£311k
GROSS REVENUE IN 13 DAYS
41.5%
WAITLIST- TO BUYER CONVERSION
£250k
GENERATED IN FIRST 48 HOURS
Zero
PAID ADS SPENT
01 — THE SITUATION
An established expert.
No online business. Yet
He had built something genuinely rare - a deeply loyal, emotionally connected audience. What he didn't have was a strategy to turn it into revenue
Our client is a professional artist based in the UK with decades of experience. He had held solo exhibitions, run small in-person workshops for groups of five or six, and built a reputation that commanded real respect in his field. His social following reflected that: over 125,000 followers on Instagram and around 22,000 on Facebook - organic, engaged, and genuinely invested in his work.
He also had a modest email list of around 5,000 people and a simple Wix website that listed exhibitions and events. That was it. No digital products. No online courses. No sales funnels. No online revenue whatsoever.
He came to BeeMi with a fairly modest ambition. He wanted to put a course online and thought he probably needed a sales page. He was exploring platforms - Thinkific, a Wix plugin, a few others - and wasn't sure which one to use. He had given almost no thought to pricing strategy, launch mechanics, or how to convert his audience into buyers
WHAT HE THOUGHT HE NEEDED
→ A platform to host the course
→ A simple sales page
→ Somewhere to take payment
WHAT HE ACTUALLY NEEDED
→ A proper launch strategy
→ A waitlist and founder member model
→ Pricing that reflected the value
→ A platform built to scale
→ Copy that matched his audience's emotional relationship with his work
The single most important decision we made at the start wasn't about tech or design. It was refusing to treat this as a simple course upload - and recognising that the audience he had built deserved a launch worthy of them.
02 — THE NUMBERS
The result, in precise detail.
£311,580
GROSS REVENUE
Generated between April 5–17. A firstever online launch. No prior benchmark to beat.
£250k+
FIRST 48 HOURS
The founder member window drove the majority of total revenue in under two days.
41.5%
WAITLIST CONVERSION RATE
2,462 on the waitlist. 1,022 became paying students. Industry average is typically 5–10%.
1,067
OFFERS SOLD
1,022 students across multiple offer types, plus 20 private 1-to-1 sessions and standalone workbooks.
03 — THE STRATEGY
What we built,and why we built it.
The strategy came before everything else. Before the platform, before the page, before any content was built. We needed to understand his audience, what they would actually respond to, and what kind of launch would feel right for them - and for him.
His audience are predominantly older, retired people with a genuine passion for painting. They are not particularly tech-savvy. They do not respond well to pressure tactics or high-urgency sales mechanics. They trust David completely, and that trust was the most valuable asset in the entire launch. Our job was to protect it while building something that would convert.
1. Platform decision: Kajabi over everything else
He had been considering a Wix plugin, Thinkific, and other options. When he saw what a properly built Kajabi experience looked like - the user experience, the native email tools, the checkout, the community features - the decision was immediate. We built everything inside Kajabi: the course, the sales pages, the waitlist funnel, the email sequences, and the offer architecture.
2. Offer design and pricing
He came in with lower price expectations. We pushed him. The founder member bundle - course plus workbook - was priced to reflect the genuine value of what he had created. We also built in the private 1-to-1 session as a premium add-on, priced at £295 for founders (down from £450). This created a high-value tier that we knew would sell fast - and it did. Gone in under 30 minutes.
3. The waitlist: 3–4 weeks of anticipation building
Before a single sales page went live, we spent three to four weeks building a dedicated waitlist. We moved people from his existing social channels and email list into a brand new Kajabi list. We used social media and email to create excitement - coming soon posts, behind the scenes glimpses, the language of "founding member" status. By the time we opened the cart, 2,462 people were waiting.
4. The founder member window: 48 hours, exclusive access
At 9am on a Monday, we opened the cart - but only to the waitlist. They had 48hours of exclusive access to the founder pricing before anyone else could buy. This was a private page, only accessible to those who had signed up. The messaging was clear: this price will never be available again. You are a founding member. The result was £250k generated in those 48 hours alone
5. The launch phase: two weeks of social proof in real time
After the founder window closed, we entered a two-week public launch phase with adjusted pricing. What made this phase powerful was the content it generated itself. Students were already inside the course, posting on social media about the experience, sharing their paintings, expressing genuine joy. We captured those responses - in real time - and wove them into the launch emails. The testimonials in our emails were hours old. That kind of social proof is impossible to manufacture
6. Community and connection: Facebook group and Zoom calls
We included a private Facebook group and a founders-only Zoom kickoff call as part of the offer. These were not afterthoughts. For this audience, community and connection to David personally was a significant part of the appeal. Two further group calls were included across the 12-month access period. These features drove enormous goodwill and became some of the most talked-about elements of the course.
04 — WHAT WORKED
The decisions that made the difference.
Strategy before anything else
We did not start by building a page. We started by asking who his audience were, what they would respond to, and what kind of offer would feel right. That sequence - strategy first, build second - is everything
Respecting the audience
His buyers are not typical onlinecourse buyers. They are loyal, emotionally invested, and do not like pressure. We built a launch that felt like an invitation, not a sales campaign. That tone produced a 41.5% conversion rate.
The founder model
Creating genuine scarcity and exclusivity - the founding member status, the limited 1-to-1 spots, the 48-hour window - gave people a real reason to act quickly without feeling pressured. The 1-to-1 sessions sold out in 30 minutes.
