023 – Building and Scaling an Online Business (and how to do it) with Cliff Ravenscraft

The Entrepreneur Ride Along Podcast - Online Business and Niche Site Ideas for Entrepreneurs

Today, I am excited to interview Cliff Ravenscraft, the Mind Set Answer Man.

Cliff is a big inspiration of mine. Cliff has been my mentor, and coach, for the past three years. Through his coaching and content, Cliff has helped me to become a better person and better entrepreneur.

This is an excellent episode, Cliff gives us a full behind the scenes of the various businesses that he has started and scaled over the past fifteen years. Cliff has done it all. From an eBay store, to the original podcast coach (when he was known as the Podcast Answer Man), to his current business coaching and teaching entrepreneurs through his one-on-one coaching, mastermind groups, and conference. Cliff tells it all in this podcast episode, sharing the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, and sharing an in-depth analysis of his finances to give you a better understanding of what is possible in the online business space.

Cliff Ravenscraft Case Study

Cliff is featured in chapter three of my business ideas book. Below is the case study from the book where Cliff is featured. This comes directly from chapter three of the book:

Start small, start niche as I recommend. Learn the ropes, learn everything you can about being your own boss and building your own business. Then go big and scale this business or launch your next big business with everything you have learned. Take Cliff Ravenscraft for example. Now one of the biggest names in podcasting and personal development, Cliff’s first business was teaching people how to make money selling on eBay. He sold a digital product teaching how to build an eBay business. Then he pivoted, to a totally different interest in his life, and started a blog about the hit TV series Lost. This blog later turned into Cliff’s first podcast. He got hooked on podcasting. He started to experience some financial success from his podcast about Lost and another podcast about The Hunger Games. He was making revenue from affiliate products and selling advertisement space on the podcast, but during this first venture into online business he learned a lot about podcasting. So, he started teaching others how to create podcasts. He later became known as the Podcast Answer Man, turning his hobby into the biggest podcasting education brand in the world making over $500,000 per year! But that is not where Cliff stopped. In 2018, Cliff decided to shut it all down and pivot again. Pivot to focus more on what he loved doing, teaching and life coaching. He totally shut down his podcasting business, a business capable of making $500,000 per year. Cliff took everything he learned about business over the past ten years and quickly became known as the Mindset Answer Man, with a life coaching business generating over $300,000 within the first year.

Like Cliff, like me, like so many other entrepreneurs. Your first business does not need to be your last. If Cliff had continued his eBay store, or never moved on from his Lost podcast, he never would have grown into the Podcast Answer Man and never would have become the Mindset Answer Man. He would probably still be working as an insurance agent in Northern Kentucky. That being said, if he had not started on eBay and learned about online business, if he never started the Lost Podcast and learned about podcasting, if he had not started small and grown, we would not know who Cliff Ravenscraft is and hundreds of thousands of lives would be worse without him.

This is your starting point. This first idea is your “Lost Podcast”. It might be your $500,000 business, but it does not need to be. This is the first step; this is a stepping stone to get you started in entrepreneurship. This is the starting line, start with this one small business.
Learn to crawl first. Then learn to walk. Then take off sprinting.