Two-Time Entrepreneur Joe DiSanto Finds Finance Content Tilt With Play Louder Business

Entrepreneur: Joe DiSanto

Biz: Play Louder

Tilt: Finance, business, investment ideas and coaching

Primary Channel: YouTube (4.28K)

Other Channels: Website, LinkedIn (1.1K), X (600), Instagram (300), newsletter (4K), Facebook (250), Pinterest (3.1K) 

Time to First Dollar: 12 months

Rev Streams: Consulting/coaching, digital products, service packages, courses, affiliate marketing, website ads

Our Favorite Actionable Advice

• Visualize and actualize your goals: Joe used his three-hour train commute to a job he hated to envision and plan what he wanted to achieve. Years later, when burned out on his “dream” entrepreneurial business, he created a new life as a content entrepreneur.
• Use what you know: His content tilt stems from what he learned to prevent him from struggling financially like he saw his mom had to do when he was young.
• Know your numbers: Entrepreneurs must understand the finances from day one. You have to know where your money is going. Don’t wait until you’re in trouble to figure it out.
• Don’t chase quick wins: It’s easy to get caught up in trying to go viral or rank in search engines, but real success comes from building a brand that people trust.

The Story of Joe DiSanto

Joe DiSanto credits his interest in personal finance to his parents’ divorce when he was 10. He saw his mother struggle with the mortgage, making ends meet, and filing for bankruptcy.

Joe realizes now that he probably knew more than a kid should about family finances. However, it instilled the desire to be in a better financial situation as an adult and inspired his interest in the stock market and investments.

Self-funding his college experience, Joe graduated with a degree in photography and debt. Moving to New York to pursue a career as a photography assistant did not help his financial situation, so he worked at Morgan Stanley for two months and hated it. But, he made the most of his three-hour round-trip train commute, dreaming of a better life and how to get there.

While he wasn’t actively looking for something new, Joe found the world of post-production. 

“Post-production is basically photography but in motion,” he explains. “Most post-production companies do visual effects, color correction, and editing.” 

Joe worked at a post-production company in New York and quickly realized the industry’s potential for creative fulfillment and business opportunities. Joe’s first mentor, Dominique Pendulfinao, guided him through the intricacies of the post-production world. This mentorship, coupled with Joe’s innate business instincts, helped shape his dream of eventually owning his own company. 

“It really combined all my passions and training. I loved the industry, he says.

Starting a business in Los Angeles

Joe set a new goal of growing in the post-production industry and starting a business. He and his wife moved to Los Angeles, where he secured a job as an executive producer for Brass Knuckles Editorial.

He was still grappling with massive college debt. So shortly after he moved in 2001, he created his first budget and worked to stick to it so he didn’t repeat his mother’s struggles.

Joe scratched the entrepreneurial itch in 2005. With the help of three friends, he started Therapy Studios, now an Emmy award-winning post-production company. 

He assumed the chief financial officer role, though he had never taken accounting or business classes. He had started using Quicken financial software in college, though. The role allowed Joe to learn and understand the finance side of business. 

Over the next decade, Therapy Studios grew into a successful business, employing around 30 people and working on major projects, including documentaries like Transcendent Man and Sound City. These projects led to a collaboration with Dave Grohl to produce a docu-series, Sonic Highways, which won two Emmys.​

Despite the success, Joe found himself burned out. Balancing the demands of running a company with his growing family responsibilities became overwhelming. 

As a self-described “control freak,” Joe struggled to switch between his role as a business owner and an engaged parent. 

“It was just too much. I couldn’t be a great dad and run a business the way I wanted to,” he says.

By 2018, he had made the tough decision to leave the company, selling his interest to his partners. Joe and his family moved to Florida for cheaper real estate and a slower pace of life. 

Joe’s attention to a personal budget and the resulting savings and real estate investments funded the transition.

Moving to content entrepreneur

To balance work and have the time and flexibility to be present for his son, Joe started a new business in 2018. Play Louder is a content business that helps entrepreneurs and individuals with finance, business, and investment ideas. It started a consulting and coaching business with fractional CFO services, and his first client was his former business, Therapy Studios. 

Transitioning from post-production to financial consulting wasn’t without its challenges. Starting a blog and creating digital content required Joe to learn new skills in web development, SEO, and online marketing.

“I essentially taught myself two new careers,” Joe says. “Building a website, creating content, managing a business. It was a lot, but I’ve always been single-minded when it comes to mastering something,” he says.

Expanding the business beyond consulting

By 2020, the website and additional services were ready to launch. He added products and services based on three pillars of Joe’s business: personal finance, investing and real estate, and business finance. 

Play Louder addresses those three pillars with a free and paid course ($197 to $297) for each. Joe designed the free courses as part of Play Loud’s marketing funnel to attract potentially interested customers.

Joe’s second main revenue stream comes from coaching and consulting services. Packaged in 30-, 60-, and 120-minute sessions, coaching calls range from $100 to $300 per session and allow Joe to answer individuals’ personal and business finance questions.

Joe also offers more inclusive packages that combine his services and offerings, ranging from $497 to $1,997. 

Another revenue stream comes from his Quicken template files, which he sells as a digital product for $197.

In 2021, Joe tried his hand at YouTube. He spent a year producing videos with not much ROI. Finally, after a year, Joe hit 1000 subscribers and was able to monetize his videos. He continued producing content, and slowly, YouTube became his biggest driver of traffic to the website. 

“YouTube has been great for attracting clients. People come across my videos, find value in them, and then reach out for more personalized help. By sharing my expertise for free, I’m able to demonstrate my value to people who eventually become paying clients.”

Joe does have a newsletter with close to 4K subscribers. He uses Kit (formerly known as ConvertKit) for this mainly because it allows him to create a newsletter blast from his RSS feed. It sends out a weekly summary of all the new content on the website every Wednesday. 

He then intermixes his own content with personal thoughts or explanations on why he wrote an article or why readers should check out a product or service. Joe also uses Zapier to embed his YouTube videos on his website, which is then picked up by Kit in the weekly email blast.

Finally, Joe hired a developer to create a controller system that allows people to go in and out of his sales pitches and not get duplicate emails or pitches. If someone has already bought a paid or free course, they will not get another email about it.

Joe is contemplating his next moves. He continues to desire to be semi-retired in terms of his work, but he also struggles with scaling the business without adding hours. Currently, a lot of his business is coaching and consulting, which you can only scale so far as a solopreneur. Joe realizes he needs to focus on digital products and courses to continue to scale without time constraints. 

Advice for Content Entrepreneurs

Don’t be afraid to ask your current employer to be your first client. The trick is to be so great that they can’t afford to lose you. Chances are, they are more than willing to continue a relationship with you rather than find and train someone new immediately. Over time, the employer might wish to bring your services back in-house. However, as a start-up business, this first guaranteed revenue client can provide a much-needed runway to develop the other components of your business.

Joe attributed some of his success to the long train rides into the city in his early years. He would sit and daydream about a better life during these trips. The constant visualization of goals helped him eventually start and run a business. Don’t underestimate the power of pre-visualization. It can help you stay motivated and focused on your goals.

For any content entrepreneur, the power of providing fee-high-quality content can not be emphasized enough as a way to establish trust and attract paying clients. People are more likely to invest in you when they feel like you’ve already provided value. By offering free educational content through his blog and YouTube channel, Joe has been able to build a loyal audience that eventually converts into clients.

The post Two-Time Entrepreneur Joe DiSanto Finds Finance Content Tilt With Play Louder Business appeared first on The Tilt Publishing.