239: How the Cereal School Grew from Zero to 7-Figures a Month in Just 1 Year

Hosted by: Austin Brawner with Helen Guo

If you want to run your business successfully, you need to have a deep understanding of how everything works.

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If you want to run your business successfully, you need to have a deep understanding of how everything works.

Today we’re talking with Helen Guo, co-founder of The Cereal School (now Schoolyard Snacks) about how she took her business from zero to 7 figures per month in just one year.

One of the key components of the business’ success is that Helen and her co-founder, Dylan, started by learning and running every aspect of the business themselves, before hiring agencies to take things over.

They also put a lot of initial time into building the brand organically, which made it easier to amplify with paid efforts as they’re scaling up.

Helen shares her amazing journey with us, as well as her tips for finding the right agency, and how to build a partnership that will last.

Enjoy!

Episode Highlights

  • 6:06 Helen’s entrance into the world of entrepreneurship.
  • 9:06 The Cereal School’s insanely rapid growth.
  • 10:06 Pre-launch efforts to build an audience before the product was ready to officially launch.
  • 13:25 How Helen built a 20,000+ person email list without running paid ads.
  • 15:29 Helen’s philosophical approach to Facebook ads and scaling up.
  • 18:58 Lessons learned from working with different advertising agencies.
  • 23:10 The importance of actually learning how to run your own marketing, and the creative approach that sets the Cereal School apart.
  • 27:57 How Helen successfully onboarded an ad agency to take over for her.
  • 31:33 Questions to ask your agency upfront to build a better relationship.
  • 32:41 Where Helen goes for new ideas and advice.
  • 34:29 How implementing email marketing helped the Cereal School go from 0% to over 25% of revenue from email.
  • 36:56 What Helen’s looking at to the future to stay ahead of the game.
  • 38:49 Apps that Helen is excited about right now.
  • 41:57 The thing about the Cereal School’s business that can’t be easily replicated.

Links And Resources

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