business failure insurance

Happy Friday!

I’ve been in Maine for the week at my business partner’s family cottage.

It’s right on the ocean…

And we’ve been blessed with a bunch of fun wildlife sightings :)

For instance:

We got to see a giant beaver cross the road…

(first time I’ve ever seen one in the wild!)

An osprey dive for fish and bring it back to its nest…

We even got to see a few seals frolicking in the water not far off from shore.

All in all, it’s been a refreshing break from the hustle and bustle of downtown Toronto.

Especially in light of the World Cup mania currently gripping the city.

Anyhow:

We’ve been joined by a few other friends here in Maine…

One of whom is an entrepreneur and podcaster I admire.

Not only has he built a large audience for himself across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify/Apple Music…

But he also raised over a million dollars in investor capital to start another company several years ago.

So I was keen to get an update on how that was going.

Turns out, it’s not.

Instead, he chose to wind down operations earlier this year and sell the company off for parts.

Why?

Because they simply weren’t able to achieve product-market fit and scale up.

As you can imagine…

This was a pretty painful decision.

Not only did it mean declaring defeat on a personal level, which I know was tough for him to stomach…

But it also meant going back to his investors and telling them their investments had gone to zero.

Which was even more of a gut punch.

And challenge to his identity as a talented and successful person.

(Something I think about a lot as I build ESS AI.)

However, there was a light at the end of the tunnel:

His audience.

He’d been neglecting it as he focused on running the company…

But once that was out of the way, he was free to double down on creating content and monetizing his audience through sponsorships and brand deals.

And this has since grown into a major revenue channel on its own.

So… moral of the story?

Your audience will always be your last asset standing.

Nobody can take it from you.

It’s your built-in insurance plan against any future business failures.

The only question is whether you're actually treating yours like one.

Most list owners I know are one bad launch away from questioning whether email even works anymore.

It does.

They just haven't been shown how to make it pay consistently, week in and week out, without a launch to hang everything on.

On that note:

If you've got an existing email list and you're not consistently turning that into daily sales and profits...

This is the exact gap I built EmailStoryselling.ai to close.

It's an AI writing assistant that learns your voice, remembers your offers, and helps you write emails that actually sell in minutes instead of hours.

Every conversation makes it smarter.

So every email gets easier.

Plus it’s got a 24/7 email list coach to guide you strategically.

And unlike a startup, it doesn't require outside capital to build something that pays you back.

Tap here to see why:

→ Start monetizing your list with EmailStoryselling.ai

Jim Hamilton

P.S:

This has been my work view for the week: