OnlyFans' $31M-Per-Employee Secret

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Plot twist, contrarians! Contrarian Marketer is making a surprise mid-week appearance.

Why? Because I just spotted something too good not to share immediately.

When a LinkedIn post reveals that OnlyFans is generating more revenue per employee than Apple, Google, and Amazon combined... well, that's worth breaking our Monday-only streak.

Think of this as your bonus dose of contrarian thinking for the week. No "Fun Thing" or "Feature" today - just pure, mind-bending business insights that couldn't wait until Monday.

Enjoying the newsletter? Hit the forward button and send to someone who could use a fresh perspective. Who knows, it might just spark some unconventional thinking in their week too.

Let's dive in…

A thing happened on LinkedIn last week. Alex Lieberman shared a stat that made me stop scrolling:

OnlyFans generates $31 million in revenue per employee.

That's up to 28x more than tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined.

Let that sink in for a second...

A team of just 42 people is running a $1.3 billion business. Here's how that compares to the tech giants:

• Amazon: ~$484,000 per employee

• Apple: ~$2.4 million per employee

• Google: ~$1.9 million per employee

• