I had a moment the other day standing at a traffic light staring into space where I remembered what it was like to have a shitty job. It's been so long since my boss at The Black Tux gave me the ultimatum that would lead to me starting my own company. So long since I had to work on a meaningless project for Nissan that was going straight into some executive's trash bin. So long since I had to commute two hours each way through LA traffic to be "face-to-face."
This is the best job I have ever had and it feels crazy that it is still working. We celebrate our two year anniversary this month. The only reason we've made it this far is because of you. Your investment in our network and in our publication are what makes this valuable to everyone else. Our mission here is to keep more solopreneurs and online small businesses in business. You have shown up in a major way this quarter to ensure that happens.
We had a truly stellar third quarter. I am over the moon pies about it. A bunch of Legends worked together on projects. Others found a business confidant they regularly chat with. Several Legends hosted each other on podcasts or interviewed each other for newsletter features. I also love when Legends read a story and put it to work for their business. We have a few great examples of that too.
We absolutely smashed our Legends goal. We stand at 438 Legends and that's in large part due to Legends referring each other and to Amelia Hruby's podcast Off the Grid. Those two sources combined were the reason over 50% of the new Legends joined us this season.
We also had a productive quarter with partnerships. I continued teaming up with Outpost to produce events and case studies for Ghost publishers. And I started working with Lulu, who is sponsoring our events this month to help authors sell more books. Lulu provides scalable tools for indie authors to publish and distribute their books and magazines worldwide.
Here's my recap of how Revenue Rulebreaker did in Q3.
📆 Join us for our Q3 Earnings Call this Thursday, October 8 and give me your feedback live!
Lex Roman
Sections
- Top lessons
- Community success stories
- Q3 2026 Goal targets vs reality
- What we did together this quarter
- Successful and failed projects
- Growth channels that worked
- Revenue and expenses
- What to expect in Q4
Top lessons
Legends are coming through for the network! This report features 19 Legends success stories, from new website launches to finding a local confidant. Legends are showing up for each other and the network is networking. If you're not sure how to take advantage of this yet, join me for our Plug-In Session on Oct 23 or send me a Legends Liaison request.
We need to be doing breaking news. I spent a lot of these season covering the ThriveCart outage, Airtable's acquisition, Liz Wilcox buying Pat Flynn's business, the dismantling of minority-owned business programs and other breaking stories in the small business space. I heard excellent feedback from you that you appreciated knowing what was going on and we've seen a lot of traffic growth for producing more timely coverage.
I'm pulling your attention in too many directions. We're doing too much and, even if I can sustain it, I'm learning that it's simply too much to message your way. Legends are missing stuff that we're doing, which is bound to happen, but I can tell you're overwhelmed. I need to offer less so I have less to tell you about and I can tell you about it more.
The newsletter is dragging. Our regular open rate is going down even though not much has changed. I get all kinds of feedback about the newsletter and it's hard to make decisions from. Some people think it's too long. Others don't like that they have to read stories on web. I will probably rethink our newsletter format next quarter so it's quicker to skim and more of a must-read for Legends.
Events are the hardest way I make money. Everyone seems to really appreciate our events, which motivates me to do them, but it's been a massive lift producing this season of events. It takes hundreds of hours to promote these events and then, several hours to prepare and run them. I'll be doing less events next year, focusing on Legends-only events (like our mixers) and sponsored events (like my events with Outpost).
Community success stories
Legends hire each other, refer each other, host each other on podcasts, swap newsletter ads, and so much more. Here's some of the stories Legends shared this quarter.