Dan Koe is all over the internet.

He is a freelancer-turned-creator with over 3 million followers across all platforms. Dan made $4.2 million in revenue with no full-time employee.

Check out his follower stats:

• Instagram: 1,600,000

• YouTube: 541,000

• Twitter: 414,000

• TikTok: 341,000

• Email Subscribers: 140,000

• LinkedIn: 115,000

It wasn’t a smooth ride for Dan. While he always wanted to avoid a 9-5, none of his business ideas in college worked, leaving him broke.

He once went to jail, and that changed his outlook towards life.

Table of Contents:

1. Life Before Content Creation

2. How Dan Started Creating

3. How Dan Started on Twitter

4. First Big Money

5. Dan’s Advice for Beginners

6. Dan’s SIDE (Strengths, Interests, Demand, Execution)

7. How Beginners Can Apply the Lessons

1. Life Before Content Creation

Dan was born into a religious family, but he grew to be an atheist.

He had a deep passion for health and fitness. Back in school, his parents got him P90X (a fitness program combing strength training, cardio, and nutrition) and dumbbells. He worked out for fun and watched fitness videos on YouTube.

Dan believed in doing the opposite of what the majority did. So, he hated the idea of 9-5.

But since he had no specific plans, he joined college to buy time to experiment with his ideas.

2. How Dan Started Creating

Dan was a hippie in his first year in college. He partied hard, met new people, and explored his interests.

He started a fitness YouTube channel with a friend. He would upload workout videos, 10,000 calories challenge, etc.

After a few months, he burned out and quit.

Then the Unexpected Happened

Dan along with his friends, got arrested for smoking weed in the college campus. He then received a letter from the government which said:

‘Either go to jail or pay $10k and undergo random drug tests for 3-6 months.’

Being a broke college student, Dan did not have the means. He would, of course, not tell his parents.

He felt trapped. Then someone recommended the book "The Power of Now,".

The book introduced the concept of God from a non-ideological approach, which Dan enjoyed. It changed how he understood the world.

He discovered his deep love for freedom, and spirituality. It led him to create another YouTube channel to give advice on spirituality, but it failed again.

In His Second Year

He picked up photography and got a new camera. He fell in love with image editing.

He started posting on Instagram and spent hours editing. But his account didn't grow.

He stumbled upon an Instagram account ‘Visuals of Julius’ featuring surreal images of galaxies, mountains, and clouds. With great inspiration, he dedicated himself to imitating the style. He would spend 6-8 hours straight learning Photoshop from YouTube.

And he got better. Have a look at some wonders he created.

With his improved craft, Dan engaged actively on Instagram using hashtags, commenting on large accounts, and networking with them.

He got shared by small accounts and even 10-20 times by big accounts (with 100-500K followers).

This resulted in gaining 2500 Instagram followers in just 2 months. It marked the first time he witnessed actual progress. But he experienced burnout and quit, because each photo took 3-6 hours to create.

By then, he developed a passion for learning.

Entering Senior Year

Time was ticking away. It was a make-or-break moment – either find success or succumb to the dreaded job search. He switched majors 5 times to find his interest.

A web development course opened up a whole new world for him. He got to know web developers had high earning potential. So, he decided to freelance with this skill.

Coding became his love. He skipped classes, took Udemy courses, and finished the full-year curriculum in 2 weeks.

Even though he attended only 5% of the classes, he ended up being the top student. This experience taught him the importance of self-education.

He began researching how to freelance and came up with two plans:

1. Selling rave clothes using dropshipping

2. Starting an ad agency on Facebook

His dropshipping plan didn't work out.

For agency work, he talked to friends and family, built portfolio sites, and got a few clients, making around $500.

E-Commerce plans

He next planned to launch two e-commerce products - Blue light glasses and Minimalist wallets.

He took courses to build a foundation in web design, graphic design, film, visual storytelling, copyrighting, marketing, and branding. He felt a surge of confidence.

But there was one problem. He had maxed out his credit card at $8000. His debt from education loan was to the tune of $20,000. And none of his business ideas worked till then.

Finding no other option, he shared his e-commerce plans with his dad and asked to borrow $3000. His dad agreed.

This became a turning point in Dan’s life because, even though he had built nothing yet, someone else believed in him.

He got to business and worked hard on the projects. He ran influencer promotions and ads to drive sales.

But the products failed. Dan felt like he'd wasted his dad's money. He went and apologized.

His dad suggested he try a job because he already built the skills.

Dan Didn’t Have a Choice

He landed a web design job fairly quickly, teaching him the ropes of running a web design agency.

In his new job, Dan continued freelancing on the side. He walked into local businesses, reached out to his network again and tried LinkedIn prospecting.

He was able to land two to three clients a month at $1,500 to $2,500.

He learned about email marketing and copywriting. Realizing that the web design agency he was a part of was profitable, he also came to understand that it had a marketing, sales, and operations department.

He realized web designers were only one piece of the puzzle.

