How Nathan Chan of Foundr Uses Webinars For Massive Impact

One of the perks of my job is getting to talk with people who use EasyWebinar about massively impacting their audience. To me, this might be the most rewarding thing, as I get to see first hand how our software is helping entrepreneurs worldwide. 

The other cool thing is that no two people who use our software have the same backstory. Learning these stories motivates my team and I even more to create the best webinar platform for entrepreneurs just like you.

Recently, I got a chance to interview Nathan Chan, who is crushing it with EasyWebinar. His story is incredibly inspiring with tons of useful tips to help you get started (or scale even more) with webinars. 

Who is Nathan Chan? 

In today’s interview, I got to speak with Nathan Chan, the CEO of Foundr – a digital magazine and online education platform. He’s been growing his brand since 2013 and inspired millions of entrepreneurs and side hustlers since inception. 

As someone who knows how hard it is to start a business, I love Nathan’s mission to “Democratize entrepreneurial education” which we cover in-depth in the interview. 

If you’re reading this, chances are you are an entrepreneur or aspiring to become one very soon. As you’ll likely find out first hand, the beginning stages are always the most challenging, but people like Nathan are making it easier! 

What I love about Nathan is that he walks the walk and talks the talk… he isn’t some online guru that pedals advice without having done it himself. Instead, he and his team have built one of the most successful brands for entrepreneurs, and he’s only just getting started.

Not only has he built a multi 7-figure business, but he’s interviewed some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation. Some of these world leaders include Arianna Huffington, Tony Robbins, Mark Cuban, Richard Branson, Gary Vee, and more. 

Not to mention, he’s been using EasyWebinar for more than a year now to sell his online courses and keep growing his brand. He’s an amazing picture of who we love to work with and I am extremely grateful to him for sitting down to share his secrets with me.

Click here to watch the full interview with Nathan:

Biggest Lessons from Nathan Chan 

If you don’t have the time to watch the full interview (which I highly recommend), here are some of the biggest takeaways from our time together.

Chase Your Passion

Like a lot of you reading this, Nathan knew the 9-5 world wasn’t for him pretty early on. Instead of staying stuck, he chased his passion for marketing and technology so he could spend his time doing what he loved. As he said, “Life is too short to do work that you hate.” 

I couldn’t agree more. With so many online tools and social media, it’s never been easier to find your audience and create an online business that helps others. 

And what’s even better is that you don’t have to beat yourself up if you don’t get it right the first time. Even when he did start online, he quickly realized that he wasn’t passionate about his first business venture, selling cologne. So he got clear about his true passion of entrepreneurship, went all-in, and started Foundr. 

Invest in Yourself 

After working with a lot of 6 and 7-figure entrepreneurs, I know they all have one thing in common – they invest in themselves. Oftentimes, even when they don’t have the money for something (whether it’s a mastermind, mentor, etc.) they find a way to make it happen. 

As Nathan talked about during our chat, he spent $2,000 on a software and course to launch his digital magazine, despite only making $50,000 per year. This was a big stretch for him at the time, but as he said, “It was the best investment I ever made.” 

 You can’t be afraid to invest in yourself sometimes, even if other people think of it as a big risk. If you know it’ll help move you forward, trust your intuition and bet on yourself, and you just might speed up success. Whether it’s hiring a team member, investing in a new software or running paid ads to grow your business, go with your gut! 

Don’t Be Afraid to Fail 

In an age where every guru makes entrepreneurship look easy, I love Nathan sharing his story about how challenging it was to get started. In the first month of running Foundr, he only made $80, and by month five or six was only making a few hundred dollars. But he didn’t let that get him down, even though others might have looked at that as “failure.” 

Nathan was happy to be doing what he was doing and stayed optimistic about the future. Instead of quitting, he continued to reframe his situation and used this fire to push forward. 

The same goes for you — just remember, wherever you’re at in your journey, keep going. As long as you’re chasing your passion and helping others, it will work out if you keep moving forward. 

Don’t forget, nothing great happens overnight! Ignore the haters and online gurus who tell you that it can happen tomorrow. Instead, keep your head down, focus on your big vision, and put in the work. 

Use Live and Automated Webinars

When it comes to running successful webinars, Nathan shared his secret ingredient: storytelling! 

Whether it’s a live or automated webinar, he uses stories to speak to his audience  So should you. And don’t just talk at them. Instead be honest, vulnerable and share your story with them. This will help them get to know, like, and trust you so much faster (which can correlate to more sales as well)! 

The great thing is that you can use live and automated webinars to tell your story. As Nathan and I discussed, he started by doing weekly live webinars (and ran over 150 in total) before switching to automated webinars. Eventually, he realized live webinars weren’t as scalable for his business, and wanted to automate them to continue to scale and impact more students. 

Running that many live webinars helped him learn more about his audience and how to sell more effortlessly, which is probably why he has tons of successful masterclasses.  He understands the problem and speaks to a solution: his paid programs. 

