Probably every B2B marketer has heard of Exit Five.

But I’m not sure everybody knows how they bootstrapped a 7-figure business with 4,000+ community members. Or how they launched a 200 person event, with all of 5 team members.

It all goes back to Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five and author of Founder Brand…

I’ll walk through how he started E5, how he’s turned his solo social media presence into a high-growth business, and break down E5’s LinkedIn strategy and content flywheel.

Let’s go.

Dave and the team behind Exit Five

Dave joined Drift in October 2015 as employee #8 and the first full-time marketer to jumpstart the company's marketing efforts.

During his 4+ years at the company, 50,000+ businesses used the product and they grew from $0 to eight-figures in revenue. He was promoted to VP of Marketing in 2018.

At that time, Dave started writing about his experience leading the marketing team at Drift. Dave shared on his YouTube channel that he always had side itch for content creation.

He quickly grew his following from 10K to 70K on LinkedIn.

He then moved to be CMO at a company called Privy.

And he started to see an opportunity to build an audience… people were reaching out to him wanting to learn more about marketing and on the side, while CMO, he started a Patreon channel for B2B SaaS marketing.

Within 6 months, he had 1,000 members, paying $10 a month. That was $10K in revenue from his side hustle.

He got feedback from one of the members that they didn’t just want to hear from him, but wanted to talk to each other. So he added a Facebook group to the Patreon page - and that was version 1.0 of Exit Five. At the time, it was called DGMG.

At this point, Dave quit his full-time job to run the community. But Dave wanted to create a real business not just the Dave marketing show. He wanted something not tied to him.

So that’s when he rebranded it to Exit Five. He also migrated the community off of Facebook and onto Circle. Dave wanted to build a long-term asset. He wanted to build a company and a business.

For a while, Dave continued to run Exit Five solo. He didn’t really feel the need to give that up.

Until he realized that it was just a matter of bringing in the right person into the business that would enable him to operate better and grow faster.

That’s when Dave brought in Dan Murphy, who’s now COO at Exit Five.

A few months after that they brought in Matthew Carnevale, who was a community member, and they worked as a team of 3 for a year.

Matt came in to manage acquisition and retention for the paid community. They then hired 2 more - an operations assistant and a Head of Content. Dave shared that they’re now on pace to grow 100% this year as team of 5.

But it all started with Dave and writing on LinkedIn.

The power of LinkedIn for E5

According to Matthew - 60.4% of Exit Five’s growth comes from LinkedIn (how people hear about E5).

The way I see it, their LinkedIn strategy can be divided into 3 pillars:

1. Dave

At the heart of Exit Five's LinkedIn strategy is Dave. Dave today has 173K followers. And because of that, his almost daily posts serve as the primary content engine for Exit Five.

As an example, they recently hosted Drive, Exit Five’s first in-person event. They sold 200 tickets.

When he started writing about it, his LinkedIn content about the event got 1M+ impressions.

They didn’t pitch any journalists to cover the event. There was no press. They didn’t need any. And it didn’t cost him any budget either. Just because of his audience and his content on LinkedIn.

Dave at the end of day, has a really strong personal brand. And that’s a huge marketing play for the business.

But a personal brand isn’t something you can fake or make up last minute.

Dave puts it really well here:

2. Media

While Dave's personal brand is crucial, Exit Five's content strategy goes beyond just his posts.

Because of Exit Five’s media arm, they have content from over 170 podcast episodes and more than 20 webinars that they've hosted over the past two years.

This means that they never run out of content to distribute on LinkedIn.

They use this content across all of their channels but especially for the Exit Five company page.

Rather than post boring and promotional content, they constantly rotate through their video content to share tips, takeaways, and insights from marketing leaders.

They don’t push you to join the community or try and sell sponsorships. They just lead with value and the quality of the content they’re sharing.

3. Building influencers from within

Rather than just partnering with external influencers, they’re focusing on building influencers from within their own team.

Matthew has 8K followers on LinkedIn. Danielle has 4K. Daniel Murphy has 18K. And their posts get tons of engagement.

Each one doesn’t just get to grow as thought leaders, but they 10x the business for E5.

Dave shared recently that the team each posted about the benefits of becoming an E5 member on LinkedIn over a few days.

As a result:

• 35 new trials started
• ~70% will convert into paying members (that's 24 new paying members)
• At a rough average of $275/member/year
• That's $6,600 in annual revenue

They didn’t use UTMs in the posts. They also didn't spend a dollar on promotion.

It’s a win-win. By showcasing the experience and expertise the E5 team has, the kind of insights they are collecting and curating - the more trust it builds around E5 itself and the value of joining the community.

E5’s content ecosystem

While LinkedIn is at the core of Exit Five's growth and marketing strategy, their content motion is super strong.

This includes their digital events, podcast, YouTube channel, and weekly newsletter.

