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Happy New Year Baby!
We’re two years into the year, and I’m motivated, excited, and a bit sad that it takes a magical turning of the calendar to get me “inspired” for some new goals.
Besides taking down my Christmas tree and not wishing people a “Happy New Year” 10 days into 2025, here are some of my big goals for the year.
1) Run 520 miles in 2025 - 10 miles a week
2) Track my meals for the next 90 days to set a new baseline
3) Grow The Founders Club to 500 members
4) Cut my screen time by 50%
5) Grow this newsletter to 100,000 subscribers
6) Successfully launch my pilates studio & open up two more
Do me a favor. If you love reading these or following me online. Stop reading this and hit respond back to this email and share with me some of your goals. Next week I’ll do a recap of some of the most ambitious ones (Don’t worry I won’t share your name).
Once a year I send out an email blast that simply shares ALL MY trusted contacts.
Today is that day.
Entrepreneurship is hard. It gets even harder when you work with shitty vendors. People that rob you of your money. Overpromise. Make you want to sue them. Or strangle them. You get my point. Building a business is fun; working with shitty people isn’t.
Over the past seven years of building CROSSNET, I have built a rolodex of incredible contacts. Below, you’ll find my current favorites. These are all people I have actively worked with for Founders Club or CROSSNET. None of them know that I am dropping their names or emails or that I’m even typing this, but I’m certain they are all going to smile when they get an email from you.
So here we go!
PS. Pro tip - Save this email. Star it. You may not need it now. I can almost guarantee you will at some point.
ALL MY CONTACTS
Email Deliverability:
I can’t be the only one who was really pissed off that nearly 30% of my emails ended up in my recipient’s junk mail this year. For a three-month period, CROSSNET and Chris Meade emails would automatically just go into my customer’s junk mailbox because I didn’t have my settings toggled correctly.
Several of the Founders Club brands have said the same thing that they experienced a 20-30% decline in deliverability in 2024, which led to thousands of dollars in missed revenue each week.
My friend, Mike Diesu, will give you a free email audit that he normally charges $500 for and fix your deliverability. He can also help you capture a ton more emails.
Mike Diesu - [email protected]
Facebook & Instagram Ads:
Its no wonder nearly all my friends work with the same performance agency to run their Facebook & Instagram ads. Luis & Uri from We Are Growth are absolute monsters at what they do. So tactical. So knowledge. And so good at treating your money like its coming out of their personal bank account. Nothing is worse than an agency that just cranks spend without profit in mind.
The coolest part is these guys will literally give you the most honest feedback on your content, help you storyboard and even create the content for you with their in-house design team.
These guys get it and should be charging 5x more than they do.
Luis Morales - [email protected]
Uri Weinberger - [email protected]
Amazon Management & PPC:
I’ve been using the same Amazon agency for the past three years. They are the only agency I have never fired. They are incredible. So good. I’d put my life on it. They’ve got CROSSNET to be the #1 volleyball net on Amazon. That legit means MORE versions of our net are sold than traditional volleyball nets on the biggest marketplace in the world.
Neema Guivian - [email protected]
Email Marketing:
If you're not raking in at least 20% of your revenue from email, you're probably not spending enough time on email marketing. I don't like to make general blanket statements like that often, but nothing is more important than making consistent and predictable revenue. Tadhg runs email marketing for Founders Club & CROSSNET and probably can squeeze in 2-3 more clients.
Tadhg Mooney - [email protected]
Performance Marketing Consultant
Not one person has been more important to CROSSNET’s success than Joel Padron. He was the backbone of our marketing team during CROSSNET’s rise to fame in 2020 and has gone on now to run paid media for some of the world’s largest brands. He is now removed from his agency days and working as a solo consultant.
Are you confused about how to scale? If you’re overspending? Why you can’t crack Facebook yet? Where to spend more on?
Joel is the absolute best. I’m so lucky to call him a good friend because every minute I get to spend talking about marketing with him he should be invoicing me thousands.
Joel Padron - [email protected]
Personal Branding & Copywriting
I’ll let you in on a little secret. 2024 was the first year I ever worked with a copywriter. I had crazy ambitious goals and wanted to post 3-5 times a day on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram; as well as this newsletter. That required help. Somebody I could trust. Somebody who could take the time to learn my voice and make it feel like I wasn’t using an AI robot.
Over the past twelve months, I’ve gotten to work with two incredible talents Johnny Brown and Kevin Stefanczyk.
