Apr 5, 2017 · 26m · top-founders
EP 620: ConversionXL Doing $200k+/Mo With 3 Products, Live Masterclass, Agency, and Self-Serve with CEO Peep Leja
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Nathan Latka interviews ConversionXL founder Pep Laja, who breaks down the business metrics behind CXL's $200k+ monthly run-rate across its enterprise optimization agency, live masterclasses, and corporate certification programs.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 48.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Nathan as informed peer 3.8 Guest teaching 2.9 Guest disagreement 1.3 Nathan pushing back 1.2
speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:16 Refusal to disclose subscriber counts
Pep flatly shuts down Latka's inquiry regarding self-serve subscriber volume, declaring the metric strictly confidential.
Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 10:15 Latka recalculates live course revenue per classLatka pushes beyond qualitative descriptions to calculate exact revenue numbers per course cohort at $500 a seat for 100+ seats.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:15 Pep corrects host's assumption about course delivery formatLatka reveals he assumed customers paid $500 for a simple hour-long webinar, prompting Pep to systematically lay out the multi-week intensive syllabus.
Nathan holds their own ▶ 6:28 Latka establishes agency baseline revenue through fast mathLatka pieces together the 15-client count and $10k retainer minimum to immediately establish the agency's $150k monthly baseline.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Nathan as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Nathan pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode Preview: Blueprint Registry and Nevin Shetty | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Latka opens the show with context on Pep Laja and ConversionXL, referencing their global Alexa ranking (~46k) to set the baseline before asking about business lines. | |
| Breakdown of the ConversionXL Agency Business Model | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Latka rapidly calculates agency unit economics, pressing on contract length and staffing, concluding the agency generates over $150k per month. | |
| CXL Institute Evolution: From Self-Paced to Live Learning | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Pep educates Latka on why self-paced courses fail due to poor completion rates under 15% across platforms like Coursera and Udacity, justifying CXL's live model. | |
| Unit Economics and Pricing of Live Masterclasses | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Pep explains email capture tactics, correcting general assumptions by emphasizing that pop-ups produce a 10x lift over static sidebar forms. | |
| Masterclass Delivery and Instructor Revenue Sharing | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | Latka assumes the $500 product is merely a one-hour webinar, but Pep clarifies it is an extensive eight-session, four-week live workshop with hands-on screencasting. | |
| CXL Institute Self-Serve Subscription and Enterprise Shift | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | Pep bluntly refuses to disclose customer numbers by declaring them confidential, then explains how high SMB churn forced a shift to mid-market and enterprise accounts. | |
| Promoting the CXL Live Conference in San Antonio | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | A straightforward promotional segment where Pep outlines the resort-buyout format for the upcoming CXL Live conference in San Antonio. | |
| Mid-Roll Sponsor: FreshBooks Accounting and Invoicing | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Following mid-roll sponsor reads, Latka guides Pep through the standardized rapid-fire 'Famous Five' concluding questions. | |
| Interview Recap and Closing Remarks | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Solo host outro summarizing CXL's multiple revenue tiers, followed by a sponsor call-to-action. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Pep Laja: CXL expanded from pure agency model into subscriptions in 2016
“For the longest time we were just an agency model. So flat monthly fee, which are a monthly retainer for our services. So for the first, Four years or five years, which did just that. And now last year, so middle of 20 16, we launched conversion Excel Institut…”
Laja: ConversionXL agency charges $10k to $20k monthly retainers
“We start from a minimum of 10,000 a month up to 20,000 a month.”
Laja: Agencies should avoid small businesses because effort equals enterprise clients
“So you know, one thing I've learned running agencies is like, it doesn't make sense to work with small businesses because the amount of work you put in, in terms of hours and effort, there's no real difference if you're working with a big client or a small cli…”
Laja: ConversionXL serves approximately 15 agency clients concurrently
“In the agency, I think we're doing like, 15 concurrently.”
Laja: Self-paced learning fails because people are inherently undisciplined
“Self-paced is not a good model for learning because people are inherently undisciplined. They don't make time for learning.”
Laja: Coursera, Udacity, and Udemy have completion rates under 15%
“Course completion rates in Coursera are less than 15%. Same for Udacity, Udemy, all those guys.”
Pep Laja: CXL sells an all-access annual plan for $2,500
“There is a plan that one can buy that's 2500 a year that gives you access to everything, live courses, as well as our subscription content.”
Pep Laja: CXL gets around 100 to 120 attendees per live masterclass
“About a hundred 120, depends on the topic, topic really.”
Pep Laja: CXL typically charges $499 per live course
“So I actually, so far, typically we charge four 99. We've done only one course. That's been two 99. Everything else is basically 500 bucks.”
ConversionXL adds over 100 opt-in subscribers daily
“Now we're adding you know, north of hundred people a day to the list, and it's all, you know, opt-in.”
Laja: Pop-ups outperform static sidebar opt-ins by 10x
“The difference between a pop-up and a static opt-in where it's just, you know, hanging there on a sidebar is like a 10 X.”
Laja: ConversionXL brings in 90% to 95% of masterclass buyers
“We, we're, we are bringing, let's say, 90, 95% of the buyers.”
Laja: ConversionXL takes over 50% share on instructor masterclasses
“Obviously we're taking a more than 50% share of all the sales.”
Laja: Small business subscriptions are difficult to build due to high churn
“These people want short-term gains. They don't want to invest or they don't have resources to invest in anything over the long haul. And then the churn was terrible. So it was very hard to build a business around and we're on small businesses, really.”