TIL: events, Plato & subscriptions

If you love real business insights, you’re going to love this one.

In the second half, I’ll share how I landed the first 5,000 subscriptions for my membership. But first, you’re about to read one of the most bizarre experiences I’ll probably have in all of 2025.

It’s a long story—but packed with lessons and insights.

About a month ago, I attended the annual gathering of a well-respected organization. Having previously helped them with digital marketing, I happened to know their president.

While meeting incredible people, I ran into him, and we started chatting. During our conversation, he introduced me to a well-dressed woman, mentioning that she was a representative of a member of parliament.

This immediately caught my attention. In just a week, I’d be heading to Athens for 10 days and was looking for recommendations on worthwhile events.

When I asked her, she went through all the official invitations she had for the upcoming week.

She mentioned several interesting events, but one stood out—the annual gathering of the Manufacturers of Defense Materiel Association.

She shared all the event details with me, and the next day, I did my research.

Turns out, it was more than legit.

Last year, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, George James Tsunis, the French ambassador, Auer Laurence, the Czech ambassador, Jakub Kafrik, the Egyptian ambassador, Omar Amer Youssef, Defense Attachés and diplomats from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Italy, Hungary, and Israel, the Vice President of the Parliament, Giorgos Georgantas, the Dean of the Parliament, Vasileios-Nikolaos Ypsilantis, and the Chairman of the Committee on Armament Programs and Contracts of the Parliament, Athanasios Davakis.

I marked it on my calendar, though I had second thoughts.

At that exact time, I had three extremely important client meetings, and I didn’t want to cancel any of them.

Luckily, my last meeting was canceled at the last minute, giving me just enough time to arrive before the networking session began.

I didn’t waste any time and I moved as fast as I could.

As I arrived, I realized just how luxurious this venue was.

I stepped into a massive hall with soaring 8-meter-high ceilings, 3-meter-tall paintings, and pristine marble everywhere.

The neoclassical architecture was stunning.

At least 100 men in suits and ties filled the room.

It took me a few minutes to process everything, but I knew what I had to do—start meeting interesting people.

By the end of the night, I had spoken with about 15 individuals and exchanged business cards with 8 of them.

The experience was unique.

I stayed up until 2:00 AM to send personalized emails to everyone I had spoken to.

Ensuring that those connections turned into meaningful relationships was a top priority.

Two days later, I had dinner with a an individual who serves on 4 boards of directors and is a co-founder of a group of nine companies.

It was only when I shared this story with him that I realized just how lucky I was.

It turns out I hadn’t just stumbled into an incredibly interesting room by accident—I had also met some individuals from his own network along the way.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED THIS MONTH

1.
Plato.

Plato has been on my list of GOATed philosophers for as long as I can remember.

Like anyone raised in Western civilization, his name was embedded in my subconscious after countless school lessons. So, I finally took the leap and started reading The Republic—arguably his greatest work.

His writing style is unlike anything we see in the 21st century, or at least, I’ve never come across anything similar.

For context, The Republic—including the original Ancient Greek text, its translation, and the author’s commentary—spans over 1,600 pages. There’s a reason it’s considered one of the most important books ever written.

I’m currently on page 523, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the book holds.

2.
Scaling your agency.

When I meet people who are far ahead of me in life, I always ask for their perspective on a problem I’m facing.

The person running nine companies and the agency owner managing a 180-person development team were no exception. Asking individuals like them what they would do in my situation provides priceless insights.

Interestingly, when I asked how they would scale a digital marketing agency from 5 to 50 people, their answers were strikingly similar.

To oversimplify their five-minute responses into one sentence: one said networking and strategic partnerships. The other said networking, friendships, and trust.

I am not an expert in pattern recognition, but I think you can spot the similarities.

GROW YOUR INFLUENCE

Scaling Your Membership from 0 to 5,000 Members

As promised, let’s dive into how you can scale your own membership from 0 to over 5,000 members. But before we start, I want to make something very clear.

I didn’t grow my subscription-based program to 5,000 members in a week, a month, or even a year. This took four years of constant effort, testing, and iteration. And let me tell you—it was far from easy.

A subscription-based business model might sound appealing. The idea of recurring revenue and predictable income is exciting. But the reality? It’s filled with challenges, setbacks, and a long list of lessons that only experience can teach you.

I made hundreds of mistakes along the way. That’s why I’m sharing this with you—to help you avoid the same pitfalls and build a business that lasts.

THE FIRST STEP

One thing I did right from the beginning was the first step: competitor analysis.

