Irvine-based Kajabi LLC has yet again reached a new revenue milestone, with users of the company’s software services generating $5 billion in collective sales since it was founded, up nearly 50% from about a year ago.
Kajabi was started in 2010 to help entrepreneurs and organizations build businesses with websites and other digital offerings such as online courses, coaching, membership communities, podcasts, newsletters and more in what it has dubbed the “knowledge economy.”
Roughly 60,000 individuals use Kajabi’s services.
The firm expects its customer count to further expand following a new partnership with Los Angeles-based The Hello Group Ltd., a multimedia talent agency that represents high-profile individuals such as musicians, actors and social media content creators.
The Hello Group inked a deal to use Kajabi’s digital tools and services to build websites and platforms for its clients in a new business line for the local software firm, called the Kajabi VIP Program.
“If they make it full-service, then we’ll give all the tech and we’ll provide the customer service support—basically all the tech support to get [things] up and running,” Kajabi President and Chief Growth Officer Sean Kim, who announced the partnership at this year’s VidCon Anaheim event, held last month at the Anaheim Convention Center.
The idea was proposed when Kim met Hello Group’s Chief Executive Taylor Jones at another convention last year.
Kajabi aims to expand the platform over the next several years as part of its goal to provide a full-service website building business for any type of client.
Kajabi’s Heroes
About a year ago, Kajabi Chief Executive Ahad Khan said the firm was handling north of $100 million in annual recurring revenue, a 267% increase since 2020.
“If you’re a customer of Kajabi, you pay us a subscription fee,” according to the CEO, who says his company doesn’t take a portion of the earner’s revenue, unlike some competitors.
A Kajabi subscription costs $119 per month billed annually for the basic service, while the pro service costs $319 per month on the same annual billing terms.
“Our priority number one is to help our creators understand how to build a sustainable business,” Kim, who joined Kajabi in February 2022, said. “How do we help them build a real business and not have to rely on social platforms?”
A few of Kajabi’s clients—which the firm refers to as “heroes”—attended VidCon along with Kim to discuss just how they use the firm’s slew of software services.
This included Matt Steffanina, a dancer and choreographer who built a dance lesson platform on Kajabi during the pandemic; Krista Williams, who used Kajabi to create a lifestyle podcast called “Almost 30” with 12 million downloads; and sneakerhead Darrin “DJ” Willingham Jr., who teaches his followers about the collector community and how to invest.
These “heroes” don’t require a large following either, according to Kim. He said the firm helps a wide spectrum of content creators from a thousand followers to millions of followers.
People also use Kajabi to create educational courses like how to pass a truck driver exam, how to operate a hair salon, or how to sleep train kids.
“We are serving people that have some valuable knowledge or content that can improve someone’s quality of life,” the executive said of not working with just influencers.
“If you have knowledge in that area, you have a business you can build on Kajabi,” Kim said.
Some clients have gone from making $200,000 to $1 million a year through Kajabi, with some clients earning more than $100 million after developing their own website.
Hello Group
The new partnership with The Hello Group is expected to create new revenue opportunities for leading creators, specifically those who want to create courses, podcasts and online communities using Kajabi.
These new users will have production and marketing costs covered through the partnership.
Hello Group CEO Jones noted that some of the agency’s creators may not have the bandwidth to learn how to use Kajabi’s services, so the new VIP program will provide support for those clients who already have a time-consuming career or venture in motion, and a more established fanbase.
Among the first batch of people to join via the partnership is DJ and musician Alawn who will teach a course on producing Korean pop music.
“If you have something that people are willing to learn about, this is the place to do it,” Kim said.
Kajabi is upping its involvement in local events like VidCon to broaden its clientele reach and spread the word about its new business lines.
“We want to go to where creators are, and help give them an education,” Kim told the Business Journal.
VidCon
This is Kajabi’s second time attending and its first year as a main sponsor of the Anaheim event, during which it hosted panels and created social content catered to the “creator” attendees with company representatives also available for consultations.
This year’s VidCon event brought in more than 55,000 attendees—up 10% from 2022. The convention invites digital creators, viewers, and related media companies to the event and offers different events and access to each group.
Ticket packages are separated into three categories called “tracks”—there is a community, creator and industry track for attendees to choose from.
Both community and creator ticket holders are skewing younger in age, according to VidCon representatives.
“Every year, a new subset of people ages into the demographic who sees these digital content creators as celebrities, which keeps the event fresh year over year,” Sarah Tortoreti, VidCon’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, told the Business Journal. She said this helps VidCon evolve alongside the digital landscape.
VidCon Grows Alongside $250B Creator Economy
VidCon has been held in Anaheim since moving from Los Angeles in 2012.
Last year marked VidCon’s return to the convention center for the first time since 2019 and brought in around 50,000 people.
This year, attendance reached 55,000. The annual event brings online creators, fans and industry professionals face-to-face and previously hosted up to 75,000 visitors.
A variety of educational panels, Q&A sessions, meet and greets and live performances were held throughout the weekend and took over all three floors of the convention center.
Over 100 exhibitors were also in attendance from event owner Paramount Entertainment to gaming firm Nintendo to media platform YouTube.
When VidCon first started in 2010, YouTube was one of only a few platforms where people built an online following based on niche topics and activities.
The growing giant that professionals now call the “creator economy” is currently valued at around $250 billion and expected to roughly double in size over the next five years, according to a report from Goldman Sachs.
VidCon aims to be the meeting place to drive and encourage this growth.
“We take a holistic approach to programming to incorporate the most relevant industry leaders, creators, entertainment companies and creator-centric businesses that are propelling the industry forward,” Sarah Tortoreti, VidCon’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, told the Business Journal.
