Today I’m sharing my convo with Sam Corcos, the co-founder and CEO of Levels, a health startup that’s raised $67 million (including from a16z) and used a portion of it to turn his co-founder Casey into a well-known influencer with nearly a million followers after appearances on Joe Rogan, Andrew Huberman, Tucker Carlson, and many more podcasts.
Sam was candid about all of their growth strategies, not only for Casey’s accounts but for the business as well.
As a reminder, each Thursday I’ll interview a world-class founder about their unique paths to uncover tactical insights they've learned about how to fundraise, grow, validate, hire, scale, and lead teams.
A big thanks to our partner for this episode, Athena.
Everyone knows that, at a startup, everything takes longer than you expect.
But the best way to minimize that is by having an (affordable, well-trained) assistant. At this point delegation probably saves me around 20 hours every week.
Highly recommend chatting with the Athena team, and you’ll get $1,500 off for signing up at athena.com/houck
In my chat with Sam we discuss:
Sam’s Startup Journey
(01:24), How Sam almost didn't become an entrepreneur
(05:46), Sam's companies before Levels
(09:45), Early entrepreneurial lessons learned
Customer Insights
(17:19), Importance of understanding customers
(21:12), Customers are directionally correct
(22:48), Engaging with customers
PR & Community
(11:59), Power of PR for startups
(27:20), Building community at Levels
(29:16), Community as a growth strategy
Content & SEO
(30:37), Levels' SEO strategy
(33:25), Focusing content efforts
(35:18), Content as a hiring tool
(41:24), Measuring influencer ROI
(58:14), Creator partnerships insights
(59:13), Increasing content breakthroughs
(1:02:38), Pursuing a viral content strategy
(1:04:25), Value of follower count
Market Positioning & Growth
(53:42), Carving a niche in a crowded market
(56:11), Sustaining growth over time
(1:06:04), Selling before launching
(1:08:25), Finding product-market fit
Networking & Efficiency
(1:11:13), Building a broader network
(1:14:28), Network theory for investors
(1:16:20), Creating systems & delegation
(1:01:15), Time management in growth
Rapid Fire
(1:18:15), Who's an investor you'd recommend?
(1:18:48), One thing you'd change about startups?
(1:20:17), Advice for first-time founders?
(1:20:28), Something you believe that most disagree with?
Here’s where to find Sam and Levels:
X → x.com/SamCorcos
LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/samcorcos
Startup → levels.com