[#003] My First Billion: When The Ish Hits The Fan
If Week 1 of this newsletter was the high…
And Week 2 was the “I almost quit” moment…
Week 3 was the full entrepreneurial rollercoaster in real-time.
From backend breakdowns to big breakthroughs, here’s what happened this week in the journey toward my first billion.
Monday – Maestro Mode + Strategic Moves
Monday is always Maestro Monday, my CEO day filled with high-level convos and Strategic Thinking.
- I had a call with a potential portfolio partner we're 90 days into building with. We’re refining final details before making it official.
- Had another convo with a partner where we’re launching our first Strategic Scale Summit (coming January 23-24).
But here’s the key: I told him if we can’t build this into its own 10M+ entity, I don’t want to do it.
This isn’t just a “make money from one event” play, it’s about creating something that lives in our portfolio ecosystem.
Also:
- We recapped the numbers from our second AI Marketing
School. The first one hit a 7.4x ROAS.
This second one was around a 2x (1.78 to be exact), way lower.
Tech issues affected show-up rates on Day 1, and it’s downhill from there, and we’re exploring conversions on those who are in the room.
In short, we’re deep in optimization mode.
It’s all data, and each event is just a snapshot in time, so we have to watch for the rolling averages.
The key is consistency + iteration.
New Book Ads Launched (and Lessons Learned)
We launched ads for our Client Attraction Machine book this week.
- Day 1–3: Great traction. Profitable front end.
- Added Hyros for better tracking.
- Then, 2 full days. No sales.
- I spent $500 over those two days and didn’t like that.
So I duplicated the campaigns, restarted fresh… and sales started coming back in this morning.
Big reminder: I’ve made tens of millions with high-ticket funnels.
This low-ticket ad game is a whole different beast.
And we’re learning it. Fast. If we’re not careful, it can be a lot emotionally, but worth it.
And at the end of the day, it’s just money, right?
Internal Client Wins + Rollouts
- We invited all current clients to join our 2-Day AI Intensive for free (normally 3,500–5,500).
We’re diving into how to get back 20+ hours per week and attract 5k-10k clients with A.I. If you want to join us, hit reply on this newsletter and let me know.
You get the newsletter special rate.
- Hosted a fly-in day with 11 clients where we dove into:
- Content strategy
- Marketing ecosystem builds
- Designing companies for acquisition
- And roll-up strategies for 50–100M exits.
- New client enrolled last week, applied ONE thing from our first call, and enrolled 4 clients at her new price (2,500 per year… it used to be a membership for 97 bucks per month)
Newsletter Growing Pains
Week 2’s issue on Why I Almost Quit, was longer… and exposed some ops/system holes.
- Formatting was broken on mobile (font too small, layout off).
- Tried resending, but still had issues.
- We're now treating these hiccups as chances to tighten up our systems.
We added the newsletter archive to MarquelRussell.com too.
More traffic + more long-term leverage.
Platform Growth + Content Deep Dive
Had my bi-weekly content team strategy call. A few stats:
- 1.3M+ impressions on IG every 30 days.
- 1M+ impressions on Facebook every 30 days.
We’re making the whole ecosystem more intentional:
All tied together for brand reach + biz scale.
Personal Highlights
- My youngest turned 6. His birthday dinner choice? Hibachi (he wanted fried rice with no veggies). Legendary.
- Celebrating 14 years of marriage with my queen this weekend.
- My wife, Vanessa, and I finished watching Landman, continued Special Ops: Lioness, and catching up on this week’s episode of SVU tonight.
- Taking the boys to the barbershop today, and about to kick off anniversary shenanigans tonight.
What I’m Reading
My information diet right now is one spiritual book (including the Bible) and one business book, so I’m deep into:
And David Perceived He Was King by Dale Mast: A reminder that just because you’re anointed doesn’t mean you’re appointed yet.
This one’s been shifting how I move.
As always, making sure I build with Kingdom at the center.
My Daily Devotionals are:
For my business book…
It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work from the founders of Basecamp. Big shift in how to think about scale, margin, and sustainability.
A Quick Friday Insight
When we launched Issue #2, the format flopped, and it was really frustrating.
But what it really showed me…
There can always be cracks in your system, and every breakdown is a spotlight.
This week was full of those.
Breakdowns in formatting. In ads. In tech.
But every breakdown led to deeper alignment with the bigger vision.
Because that vision…
It’s not just about the next launch or next offer.
It’s about building an ecosystem…
A portfolio…
A billion-dollar movement with impact that outlives me.
Let’s keep building.
– Marquel
P.S. As always, if this newsletter landed for you or
if it didn’t, hit reply and let me know your thoughts
and if you have questions.
I want to make this as valuable as possible for you.
