September Inside Scoop: Big Wins, Tough Lessons, and What's Next 🚀 Lemon7 Investor Style Update

Lemon7 Monthly Investor Style Update

Hey!

Welcome back! This is my second email in the new investor style monthly updates where I transparently share my business highs and lows with you.

If you missed August, here’s the link to catch up.

As always in this email -

✅You’ll see our goals, sales, successes, and failures—every month, in your inbox.
✅ Our financial data
✅A front-row seat to every decision, every strategy, and every pivot we make.
✅You’ll know exactly where the money goes, what’s working, and what’s not.

This isn’t just a newsletter; it’s an open book.

Here we go! 👇

TL;DR

• Revenue in September is up 26.42% on August this is up on the 19.76% growth from July to August.

• We’ve almost finished the building of the site for the new course launches and we will be launching with “AI & Automations for eCommerce Growth Marketing” course. We haven’t found our “sexier” name for it yet.

• Unfortunately the major AI company partnership that was noted in our previous email has since fallen through due to internal disagreements regarding the process.

• Our pipeline is continuing to closing at a 66% success rate (Give or take 2 out of every 3 proposals are accepted)

• We experienced our first churn in a while. We had a client who had to pause and a client that had to shut down their Google Ads temporarily to look into an SDR approach. This accounted for 13.55% churn but thankfully our 26.42% growth, steadily made up for the loss.

• Market spending power and interest rates are still having an impact on businesses and their ability to spend on marketing.

Key Metrics:

We continue to have a ton of momentum across every important metric. From July to August we grew almost 20%. We are also on pace for a really strong September. With an additional pipeline that will account for 48.90% growth. It’s worth noting here that September is predicted by proposals out and not proposals accepted. The actual growth rate will be a maximum of 48.90% but will likely be closer to 20-25%. That revenue may also not be realised in terms of cash flow until October.

Though we experienced churn of 13.55% of our revenue going into September, we still significantly covered that growth with 26.42% growth (business closed and billed) within September. Last month in my email I noted that I had pipeline that would have accounted for 48.90% growth. However, I’m finding tracking “pipeline” on a monthly basis too difficult to manage. Now I track “business booked” for the next month which is confirmed business that is kicking off in October and can be billed in October. Pipeline I will now track as a figure - because it can take more than a month to turn that pipeline into business. As of today we have 14.12% growth for October in business closed and confirmed. We have about €12,000 in pipeline and I am hoping to close 66%. This number will continue to rise as leads come in. The close rate may go down if the market continues to be a little unstable.

Here is what we can predict the business will look like in October of next year if we continue to hit 10% month over month growth. It puts us on a run rate to hit around €700k ARR by October.

But, here’s what the business will look like if 5% of revenue churns or goes away every month despite a 10% month over month growth rate. The growth is much slower.

Last month I noted that I had the churn in the back of my mind. Given that this month we actually experienced 13% churn when we were only planning on predicting a maximum of 5% in a given month, meant that we accelerated the diversified revenue stream progress. The update on this will be included in that section of this email below. For now, I am not worried about churn as much moving through Q4 as business ramp up into a marketing heavy time of year between Halloween, Black Friday and Christmas.

Team & Expenditures:

Last month I noted that in August our expenditure was 84% of the current income and that we had a goal to reduce that to 52.17%. The good news is we did manage to bring that down to about 60% but we we’re off by about 12% for our total goal due to a handful of reasons.

Firstly, we had a couple of subscriptions that we had to get our hands on to start accelerating the revenue stream diversification. Secondly, it’s the good ‘ole accounting season and as always my math wasn’t perfect so there was a few euro that needed to be tacked on there. Luckily there was no major discrepancies.

Last month I noted the following 3 areas we had focused on to reduce expenditure which included:

• Shared Password Ecosystem - sharing is caring

• AI and automations (where possible and where accurate)

• Resource trading (with other agencies and amenities)

This month we also reduced costs by:

• Reaching out to more of our subscription providers and offering them some free Instagram posts from my account in exchange for use of the app. Some have agreed which will further improve our margins in October.

Right now, we continue to not be stretched too thin on the talent side. I am actively putting together the outline to potentially start hiring. As noted in the last update, I am so eager to get hiring right this time around. I’ve been burned in this area and I am continuing to put HUGE thought into this. If you know anyone who is an exceptional A player marketers, please feel free to do an introduction.

Diversification of Revenue Streams:

Courses:

I’ve really started to accelerate the course side. We have built everything into Kajabi and I plan on started to record the first course over the next few weeks. I want these to be really high tier with exceptional support for learners both via AI and through experts etc. I’ve settled on pricing the courses one off at $197. I’m not going to put these into a monthly retainer structure (subscription) because I think people just don’t want another subscription in their life if I am honest and I’ve already tested that model in the past with courses and didn’t love the fight against churn all the time. My goal is to generate enough demand for 20-30 sales per month in the first 3 months - which is about an additional €5k in revenue per month. Ideally with an end goal of being closer to 100-110 sales per month (Around the €20k mark).