Are you ready to start running automated webinars? Click here to learn our automated webinar best practices today! 

Focus on Value

If you’ve ever attended one of his training sessions, you know how valuable they are (whether you invested in a course afterwards or not). At EasyWebinar, we believe the same thing, and echo  Nathan’s thought  that you should focus on serving your audience by sharing valuable information. 

An attendee should walk away better for showing up, regardless of if they invest in your program or not! Don’t forget, sometimes people need to see your offer a few times before they are ready to join your program and start working together.

As long as you’re not pushy and selling constantly, and you are instead focusing on value , they’ll be more likely to work with you in the future. 

Keep Testing and Tweaking

As Nathan said during our interview, “You don’t get it right the first time.” Whether it’s a new webinar topic or style, a brand-new business, or a new online course you’re launching; it often won’t go right the first time. 

But that’s okay, as long as you have the attitude to keep adjusting and adapting. Even though Foundr  now has several high converting webinars, they are constantly looking for ways to improve. 

Adapt the same mentality in your business too! 

Test and tweak all parts of your webinar funnel, from registration page, total time, formats, and more. Keep testing so you can improve your weaknesses and create the best experience possible for your attendees. 

A great example of this is how Nathan runs his Instagram Masterclass. Unlike a normal webinar, he doesn’t use a slide deck at all! 

Instead, he runs it more like an interview style training session to  match his brand. Some people would’ve been scared of breaking the norm, but Nathan trusted his gut and wanted to create an even more immersive experience.  

He only learned that was most effective by constantly testing and tweaking. While there are a lot of webinar best practices, don’t forget to think outside the box and test a new idea when you get one! 

Crank Out Free Content 

There’s no “guru gatekeeping” with Foundr and their free content. 

As Nathan said in our interview, “99.9% of all of our content is free for anyone who wants help building an online business.” While they do offer a library of courses to people who want to take the next step, the overwhelming majority of his content is free (and very in-depth).

The best part is that it’s not just one type of content either. Instead, they’re making a very concerted effort to help people using written, audio, and visual content. That means regular content in all forms including: 

• Social media posts
• YouTube tutorials videos 
• In-depth long form blog posts 
• Free training webinars (using EasyWebinar)
• Podcast episodes (with a spinoff series coming in 2021) 

Having this much epic free content helps Foundr attract the right audience and get them to sign up for their list. This is where they can build rapport and create a relationship with these people at an even deeper level. 

But the best part? 

All of this teaching and training is from real-life practitioners. For example, Gretta Van Riel, who teaches their e-commerce course, is an expert in the subject and has launched four e-com businesses herself.  Only working with expert practitioners has helped to grow Foundr and create even more content for users in a variety of niches. 

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to find just one nugget, as it was such an insightful chat. But  here’s what I’ll leave you with: Chase your passion and focus on serving your people above all else. 

Without passion, nothing great will happen. I love the quote from Steve Jobs who said, “You have to have a lot of passion for what you are doing because it is so hard… if you don’t, any rational person would give up.”

And he’s 100% right. 

If you’re not obsessed with your topic and with helping others, you’ll give up before you reap the rewards. But if you know in your heart that you can help people with your product or service, it’s up to you to show up and honor your gifts. Of course, it’ll probably be tough in the beginning, but I promise it’ll be worth it. 

As Nathan talked about in the interview, he wanted to quit frequently  at the start of his journey, but leaned on his small subscription base for inspiration. He wanted to honor his commitment to them, and just kept showing up. Now, he runs one of the most successful online training businesses and impacts entrepreneurs around the world! 

Watch the full interview here 

Next Steps 

As we talked about in the interview, Nathan has been a huge fan of EasyWebinar for over a year, after switching from another platform, and uses it to scale his business. He even said that “EasyWebinar is the most powerful tool on the market. The reason I love it is that you can customize it.” 

So if you’re ready to start scaling your online business with live and automated webinars, click here to start our 14-day free trial.

When you join, you’ll get instant access to: 

• Live and automated webinars: We make it easy to run live and automated webinars, even if you’re just getting started in your entrepreneurial journey. Use live webinars to get to know your audience and master your public speaking & selling skills, then convert to automated webinars like Nathan did. This will help you impact more people, scale your business, and you won’t have to show up to run live events each week. 

• Pre-made templates: Nathan and his team love EasyWebinar because you can use its software for everything. From creating the registration page, thank you page, and adding a widget to your website, we make it simple! If you’re an advanced user, you can also hard code our templates to match your brand or use one of our templates as well. Plus, we have a new page builder coming out soon! 

• Integrations: Also, EasyWebinar connects with all of your favorite software providers and applications to make your life easier. We connect with all major email marketing providers and payment processors to make everything in your business run smooth. Plus, we also connect with Zapier for more than 1,500 other applications! 

>>Check out Easy Webinar’s pricing here to find the best package for your business.