Jason Yanowitz

Blockworks bootstrapped 5.5 years before raising at a $135M valuation

Jason Yanowitz says Blockworks exceeded a $20M revenue goal last year, stayed profitable since day one, and bootstrapped for 5.5 years before raising its first outside round.

“last year we had a goal of, uh, $20 million in revenue and we pretty decently exceeded that. Um, and we've been profitable since day one. So yeah, we bootstrapped the business for the first 5 and a half years. And then back in April or May, we took, uh, we raised our first outside round of capital from, from 10T and Framework and, uh, this angel Santiago. So we raised $12 million at a $135 valuation.”

Blockworks' first event: 300 LinkedIn DMs a day, 220 attendees, $12K

At 23, Yanowitz and his co-founder woke at 4 AM to send 300 LinkedIn messages daily (10% reply, 3 of 30 buy), landing 220 people and $12K top line at their first event in Feb 2018.

“We would wake up and just send like 300 messages, right? 10% of those people reply. That's 30. You get like 3 out of the 30 to actually buy a ticket. Our first event, February 2018, we had 220 people and we made top line $12,000, I think it was.”

Steal thisCold-DM 300 prospects a day on LinkedIn; expect ~10% replies and ~10% of those to convert.

Blockworks' Permissionless conference did over $10M in a year

Yanowitz says their biggest event, Permissionless, generated well over $10M in a single year.

“Yeah, our biggest one. I mean, last year we did like well over $10 million from Permissionless.”

Events: bigger is always better because sponsor budgets don't split

Yanowitz's rule for events: small events are great experiences but terrible businesses, and launching a second conference just splits a sponsor's fixed budget in half for double the work. Consolidate into fewer, bigger events.

“And Coinbase might pay us $1 million to sponsor a conference. If we launched another conference, they're not going to go pay us $2 million. They're going to take that million that they allocate to their Blockworks conference budget and they're going to cut it in half. So then they're spending $500,000 with us here and $500,000 with us here. So, but we're doing twice the work, right, to go run two conferences. So we basically consolidated all of our things.”

Steal thisDon't launch a second conference to grow; make one event bigger so sponsor budgets concentrate instead of split.

Half of all conference tickets sell in the final 4 weeks

Yanowitz says 50% of tickets are sold in the four weeks before a conference, so five weeks out it looks like half your attendees aren't coming, but six years of data proves they show.

“50% of tickets get sold in the 4, in the 4 weeks leading up to a conference. So imagine the 5th week out from a conference, you're basically thinking that 50% of your attendees aren't coming and you know it because we have 6 years of data that they're going to come”

Jason's first hustle: re-listing eBay cards with better photos for 2x

As a kid, Yanowitz bought poorly-marketed MLB Showdown cards on eBay, took a nicer photo, rewrote the copy, and re-listed the identical card for about 2x what he paid.

“I would buy MLB Showdown cards on eBay that I thought they were marketing it poorly and like maybe the picture was bad or the description was bad. I'd buy the MLB Showdown cards, I'd take a nicer picture with a nice camera, re-upload the exact same card to eBay with just a better picture and better marketing copy and sell it for like 2x what we bought it, what I bought it for.”

Steal thisArbitrage poorly-marketed listings: buy, reshoot, rewrite the copy, and relist the identical item for a premium.

The college kid who earned a BMW running an energy-drink MLM

Yanowitz built a downline of 4,600 people in an MLM energy-drink company (sponsor of the Phoenix Suns, Dr. Oz spokesperson), pitching 500-person Skype rooms and earning a company BMW his sophomore year before quitting.

“I got so high up in this company or had so many people below me, the company gave me a BMW my sophomore year of college. I tried dropping out my sophomore year. Got like a 2.2 or 2.4 GPA.”

What legally separates an MLM from an illegal pyramid scheme

Yanowitz explains the regulatory line: an MLM is legal if a high share of buyers purchase for the product itself; it becomes an illegal pyramid scheme when most buy only to gain the right to resell.

