How I Launched An International Copywriting Agency [$48K/Year Revenue]
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey! I am Denys (or Den) from Ukraine. I've been working at the intersection of three sectors: business (marketing), government (advising), and non-profit (leadership roles). Education is my passion, and I am looking for a technical co-founder to bring a promising idea to life via a VC-funded startup.
Wait a minute. The title just promised to tell a story of launching a copywriting agency, didn’t it? We’ll get there in a minute.
But I wanted to share a big picture with you. In this story, you will learn my path from having a job as an essay writer to owning a job as a copywriter to having a team of knowledge workers that generates between $2K-$5K/month (agencies’ model is linear and I will mention this too).
In fact, it is only a part of the journey before becoming financially independent (because running a business isn’t easy; but you already know it from the rest of StarterStories).
The famous Robert Kiyosaki’s quadrant summarizes it well:
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
WTFBit Writing is a content marketing agency for IT firms. We specialize in writing industry-specific articles to generate leads for our clients at the beginning of their sales funnel. We achieve this by “translating technology into human language.”
Over the last 5 years, we helped 50+ companies and brands with some big names under NDA. Those we can mention are a web3 unicorn Unstoppable Domains (we did localization in Ukraine that converted into hiring local engineering talent), IntellectSoft enterprise (assisting their Blockchain Lab division), and Bookmap – a trading software with a cutting-edge heatmap feature (I summarized this experience in a separate Hackernoon article).
But before we got there, WTFBit actually was the first Ukrainian-speaking media about cryptocurrencies in Ukraine (our translation of the Bitcoin whitepaper sits on the official website); and before that, just a fun side-project and a Telegram community.
The thing is, I never intended to become a copywriter. So do you. You just happened to have a neat writing skill or know the need in the market and want to give clients precisely what they need in your niche.
We decided to launch. It was a simple Telegram channel. Raw at that time, consisting mostly of text. Sometimes pictures, most of them memes.
But when I needed a quick buck, a friend of mine offered me a job as an essay writer. It ignited my curiosity since I had to read A LOT before I could produce a meaningful output. I was a responsible (remote) employee, and ChatGPT was 8 (light) years away. (How I learned English by studying in the US and Lithuania; you can listen to my experience via the ExchangeMe podcast).
However, even with such diverse topics as MBA, Foreign Affairs, Ecology, Literature, and History, a few hundred assignments later I got bored and was looking for a transition.
In 2016, I returned from Mexico to Ukraine. Telegram was gaining some traction, so did Bitcoin. I anticipated this serendipity would emerge into something big, and I stumbled upon a post on Facebook of a guy who felt the same.
We met for the first time in Kyiv. Exchanged our excitement and interest to start a channel that would be both entertaining and educational (for us in the first place – we knew nothing about Bitcoin and altcoins).
One of the best ways to learn things is to teach others. One would have to prepare twice as hard and take responsibility for the materials provided.
So we decided to launch. It was a simple Telegram channel. Raw at that time, consisting mostly of text. Sometimes pictures, most of them memes. When copywriting? You might ask, which is fair. But bear with me. This took me a couple of years and angel investor’s money to figure out the right business model.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
Launching an MVP
First, we invited our contacts and friends on Facebook who were curious about crypto. Then, we did a few ads in other Telegram channels (it was cheap or free cross-promo since most of the channels had hundreds of users).
Eventually, we got traction as people stayed with us not only for edutainment but for morning news and cryptocurrency rates. There were some Ukrainian-speaking communities but they were focused on one particular project; others were predominantly Russian-speaking.
It is how we became a spot for investors: several wealthy individuals and entrepreneurs reached out to us. They liked the vibe, the community, and the potential to launch the first Ukrainian-speaking media about blockchain. Moreover, back then I was convincing them that AI, IoT, and biotech will become trendy, too.
Launching an actual product
Finally, we got an intro with a guy who possesses an industry-specific media holding. He was curious about IT, and crypto in particular, and I saw an opportunity to learn from him since I never launched an actual media (high-school newsletter doesn’t count).
He offered $50,000 and we shook hands. It was a typical angel investment, no strings attached: my editorial team had freedom to create the format and launch a website we wanted.
You can spot a little ad on the right. It was a referral link to an exchange, the best in Eastern Europe. Yet, we made 0. At the time, traffic to the site was miserable, and we placed ads in the Telegram channel instead.