This is part of why Dave wanted to expand the team, to make sure that these content products were getting the attention they deserved and the quality needed to keep growing.

Their content ecosystem looks something like this:

• LinkedIn: Company page (71K followers), founder page (173K), employees (30K combined following)
  • Daily posts, event & podcast promotions, thought leadership content
• Podcast
  • 2x a week, 175+ episodes
• Newsletter
  • Promotes the podcast, events, the community
  • Goes out weekly, 20K+ subscribers
• Exit Five YouTube Page
  • Previous webinars, podcast episodes, 590+ subscribers
• Events
  • Put on 25 webinars over the last 2 years
  • All get shared once live to the community + go up on YouTube

I specifically chose to use the word ecosystem here because they aren’t just publishing content on different channels.

Each channel feeds back to the other, is repurposed and reused strategically, is promoted and distributed with the other in mind, etc.

For example, something I really love about how they repurpose content is that they don’t just share podcast clips for clicks or likes, they actually work hard to create short-form video content for social that has value.

They add their brand and design. They write social copy that isn’t just promotional of the podcast but is sharing something worth learning and walking away with.

Another thing they do really with their content is to flip traditional tactics into more fun and engaging things.

For example, they don’t just do webinars, they host live sessions and tear downs where they roast B2B websites.

Or…In September, they didn’t just throw another B2B marketing event…they went for more of a “summer camp for marketers" vibe.

They programmed the content based on their most popular content. They had ice cream trucks and break-out sessions outside and cafeteria-style lunch and hosted an intimate group of marketers out in Vermont.

Plus…you could tell the event was actually a hit not because of what E5 posted about it… but because SO many attendees came out and shared their experience and you could tell that they were posting out of genuine excitement.

From an events marketing strategy perspective, I could do an entirely separate post but for now I’ll just say this: E5 is able to put out content and experiences that aren’t just “meh” because they listen to their community and create for them.

That’s how they reap the benefits of their members wanting to actually go out and talk about E5. And when you’re able to do that across marketing experts that have 4K, 13K, 80K, followers… that’s where you really see the impact.

Business growth

Exit Five had 900 people register for one of their webinars on B2B website tear downs. Dave shared that last month they had 50 new trials. And closed a $50k sponsor with a major SaaS brand.

These metrics are all great examples of the kind of metrics driving their business growth.

Exit Five has both sponsorship and community revenue. Because they have a very niche audience of B2B marketers and a very relevant community - they see a lot of demand for sponsorship opps.

And because of this, sponsorship growth grew completely organically.

Dave would get a lot of requests to do influencer posts and he did this without much of a real structure or business model.

Within a year of doing that, sponsorship outpaced community revenue. And now, they offer sponsorship packaging and bundles and are running much more like a media business.

For their community product, they drive top-of-funnel growth through social media, their email list, influencers, and content partnerships.

Most recently, they’re also an events business - having sold 200 tickets to their Drive event. And they just announced their next in-person event coming up in November.

Takeaways

E5’s strategy is proof of the power of building a loyal audience. It can’t be done overnight. But if you’re consistent and keep showing up with value, your audience will trust you. And if they trust you, they’ll follow you anywhere.

You can go from running a small community to selling a course to hosting your own events. There’s really no limit to what you can do with that trust once it’s gained.

Here are some things I’d think about applying to any marketing motion:

Founder-led content only works if your founder is all in.

You can’t deny that Dave loves what he does. And that his passion doesn’t just end and start with Exit Five. He loves B2B marketing. That’s his niche and that’s what he’s been writing about for years. Yes, he creates content to help grow his business but not only for that reason. And you can tell.

Encourage your employees to build their own brands.

Dave’s brand is huge but it’s only one side or one aspect of E5. Employees close the loop. Their POV adds trust. And not every marketer will necessarily relate to a founder of a 7-figure business. But maybe they can to a marketing manager or to a content marketer. The more opportunities you create for your audience to relate to you, connect with you, and think of your brand, the better.

Hire your experts.

Dave could’ve kept running things solo. He had the audience, the marketing knowledge, the strategy… but he chose to fire himself from doing it all. When you see content like a real product - you try to optimize everything that goes into it… from the writing to growth and distribution. And you can’t really do that if your focus isn’t 100% there.

Most of the lack of results in marketing come from not enough focus. Usually, when you put in the time and effort, the results come.

Don’t just be on a channel, create for a channel.

Every marketing team I’ve ever worked at has put all of their energy into finding the right channels, without enough thought going into how to show up on those channels. LinkedIn couldn’t be more perfect for E5. Their audience is there. But this is true for a lot of B2B SaaS. Just being on the right channel isn’t enough.

You have to show up in ways that make your audience feel seen, heard, and helped. E5 does this beautifully and consistently - from Dave, to Danielle, to Matthew, to how they show up in the comments, with influencers, and everything in between.

Go Exit Five!