“the like technical difference as the regulators see it between a multilevel marketing company, which is I would call very shady but technically legal, versus a pyramid scheme, which is illegal, is the percentage of people who buy the product for the product itself. Versus the number of people, the percentage of people who buy the product just to get access to be able to sell it and make more money.”

Founders live in a permanent 'zone of max pain'

Yanowitz's mental model: founders hold constant the rate of problems they can tolerate, so every time things get easier they take on more, leaving them perpetually at max pain regardless of scale.

“you kind of hold constant the rate at which you can tolerate problems and everything else kind of becomes this variable that moves. And you're always as a founder in this zone of max pain. And whenever you are able to, if you're ever below that threshold of max pain, you take on more stuff.”

Build a 10x-better conference ticketing platform (a 'Beehiiv for events')

Yanowitz pitches doing for events what Beehiiv did for newsletters: deep domain expertise plus a far better product, since Blockworks churned through 6 ticketing platforms in 6 years and they're all painful.

“I think you're going to see people try to do this for other industries. If I were doing it, I would do it for conferences. We have used 6 different ticketing platforms in 6 different years at Blockworks, and it's always been— we like our current one, actually kind of a little bit right now, but in the past it's just been a nightmare to find a ticketing platform.”

Steal thisPick an industry with clunky incumbent software you know cold, and build a 10x-better product like Beehiiv did for newsletters.

Hopin: from a $7B valuation to a $15M sale

Yanowitz notes Hopin raised at a $7B valuation and sold to RingCentral for just $15M, while its founder reportedly took over $100M in secondary.

“They raised a $7 billion valuation. They just sold for $15 million. So down from $7 billion to $15 million.”

Build the premium brand for hair transplants before they become LASIK

Yanowitz pitches hair transplants following LASIK's path (now 99.9% success, costs down 95%) into a $5B-to-$30B market by 2031, sold to the most desperate cohort and currently served only by shady plastic surgeons.

“first off, the market, market size, $5 billion last year, projected to reach $30 billion by 2031. So 8 years, it's going to go from a $5 billion market to a $30 billion market. That's a compound annual growth rate of 20% year, year over year. The people that you are selling to are the most desperate, cohort of individuals, right?”

Steal thisBuild a trusted consumer brand in hair transplants now, mirroring how LASIK went mainstream as success rose and costs fell.

The research-subscription ladder: Politico Pro to Bloomberg's $9B

Yanowitz maps the information-business landscape Blockworks Research targets: Politico (sold for $1B) at the low end, Refinitiv ($27B) in the middle, up to Bloomberg Terminal doing ~$9B in subscription revenue.

“low end of the spectrum, you've got Politico, they sold for $1 billion. Bloomberg Terminal is like the super high end, almost like it's like saying you want to build a Google or an Apple. It's like Bloomberg's one of the best businesses in the history of the world. They'll do like $9 billion in subscription revenue.”

Nobody ever got wealthy through diversification

Defending being 100% in crypto, Yanowitz argues that diversification preserves wealth but never creates it, so concentration is how you actually get rich.

“nobody ever got wealthy. Through diversification. No single person ever got wealthy through diversification.”

27-year-old bootstrapped Blockworks by spamming Pomp

Sam profiles Blockworks founder Jason, who at 23 relentlessly cold-emailed Bitcoin investor Pomp until Pomp asked for help launching and monetizing his podcast. That relationship became the seed of a bootstrapped, fully-owned crypto media company doing 8-figure revenue.

“So he was like 23 years old and he cold emailed Pomp and said, listen to this podcast I'm working on. Come to this event. Just like he was just like constantly emailing him. Pomp, who's this big Bitcoin guy, but who was less of a big Bitcoin guy years ago, said, all right, you've been emailing me too much. Whatever. You're persistent.”

Steal thisCold-email a rising operator relentlessly until persistence alone earns you a seat next to them.