I work with Johnny to help create all of my shortform copy on social. He’s been responsible for growing my Twitter following from a couple thousand to 50,000+ in the past 12 months. We then take that content and repurpose it on LinkedIn as well. Johnny has also helped me a ton to ideate for this newsletter and make sure I’m bringing you guys exactly what you want to read.
On the other hand, Kevin has been an absolute gem when it comes to longer form copywriting. From helping me posts for social, newsletter content, to sales emails he is an absolute stud. Lately he’s been helping me create a seven step email drip cadence for anybody who’s ever been to a Founders Club event. These guys are A+.
Johnny Brown - [email protected]
Kevin Stefanczyk - [email protected]
Save Money on Travel & Vacations
As I have been building The Founders Club, my brother Greg has been working on his new business, Vacation Club, in stealth for the past six months. He has one of the world’s largest networks of travel Instagram accounts in the world with millions of followers. Here’s the deal.
He gets vacations & hotels for free.
He gives them to you for 70% off.
You just need to create content that he can post on his pages. Win-win for everyone.
Greg Meade - [email protected]
3PL & Warehouse Space
I’ve had the pleasure of working with the best 3PL in the United States for the past two years. We used to warehouse all our product ourself and spent so much time pretending to be a logistics company when we should have focused on selling our products.
Ian & Reed are the BEST.
If you need a 3PL. Feel like you’re getting overcharged or are just another client in a cog of some machine. Reach out to them. You won’t regret it. They even have special Founders Club pricing.
Ian McCarthy - [email protected]
Reed Thompson - [email protected]
Photography & Video Work:
Did you know I've used the same two photographers and videographers for every single CROSSNET project since we started? Matt Kelly & Chay Nott are both ridiculous talents, who are great for turning around fast projects, photoshoots, commercials, and Facebook ads. Incredible work at a fraction of the big studio pricing. Matt lives out in LA, and Chay lives in Florida. Consider them your east & west coast coverage.
Matt Kelly - [email protected]
Chay Nott - [email protected]
UGC Content:
Sheridan Holland. We’ve used her so many times for content over the years and she ALWAYS crushes it. She can do anything from high-quality product reveals, testimonials and 15-30-second Facebook ads. Quick turnaround times, high-quality content, with a performance marketing mindset.
Sheridan Holland - [email protected]
Have a username that you’ve wanted for a long time? Got your account randomly locked and can’t get back in? Sean and his team are the best and got us @TheFoundersClub on Instagram when it seemed impossible.
Sean Calvin - [email protected]
Tik Tok Performance Marketing
If you’re looking to take Tik Tok seriously in 2025, then you need to work with Pedro & Timote. I met Pedro a few months back when he became a member of The Founders Club and they ABSOLUTELY CRUSH IT. I’ve never met somebody who understands Tik Tok and creative marketing at the level they do. No brainer person to hit up.
Pedro Antunes - [email protected]
Billboards & OOH:
Nobody gets better rates on billboards and out-of-home advertising than Michael.
Michael Palatnek - [email protected]
Web Design:
Love the new Founders Club website? I do too. It’s amazing - foundersclubofficial.com
The team at Otherlife are the BEST IN THE WORLD at what they do. We just did full on sprint a few weeks before Christmas and got the new V1 of our website up in about three weeks. A normal website agency would have taken 4 months to do the amount of work they did.
Nate - [email protected]
Personal Finance - Bookkeeping:
There’s legit nothing worse than getting to the end of the year and having to worry about catching up on all your books for taxes. I started working with Connor from EcomBalance two years ago and its been a game changer. My personal books for Chris Meade LLC have never been cleaner. We actually use it for Founders Club, and Aaron started using them personally, too. No better feeing than getting accurate reporting on a monthly basis on your life.
Connor Gillivan - [email protected]
Nate Hirsch - [email protected]
Shopify Landing Pages
Aeron is a beast. The best Shopify landing page builder I’ve ever met. Works super fast. Super affordable. Should charge 10x more but he’s young. Take advantage of the price savings while you can.
Aeron - [email protected]
1,641 words later, we recapped my entire Rolodex to 50,000+ subscribers. If you need something on this list, I recommend NOT WAITING, especially since the entire world just got this email.
These people are all incredible and have my personal vouch.
If you need something else that I didn’t list, let me know. I probably have the answer or know somebody with the answer.
Last up, if you’re in Miami I’m throwing two events next week that I’d love to have you come. They are both almost 100% booked up with Founders Club members, but we have a few seats available at each. First come first serve.
See you there! Have the most amazing year ever!
Chris