We loved what we did and we built what our fans loved. For instance, apart from the global crypto news translated and adapted into Ukrainian, there were interviews (“Road to Adoption” series), a directory of top-100 crypto people of Ukraine that indeed represented the landscape of that time, plus a few fun features:
- Memepool (a wordplay for “mempool”; we posted original memes there); now I realize, we should have started own Reddit sub as well;
- KYT or Know Your Tech, a crypto thesaurus; keep in mind that we were on a mission to educate people; financial literacy was part of this mission; we hated crypto scams and avoided any advertisers who looked like ones;
- Fiat-flippening: it is an event when traditional currencies become worthless; or at least less valuable than bitcoin’s smallest unit of account – satoshi; indeed, this happened to Ukrainian hryvnia when its 1/100 (kopiyka) got flipped in 2020.
We even had an attempt to enter the English-speaking market. Our Twitter was launched, and this first tweet was an OK attempt to translate the meaning of our Ukrainian brand: Що біткоїться? Btw, hence WTF bit[coin]?!; I realized that it was the optimal way to shorten this phrase and appeal to our brave web3 clients.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Eventually, I would regret not formalizing the deal with our investor. The 2018-2019 crypto winter diminished his enthusiasm, and I received only 20K out of the promised 50K. I had also hoped for “smart money,” meaning more involvement in the business from his side, but instead, we had to grow it on our own. Ad revenue decreased. Our runway money was deadly short. I had to dissolve most of the team.
Interestingly, I never quit a side hustle. I continued to write for a Blockchain Lab at the dawn of the WTFBit Media. Then, there were a few crypto projects and a trading software Bookmap. This gave me a safetynet and an edge: I started noticing that Ukraine’s IT firms possess exceptional talents, but they struggle to sell their services abroad.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, mostly personal connections and lower costs could compete with the equal online presence of their counterparts in Belarus, Poland, and Central Europe.
Having recognized a gap in the market – the growing IT businesses’ need for compelling, persuasive copywriting to attract clients, – the WTFBit team pivoted from Media to Writing.* *A few freelance copywriters were working for me, and over time I offered Natalie – now my business partner – a share of profit in exchange for her time and energy to scale the agency.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Since the WTFBit community had a solid brand in Ukraine, we had a steady inflow of leads in this niche market. Moreover, we continued to do cross-promo for our patterns and visit meetups and conferences. WTFBit Media even got into Ukraine’s Blockchain Landscape mapping.
Being a freelancer, I realized the need for Ukrainian English-speaking writers to expand their options and offer higher pay. This is how we managed to attract the right talent with curious minds. And my previous “employer” – and a friend – referred some of the writers whom he wasn’t able to pay more for writing essays.
At that time I was also in a pro bono position as a General Manager at GeekHub, free IT courses in my hometown of Cherkasy. This gave me an opportunity to visit IT Cluster meetings and talk to CEOs and CTOs of the local IT companies, like TRIARE’s Boris Abazher who shared his Starter Story earlier.
Meanwhile, we continued posting to the channel and shared educational materials. We had appearances in the media and gave lectures on the topic of blockchain.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We are happy to have long-term clients like TRIARE. We also collaborate with a tech PR agency that directs a funnel of leads to us when they need a press release or an interesting story for the media.
Our revenue varies between $2K and $5K per month. We are profitable with a 15-45% margin, depending on the type of work. In fact, the best thing we learned over the years is not to take an assignment for less than $500 and try to sell in bulk, be it a series of articles for the blog or an entire content strategy. It works best not only for us as an agency but also for the client, who needs consistent digital storytelling.
It’s important to note that I consciously settled for a small business. Although my target is $10K/mon, I don’t plan to aim higher. Instead, I want to completely step off and empower my team to do an awesome job. This already gave me the freedom to learn new things and prepare for a new venture while looking into bigger bets (remember the lead for this article?).
Alright, I’ve been asked several times if my small agency is going out of business because… you know… this mega writer BOSS, ChatGPT. To be honest, I’ve been using it all the time to resolve routine tasks, handle creative blocks, and prompt for novel ideas. That’s about it. To write a superb, in-depth article, the “prompt engineer” has to possess a context, have excellent writing and editing skills, and bring something fresh to the table. Most ChatGPT texts are dry, dull, or, worse, incorrect.
