My co-founder Scott and I used to dream about building a big company. But we were all talk. And as they say, a goal without a plan is just a wish.

Then I got laid off from Coinbase late last year and was forced to make a decision: go look for jobs, or go all in on our side business (FreedUp).

At the time FreedUp was doing $3,900/month with 2 clients. Hardly a business that could support the two of us with mortgages and families (we have 7 kids combined).

Fast forward 7 months and our business is doing close to $40,000/month.

How did we 10x our revenue is 7 months? I give 100% of the credit to the goal achievement system we committed to we call, “90 days of action” - a 90 day sprint we did in Q1.

Here’s how the system works…

Step 1: Set a Goal, Scoped to 90 Days

In January 2024, Scott and I set a goal for FreedUp - get to $1M ARR by the end of the year (12 months).

$1,000,000 is an arbitrary number. Small enough to seem achievable, but big enough to get us motivated.

But come January, after the holidays, when my wife went back to work and the kids went back to school and I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop in my pajamas, a 12 month goal is hardly helpful.

It’s daunting. $1m this year - but what do I do today?

I needed to whittle it down. So we set a sub-goal. $250k ARR in 90 days or $21k in monthly revenue.

Why 90 days? 12 weeks is short enough to sprint through but long enough to actually make progress. A quarter of the year.

Since we charge $3k/month/client, we figured we needed to get 7 clients in Q1 (7 x $3k = $21k).

7 clients. That became our mantra.

Step 2: Set Up Radical Accountability

Scott and I were scared that we wouldn’t get the job done (7 clients). Being accountable to one another wasn’t enough. We’re too soft on one another.

But if other people had use holding them accountable? Then we’d have to follow through on our own commitment.

So selfishly, we built a community. We asked 15 other high-achievers if they wanted to start an accountability group with us and stick with it for 90 days.

Each person would set 1 big goal for the 90 days and their daily commitments based on that 1 big goal.

Then, every day for 90 days we would check in on each other and call each other out if we missed a check in.

To make sure everyone had skin in the game, Scott and I formalized the program, created a landing page (https://90daysofaction.com/) and charged everyone (including ourselves) $1,500, but noted that if anyone wasn’t happy with the group, we’d refund them, no questions asked.

We didn’t have to refund anyone and the $25,500 became seed capital for FreedUp.

Spoiler - the results were insane…

🚀 We got to $300k+ ARR.

💼 4 new businesses were launched.

📈 An investor closed 7 figures in new capital.

💰 A social impact leader raised $600k for his non-profit.

🏋️ A fitness coach doubled his revenue and went full-time on his side project.

🏦 A wealth management entrepreneur closed multiple 6 figures in new revenue

Step 3: Set Supporting Goals

Before we started the 90 Days, we had everyone create 1 “priority goal” and optionally 2 “supporting goals”. From these goals, we’d set daily commitments.

We gave everyone a bit of pre-work to help them determine what goals they should set and help them decide if they should have 1, 2 or 3 goals. It all depended on their personal capacity.

A priority goal is important because it helps you get laser focused in the 90 days. If all else fails, whats the one thing you actually want to accomplish?

My goals were:

Priority Goal: Close 7 clients for FreedUp (on track for $1m ARR)
Supporting Goal 1: Complete Olympic Triathlon
Supporting Goal 2: Be content and fully present/patient with my family by getting tech sober (avoiding phone after hours).

As you can see, the supporting goals have no direct relationship to my “Priority Goal”.

However, I knew that closing $250k ARR in 90 days was going to stressful. Maintaining my health (olympic triathlon) and being a present husband/father would only help me crush my priority goal.

Step 4: Create Daily Commitments

The real magic of “90 days of action” was answering my initial question: what do I do today?

We were convicted by these 3 truths:

1. If you do the right things consistently for 90 days, you can’t fail.

2. If you measure your progress, you’ll know if the things you’re doing are the right things.

3. If your data shows that your commitment are the wrong commitment, simply adjust by learning from your failures and doubling down on your successes, in real time.

So for each goal, we had everyone make a list of daily commitments that we would hold them accountable to. Here were mine for my priority:

From those commitments, we all created scorecards that we pasted in Slack each day:

Step 5: Meet Weekly for Consistency

Despite calling each other each when we would miss a day posting, “90 days of action” got difficult after day ~50.

Life get’s busy and motivations change.

$1,000,000 in ARR sounded exciting in week 1, but once the dopamine of announcing your goal wears off, it’s just work.

To help combat that we set a weekly meeting and required that everyone come (by the way, we told people that they could have their money back if they don’t like the program, but only if they followed the rules, like coming to the weekly meetings).

Each Monday at noon, we’d all meet on Zoom to talk through how things were going to and to encourage each other.

Most of the times someone said something like, “I just don’t have anyone else in my life that’s as ambitious as this group”.

It was true for Scott and I too. Most people roll their eyes at your ambition (usually out of their own insecurity), but this group was supportive.

Step 6: Celebrate!

I’m bad at celebrating. Usually when I achieve a goal I move past it and set a new one.

But it’s important to mark your achievements, even ahead of time.

For Scott and I, when we get to $1M ARR (hopefully by the end of the year) we’re taking our wives to Mexico to a special resort.

None of us are super into beaches or resorts, but we want to mark the occasion and spend time together reflecting.

Join us!

It’s August 16 and FreedUp is 46% of it’s way to $1,000,000 ARR.

With the world coming back to life with “back to school”, we decided that we needed another sprint to get us to $1M ARR so we’re re-launching 90 Days of Action and you can join!

As of writing, we have 4 spots left.

The only requirement is that you’re a full-time founder, but you can be at any stage.

If you’re interested, just shoot me an email ([email protected]) and I’ll let you know if there’s space.

Cheers,

Aaron