th the basic price is 119 a month, if you're billing annually. And then we have another plan is 159 a month. If you're billing annually as well. And then we have a pro plans and so on. So if you were to get like bolt on all the different types of services to make a similar experience. All those different point solutions bolted on together would cost more than what we offer in this single solution.

Jim James: 14:48

Yeah. So there's sort of like 80 pence a day. It's sort of like, almost like a latte a day, isn't it, actually, if you work it out at that sort of price. That's absolutely amazing service. And I will ask you, Sean, the anxiety for a course creators and anyone is about if you're in a system and you don't want to be there anymore. How easy is it to leave, or are people locked into Kajabi?

Sean Kim: 15:07

Yeah. So, so you have access to all your content. You have access to all the email addresses for your customers, you have access to the data, right? So this is your business, right? We make it as simple as possible to run the business and try to make it as successful as possible with all the data that you can get, to help improve that business over time. But if you choose to go to another platform, that's also something that you can do quite easily. It's essentially your business, right? So why would we keep that information from you?

Jim James: 15:35

Okay. That's nice. And obviously for anyone that's thinking about some of the other platforms that own the real estate. What you're saying is that if you set up a business on Kajabi, it's your own, and you can leave it as and when you need to, right? So that's a wonderful freedom for people too.

Sean Kim: 15:48

That's right.

Jim James: 15:49

Sean, how do people find out about you, and Kajabi. And maybe email you if they've got 10,000 people about to turn up to their webinar.

Sean Kim: 15:56

I'll give you my email address is sean.kim@ kajabi.com. I have no problem with people emailing me, and the website itself is kajabi.com. K A J A B I.com. And you can reach out to me on LinkedIn as well, just like search me. But, yeah, I want to be here for customers, and I want to make sure that our customer service are available 24/7. I want to help ensure that we're making our customers' business successful. So whatever I can do, I mean, I'm on calls with customers every single week, right? To learn about their business, what we can do to make their business better and what new products we can launch on a regular basis to share that their businesses more successful a year over year, right? So this is something that's really critical and that for me to ensure that our business is, you know, here to help support them,

Jim James: 16:35

Well, Sean Kim, and as you're the President and Chief Product Officer at Kajabi. When you say that, we know you have the authority to make it happen. So thank you so much for taking the time, all the way from LA, to join me to down the UnNoticed Entrepreneur. Sean Kim, thank you so much.

Sean Kim: 16:47

Thank you.