I won’t brag here about anti-AI rules for blogs and the difference between AI-content and automatically generated content. But I can assure you that our clients don’t want to:
- Waste time on prompts and editing (hello there, CMOs);
- Risk their company’s reputation (for founders and CEOs);
- Risk personal reputation (CTOs).
In most cases, our agency acts as an outstaff or dedicated copywriting team (today, a fractional X professional/team is getting traction). I see our middle and senior writers as autonomous knowledge workers. In some cases, they are the “knowledge athletes,” to quote Naval. We don’t joggle words for the sake of SEO visibility.
We synthesize knowledge of the client’s stakeholders to align content with the current sales tactics and long-term company mission.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
There are things we know we don’t know, and there are things we don’t know we don’t know. Focusing on the first one is already enough. I could have:
- Leveraged Google Analytics from the beginning;
- Improved marketing channels earlier;
- Asked each of the 50+ clients to leave feedback on Clutch;
- Automated the flows inside the agency earlier;
- Paid more attention to our website and online presence…
But you may also want to consider the war factor when Russia started a full-scale invasion in Ukraine in February 2022. For over a year I paused my business activity shifting attention to humanitarian response and my Rotary presidency.
This shouldn’t be an excuse, however, since the mentioned issues could have been resolved prior to the war. I share my struggle so that you can act intentionally and align work with other areas of importance, such as health and family.
As Peter Kozodoy rightly says, “The agency business has a lot of headwinds working against it.” And as Andrew Wilkinson mentioned on the My First Million show in the Easiest to Hardest Business Ideas episode:
Agencies are of ‘medium difficulty’ to launch. A flat, linear curve that happens over time, but you ought to balance the supply and demand all the time.”
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We made our simple website with WordPress. Most of our leads came in via referrals, especially from Telegram communities of web3 projects’ founders. But we figured that LinkedIn is a viable option, too. Clutch is the vital one. Many clients, especially heads of marketing who represent IT firms, check Clutch for contractors.
Meanwhile, we use Telegram for communication, Trello for agency management, and Google Docs to write all the orders and manage them in Sheets.
Additionally, my business partner at wtfbit.com is creating a platform for copywriters and clients to eliminate friction in giving tasks, tracking articles, and making payouts: Togezio. This also replaces potential Airtable or Notion automation.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Podcasts:
- “Masters of Scale” by Reid Hoffman; I think many readers are already familiar with it;
- 80,000 hours are all about global problems and how we as professionals could dedicate our time to solving them effectively; save lives in one or another way!
- Joe Rogan podcast, hehe
Books: Folks in this community have recommended a lot of useful titles and authors, some of them I read as well and recommend. On my side, I would suggest you read or listen to:
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a fanfic by Eliezer Yudkowsky
- Or his Inadequate Equilibria, also translated by our community into Ukrainian (but this information is less useful to you)
- Martin Eden by Jack London. I remember that this book had a great influence on me as a teenager, but it is equally precious at an older age and reminds one why he or she is pursuing something in their life.
- Ichak Adizes’ books like Mastering Change or Management/Mismanagement Styles; get familiar with his PAEI formula and organization’s lifecycle = really helpful;
- M. Cipolla’s The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity – this one is short and fun.
Bonus: find a Headway app; it has hundreds of business titles and offers summaries in a form of insight nuggets.
Lifehack: On iPhone, you can go to subscriptions and choose a tier for Headway; I didn’t see this for other apps, but for Headway you can choose an optimal cost-saver (i.e. $20 for a year, instead of a week).
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Lots have been said on this fantastic forum for Starters. My personal takeaways for entrepreneurs (and decent humans) are:
Every day as you wake up: 1. Help someone; 2. Learn something new; 3. Have fun;
Focus! On one industry, one task at a time; the majority of my mentors keep repeating it, although it doesn’t always work in my case; I have an ecosystem approach (ping me if you’d like to learn more about it);
If you feel like it’s a big stretch to approach a certain client or employee, just start a conversation; ask for advice, or offer a valuable idea/help; there is a chance it can start something;
Start a day by eating a frog;
Try planning a day according to the Eisenhower Matrix;
Try planning a week with a Bento vision in mind;
Finish the week with a retrospective by balancing all of your important life areas.
Schedule your priorities instead of prioritizing schedules.
Where can we go to learn more?
Wanna connect personally? You are welcome:
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