Before launching, I took the time to study businesses that were similar to mine. I analyzed what worked, what didn’t, and most importantly, why some businesses thrived while others failed.

After researching dozens of similar programs, I finally found one that had the perfect balance—an automated and scalable model that was growing fast. That was my signal to act.

At that point, I had many of the necessary elements in place, but I still needed to establish a strong foundation. Before this, I had never run a subscription-based business. Everything was new, and I had to figure it out step by step.

THE FOUNDATION

The first version of the program was simple but effective.

I introduced three pricing tiers:

$20 per month – 1 outfit + 10% commissions + 50% discounts
$25 per month – 2 outfits + 15% commissions + 50% discounts
$30 per month – 3 outfits + 25% commissions + 50% discounts

This made it easy for potential members to join at a comfortable price point while still keeping the business profitable.

To acquire customers, I leveraged performance marketing—paid ads that I could track down to the last dollar.

This allowed me to see exactly how much I was spending and what I was getting in return… at least in the short term.

Since it was a membership program, predicting long-term revenue was a challenge.

I didn’t know how many months a new member would stay. Would they remain subscribed for two months? Six months? A year?

Fortunately, the numbers were in my favor.

On average, new members became profitable by their second month.

This meant that instead of pocketing the profits immediately, I reinvested everything back into scaling for the first few months.

THE NEXT VERSIONS

By the time I hit 2,000 members, I had considerable cash flow, but even more importantly—I had data.

With insights from over 2,000 influencers, I had access to more case studies and research than most “experts” writing business guides.

I didn’t need a professor to filter my findings—I had real-world results that told me exactly what was working and what wasn’t.

That’s when Influencer Growth Secrets was born.

This was the first in-depth guide I created, and I spent months refining and expanding it based on what I learned from my members.

At this point, I rebranded the program from Influencer Program to Influencer Growth Program, shifting the focus from just receiving outfits to growing digital influence.

The new version included: The Influencer Growth Secrets guide, challenges, access to tools and resources, not to mention the continued perks like free outfits.

This transformation turned the program into a no-brainer offer. It wasn’t just a clothing subscription—it was a growth system for influencers.

Once I refined the program, things really took off. There were weeks when I was spending $500 per day on ads—a wild thought considering that when I first started, I had less than $500 in my business bank account.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Once the program was up and running, managing it became surprisingly simple.

For the next three years, my daily work routine looked something like this:

– Wake up

– Spend 10 minutes checking ad performance

– Make optimizations every other day

– Work 30–45 minutes max

That was it.

At first, it felt weird. I had spent +24 months grinding to get to this point, and suddenly, my business was running itself with minimal input from me.

MISTAKES

Mistake #1: Not Doubling Down

Instead of focusing on scaling what was already working, I got distracted by a new idea.

I invested $40K and 1.5 years into developing a productivity mobile app—something completely outside of my expertise. I wanted to build something impactful, but I underestimated the complexity of app development and user acquisition.

Had I focused on doubling down on my cash-flow machine, I could have scaled it to an even higher level. But instead, I invested valuable time and resources on something that didn’t align with my core business.

Mistake #2: Studying Only Success Stories

I spent years studying case studies of success, but I never looked at what made businesses fail.

I read guides on:

– How to scale profitable ads
– How to create automated marketing systems
– How to increase customer lifetime value

But I never studied:
– What causes businesses to collapse overnight
– Why profitable brands suddenly lose everything
– The dangers of relying too much on third-party platforms

And then it happened…

Mistake #3: Losing $25K MRR Overnight

The month we crossed $25K in monthly recurring revenue, I got an email from our payment processor.

After more than three years of working together, they decided to end our collaboration and delete all active subscriptions. Just like that, all recurring payments vanished overnight.

I had no backup payment processor in place. No contingency plan. And I paid the price for it.

Final Thoughts

Scaling a membership program isn’t about luck. It’s about:

– Choosing the right niche
– Doing proper competitor analysis
– Having a solid system to run ads or create content
– Doubling down on what’s working continuously

If you avoid the mistakes I made and follow a strategic approach, you’ll have a much smoother path to success.

Learn from my journey. Take what works. Avoid what doesn’t. And build something that lasts.

To your growth and influence,
>> Chris Fountoulis
Co-founder – Elcune.com
& GrowthOfInfluence.com
chris@growthofinfluence.com
LinkedIn || Instagram || Newsletter

Interested in our ventures?
– About the Digital Marketing Agency: ChrisFountoulis.com
– Agency for creators: GrowthOfInfluence.com
– Women’s Clothing Brand: Elcune.com