Note for beginners: If you’re a freelancer, learn it all – every department. Don’t repeat Dan’s mistake of focusing only on the technical aspect.

Dan’s Pivot

Success with web design depended on lead generation, which Dan was not offering. So, he pivoted his offer and started creating simple service funnels which were more profitable.

His new offer was a landing page, opt-in, and an email sequence that would get new customers for people like contractors, lawyers, accountants, pest control services, etc.

He started increasing his prices, charging $2,200 to $5,000 to set this funnel up. He was getting clients and making more money than the job.

So, he took a bet on himself. And in 7 months, he quit the job.

A few months later, he discovered Twitter.

3. How Dan Started on Twitter

Dan wrote his first tweet on November 1, 2019. Yes, he is one of the oldest Twitteratis (or Xites) among the modern-day creators.

With his first tweet, Dan attacked the education system and promoted self-learning.

Here’s what he wrote.

The Beginner’s Luck

The beginner’s luck for Dan was his Instagram growth back in college when he posted edited photos.

Many beginners create similar Instagram pages for fun. So, why does Dan have 1.6 Mn followers today while others languished?

Because Dan always built on his skills, assets, and experiences unlike most. He used his lessons from growing on Instagram to engage on Twitter.

While he started with photography, he has now streamlined his Instagram content to reflect brand Dan Koe. On Instagram, he has gained recognition for his signature black and white diagrams.

Here’s how they look.

4. First Big Money

Dan shifted his niche to serve freelancers and creators on Twitter because he knew them well, enjoyed working with them, and could get them some killer results.

While he already made six figures freelancing, I am sharing his monetization journey on Twitter in this section.

In Dec’19, with only 500 Twitter followers, he created a freelancing course - ‘Web Design Wealth’. It was an ebook along with a discord community.

Teaching web design made sense. Since he was teaching people how to freelance, he wanted to teach them a skill to freelance with.

Here’s the announcement he made.

He then launched his newsletter. He offered 2 ebooks and a web design course for free to reward subscribers.

Here’s his newsletter launch announcement.

The Beginner’s Break

The beginner’s break for Dan was back in college when he earned $500 building portfolio sites.

As he grew his audience on Twitter, his freelancing course started making an extra $3,000 per month on top of his client work.

His course was a hit because he solved his own problem. This theme is consistent with how Dickie Bush and Kieran Drew grew by solving their problems.

Because of years of building products, pivoting his brand, and testing different offers, it was time for fast growth. Dan hit 4000 followers in 4 months and 10,000 in 8 months.

By then, his audience was asking for coaching offers. So Dan pivoted his freelance offer. He would follow Alex Hormozi’s philosophy: provide information for free, sell the implementation.

At the 10K follower mark in Jun’20, he created a beginner’s course focusing on freelancing on social media without the pains of cold emails.

He named it ‘Twitter Followers & Dollars Simplified’ with three pricing tiers: $17, $35 and $287. He recorded videos instead of creating a plain ebook. His fans loved it.

93 people rated 4.8/5 on Gumroad- shows how valuable people found the course.

In the same month, Dan launched a physical productivity planner, which did well. Later, he turned it into a digital version (named Power Planner) and started giving it away for free as a lead magnet.

Dan hit six figures in digital product sales in just over a year.

Dan Kept Creating Offers

In Jan’21, he launched Modern Money (an upgrade to his previous course) to teach 3 skills:

1. Growing an audience

2. Learning a high income skill

3. Selling

The ratings were even better than his previous course at 4.9/5.

As his audience grew, Dan wanted to combine all his diverse skills and lessons under one roof. He also wanted guaranteed monthly revenue without the need to chase clients.

That’s when the idea of Modern Mastery HQ was born. It’s a membership community having all the information he learned throughout his journey, putting all his old products inside. It is running successfully to date.

It started in Apr’21 with a $9.99/month membership fee.

As of today, Modern Mastery HQ is priced at $27/month with an initial fee of $150.

His newsletter subscribers can join at a discounted price of $5.

April 2021 was a big month for Dan because he also launched his YouTube channel and podcast.

He broadened his niche, targeting online money-making and self-improvement.

Dan’s Content Strategy

The most interesting part of Dan’s content strategy is that he creates one (very) long newsletter in a week. That becomes the core idea for most of the content across all his channels.

Caution: This is not a beginner-friendly strategy.

Dan follows a no-hard-sell strategy. He puts links to his newsletter in different spots instead of giving direct offers.

He attracts fans through his long-form content, which stands out due to its depth and a regular dose of philosophy.

To find which ideas click, he tests them on Twitter first. After that, he uses Tweetpik to share the best tweets on Instagram and expands them on LinkedIn.

The key is to change the content for each platform in their native format - cool pictures for Instagram, longer posts for LinkedIn and reading out the Newsletter for YouTube.

More Launches

2022 was the year of big product launches that boosted Dan’s one-person business.

Apr’22 - 7 Days to Genius Ideas (Free)

Dan made a Notion file that shows how to come up with ideas to write about. Once you register, you will get an email with the instructions. You get 3 days to consume the content.