Sponsorship:

Last month I noted that I was going to stop doing sponsored posts and focus more on my own content/my own lead flow. I am going to throw my hands up and be honest here - the day one of the clients churned I got an offer to do 5-6 posts with an up front payment - and I said yes. Cash flow is cash flow. But I am still eager to stop this and drive only my own growth. I believe the launch of the courses will steer this in the right direction.

The Collective:

Last month I also noted that I was working on a project called the collective. Here’s the lowdown from last months email

I’m currently in discussions with five top-tier freelance marketers based in Cork, Ireland, on an exciting new venture—tentatively named “The Collective”. I came across this when talking to US based freelancers and hadn’t seen it rolled out in Ireland. This initiative aims to unite freelancers, allowing us to pool resources and tackle larger projects together.

This took a little bit of a back seat while I worked on the other 2 diversified revenue streams. But I intend to pick this back up this month and aim for a new year launch.

September Marketing Experiment Results:

LinkedIn Organic Launch

Experiment Reminder from last months email: September is set to launch my new LinkedIn organic experiment. I have over 20 videos prepped and ready to launch on September 9th thanks to my amazing video editor Aoife McNamara. I did the 100 days straight on Instagram to grow my following to 146k+ but now I am lasering in on LinkedIn for the next few months of focus. The content needs to be a completely different process, pace and strategy which I’m looking forward to kicking off and sharing the learnings of down the line.

✅ This experiment lead to 6 new proposal requests and 3 really valuable meetings. I intend to continue this experiment through October.

Email Marketing Shift

• Experiment Reminder from last months email: You’re reading experiment 2! I will keep you all posted about the feedback on this new newsletter approach as time goes on also.

😬 I am going to have to give this more time. I had a little subscriber drop off when I sent out the last email. This is not unusual for a total shift in gears in terms of content. In the same breath I had the highest open rate and engagement rate of any email I ever sent. Over 50% of my subscribers read the email. Also - I can see how many times someone re-opened the email. This spiked way up too - making me hope the information was valuable or interesting.

What I feel good about:

I feel really good about a lot of the freedom that has come with the transparency in this email. I have had so many great conversations with business people over the last few months that have been eager to get support for their business based on my last email. I also feel somewhat empowered by the level of transparency. Pricing on my website is making sales calls much easier to get over the line (they already know the price to work with me before getting on the phone). I also think there’s a general stigma around talking about money especially for women - so it’s an interesting experiment from that perspective also.

I feel strong going into Q4 from a client and pipeline perspective which is all you could ever ask for in a business.

In other good news - by the time I sent this email next month I think I will have crossed 150k on Instagram 🚀🚀

What I am freaked out about:

While there’s a lot to feel good about, there are also some concerns on my mind. Firstly, as business grows inevitably you have to say “no more growth” or start hiring. I am eager to find exceptional talent, but with previous scars still healing on the hiring front, I am really making it my business to hire right.

I also just have this strange feeling about the market here in Ireland. All the recession signals are there but it feels like nobody is making a song and dance about it. Spending power is down, but people are still sort of spending. Cost of living is up, but the government is also still pushing cash into the ecosystem. The budget for 2025 looks like great news all round - but more cash is just being injected into an unstable eco-system. Potentially a problem is just being delayed - building up dry powder now might not be too prudent.

Personal & Fun Highlights in September.

Unfortunately in September I was pretty sick with Covid for a week and still feel like I am recovering from the sheer tiredness/exhaustion. My mom had covid too though, so we spent a lot of time together and got the chance to take Fred for a few walks on the beach on the days we were feeling a little better. It was lovely to get a lot of catch up time with her despite the fact that we both weren’t feeling great.

I also started going to Guerilla Fitness 2-3 times per week. It’s small group strength training and I never thought that strength training would be up my alley - but I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying it. I am really focusing a lot on my health, especially after having Covid again. If you’re also in that mindset at the moment, watching the Blue Zone documentary on Netflix is very inspiring! Myself and my mom watched it while we sat sick with Covid and decided to make a lot of life changes there and then.

What’s next and What I need help with:

Hiring:

I am in the exact same position as last month from a hiring perspective so I will leave my same note here:

I am starting the lookout process for exceptional talent now. I’m talking about talent that knows their way around an agency. Is eager to learn. Fights for equity. Someone who is already in an agency and is potentially underpaid for the quality of work they do. Someone who understands the value of the conversation being had in this email. Ideally someone who is thinking to themselves “I’ve worked at this agency for a while now, but I know I could run a better show myself but I don’t want the headache of running a business. I just want to obsess over marketing and get paid well in an environment where trust = freedom.” As I said above, I will happy keep hunting for the next 4-6 months until I find a person like this. I am in no rush. It’s either the best or nothing. If you know this person - please let me know.

The Collective:

I am also still looking for a top tier graphic designer and email marketing specialist who would be interested in looking at the collective project. If you know someone amazing - just let me know.

Course Testers/Feedback:

I’m looking for 4-5 people to take the new course I am launching for free to give some critical feedback. If you’re interested just let me know.

September Sign Off:

Happy to answer any questions you might have. Replying to this email will send you straight to my inbox. If you have feedback on insights you’d like to see in this email - just let me know.

Thank you for all the support.

Jen