Pricing confidence
He came in thinking lower. We pushed higher. His own message after the launch: "I'm glad we
decided to go higher in price compared to my original pricing." Pricing reflects perceived value. Underpricing would have undermined the offer.
Emotional copy, not feature copy
The sales page focused on transformation - what students would feel, rediscover, and create. Not a list of modules. Not a technical breakdown. The copy matched the emotional relationship his audience already had with his work.
Real-time social proof
The best testimonials in the launch emails were hours old. Students were already posting their results. We captured those in real time and fed them straight back into the campaign. Nothing converts like immediate, authentic proof.
“Truly amazed at what's happened in the past two weeks. Beyond everything I could have ever imagined. The revenue is mind-boggling crazy - and I'm glad we decided to go higher in price compared to my original pricing - but the most important thing is the feedback, the engagement, that expectations are being met and the fact that it's already making a difference to people's lives. This is the most rewarding and celebratory thing. I couldn't have achieved this level of success without your focus, skill and expertise."
— THE CLIENT, VIA WHATSAPP, 48 HOURS AFTER LAUNCH CLOSE
05 — THE ADS DECISION
Why we deliberately didn't run ads.
This might be the most counterintuitive part of the whole case study. A launch of this scale, and not a single pound spent on paid advertising.
The decision was deliberate and strategic, not accidental.
This was his first-ever online launch. We had never run ads for this audience before. We did not know how they would respond to paid traffic. We did not know which messages would convert. We did not know what creative would land. Running ads into an untested funnel, with an untested audience, on an untested platform, would have introduced too many variables - and risked spending money before the foundations were proven.
Instead, we used what we knew worked: his existing audience. 125,000 on Instagram. 22,000 on Facebook. 5,000 on his email list. These were warm people who already trusted him. We focused entirely on converting that trust into action before we added any complexity.
£0
Spent on paid ads. Every pound of revenue came from organic audience - warm, trusted, and ready to buy when asked properly.
The result validated that decision completely. A 41.5% waitlist conversion rate is not a number you get from cold traffic. It comes from years of trust-building and a launch that honoured that relationship.
For the next launch, paid advertising is very much on the table - but now we have something we didn't have before: a proven funnel, proven messaging, proven pricing, and a pool of existing students whose testimonials and results will make the ads worth running.
Ads amplify what's already working. They cannot fix what isn't. We chose to get the model right first - and that decision alone was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
06 — WHAT WE LEARNED
What we'd do differently next time.
No launch is the finished version. This one exceeded every expectation - and still produced a clear list of what to improve.
→ More 1-to-1 spots from the start.
They sold out in under 30 minutes and we had to manually release ten extra spots to cope with demand. Next time we price and scale accordingly.
→ A live teaching event in the pre-launch phase.
A call where potential students can meet David, ask questions, and experience his teaching before they buy would be a powerful conversion tool - particularly for an audience that values personal connection.
→ Paid ads on a proven funnel.
Now we have the messaging, the proof, and the results, paid traffic becomes a multiplier rather than a gamble.
→ Dedicated lead magnets
to grow the list
beforehand.
The next launch will be preceded by a proper list-building phase with targeted lead magnets, so the waitlist starts bigger.
→ Affiliate partnerships.
Other artists, educators, and communities who share his audience are a natural amplification channel. We'll build that network before the next launch.
07 — APPLY THIS
How to adapt this strategy for your own
launch.
This was not a complicated launch. It was a disciplined one. The principles behind it apply to almost any established expert moving their knowledge online for the first time - or relaunching something that hasn't performed the way it should.
1. Start with strategy, not a platform
Before you choose a tool or build a page, answer the real questions. Who is your audience? What do they actually need? What does a transformation look like for them? What are they willing to pay for it? The platform decision comes after this - not before.
2. Build a waitlist before you sell anything
Do not open a cart to a cold audience. Spend three to four weeks warming people up
with a dedicated opt-in. Give them a reason to join the list that isn't "be the first to
know." Founding member status, early access, and exclusive pricing all work. The goal
is people who are primed and ready when you open.
3. Price for the value, not your comfort
Almost every established expert we work with initially underprices their first online offer. The instinct is to make it accessible. The effect is to signal that it isn't worth much. Price according to the transformation you're delivering. You can always offer a time-limited founder discount from a higher anchor.
4. Create genuine scarcity
The founder window, the limited 1-to-1 spots, the 48-hour exclusive access - these are real constraints that create real urgency. Do not manufacture false scarcity. Do design your offer so that there is something genuinely worth acting on quickly.
5. Write copy around transformation, not features
Nobody buys a course. They buy the version of themselves that exists after the course. Write your sales page from that place. What will they feel? What will they be able to do? What will be different? Features are reassurance. Transformation is the sale.
6. Capture and use social proof in real time
If you are selling a course that people are already inside during your launch window, capture their responses immediately. Screenshots, quotes, videos - all of it. Feed it straight back into your emails and social posts. Nothing is more persuasive to a hesitant buyer than someone who bought yesterday saying it was worth it.
7. Get the model right before running ads
Ads are a multiplier. They amplify what is already working. If the messaging is unclear, the pricing is off, or the funnel leaks, ads will just accelerate the loss. Prove the organic model first. Then scale it with paid traffic.
We help established coaches, consultants, and experts decide what to build online - before they waste time building the wrong thing.
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All figures are real. The client's name and course title have been withheld at their request.