Then, you will receive daily emails for 7 days encouraging you to post.

Participants loved it and shared their successes on Twitter. Such an amazing way to generate buzz by helping others.

Jun’22 - Digital Economics

Dan brought all his coaching programs under one head. It’s a 60-day program with two tiers:

1. The Bachelors tier: It helps you start building online.

2. The Masters tier: It is for diving deep into product launches, creating offers, funnels, and sales systems.

Aug’22 - 2-Hour Writer

It’s a video-based course focused on writing online. It’s beginner-friendly, priced at $150 and taken by over 8,500 students till date.

Dan’s Content Flywheel was on Fire.

In 2022, Dan made $800,000.

He reached his first $50,000 month with Modern Mastery and his brand advising. He had 5 clients, each paying $8,000, and the rest was from Modern Mastery subscriptions.

By the end of 2022, his brand was booming on all platforms. As it naturally evolved, his audience and traffic shot up, bringing in more income.

He completely stopped doing client work by then.

In Feb’23, he introduced Solopreneur Sprint priced at $150 but later combined it with Digital Economics.

The sprint aimed to help creators choose their niche, write valuable content pieces, and plan their growth strategy.

The year 2023 saw the fruits of the massive content ecosystem and audience Dan created over years of testing and failing.

He hit a revenue of $4.2 million despite being a one-person business. He has no on-roll employees but only a community manager and contractors to handle some of his operations.

In Jan’24, Dan launched his book - Art of Focus. It’s about finding meaning and building a purposeful career, something Dan wrestled with in his younger days.

Dan is now building a software called Kortex.

Although it's not live yet, my understanding is it's like a Notion for creators, plus a knowledge bank, community support, and mentorship.

Dan teamed up with Joey Justice and Mathew Ao, and they call it a second brain for creators.

Kortex program will offer three services: Mastermind (group coaching), Ghostwriting, and VIP consulting for personal brand building.

5. Dan’s Advice for Beginners

Start with either code or content

You can learn both, but it takes time. (It's a super powerful combo).

Programmers can work for creators, startups, or any modern job. They can freelance or get hired by any of them. Content marketers can do the same. Everyone needs a content, marketing, sales, or some kind of media team.

Learn marketing and sales

Whatever you do, you will always need sales and marketing. Some sub-topics are branding, content writing, design, copywriting, email marketing, etc

Build an audience

Start digging a well before you are thirsty.

Build a product

Start creating on social media. Build products.

Your products and services grow as you do. They build off each other. You can't make a better product if you never launch the first.

Treat life like a game

Dive into the game of your own life.

At each level of a game, you need a specific skill to meet the challenge. Similarly, if you're just starting, you need to learn, make mistakes, practice, improve, and grow your understanding of the game of life as you move forward.

6. Dan’s SIDE

Any creator can succeed when they get their SIDE right. It’s a simple framework beginners can use to start creating online.

SIDE = Strengths + Interests + Demand + Execution

Let’s look at Dan’s SIDE.

Strengths

1. Curiosity

2. Self-awareness

3. Fast learning

4. Contrarian thinking

5. Risk-taking

6. Fitness

Interests

1. Freedom at work

2. Self-learning

3. Philosophy

4. Building products

Demand

1. Web Design

2. Freelancing

3. Self-improvement

4. Online writing

5. Content monetization

Execution Milestones

1. Joined Twitter (Nov’19)

2. Created Web Design Wealth (Dec’19)

3. Launched Power Planner (Apr’20)

4. Entered multiple social media platforms (2020)

5. Pivoted from freelancing to coaching (2020)

6. Created Modern Mastery HQ (Apr’21)

7. Launched ‘7 Days to Genius Ideas’ (Apr‘22)

8. Created Digital Economics (Jun’22)

9. Created 2-Hour Writer (Aug’22)

10. Launched Book ‘The Art of Focus’ (Jan’24)

7. How Beginners Can Apply the Lessons

Develop a Strong Anti-Vision

Figure out what really motivates you. Even if you're not sure about your goals, be clear about what you want to avoid. Dan was guided by his desire to steer clear of a 9-5 job.

Follow Your Curiosity

Explore things that interest you. Dan, who initially liked photography, found his genuine passion for editing.

Being active on Instagram helped him grow faster on Twitter. His e-commerce interests made him learn about sales, marketing, content writing and branding.

Learn Specific Skills and Take Action

Use platforms like YouTube and Udemy to learn monetizable skills. Taking action helps you figure out what you don't like in your project.

For example, Dan realized he didn't like dealing with physical items in e-commerce business. When client work became time-consuming, he launched courses and consulting to free up time.

Stack The Skills

Combine two or more skills to create unique products.

Dan used his Instagram audience-building skills to excel on Twitter quickly. His web design and freelancing skills paved the way for him to move into creator coaching.

Build an audience

Learn the importance of personal branding.

Dan discovered that cold prospecting and reaching out to networks isn't sustainable. This realization led him to create a following of 3 million across all social media platforms.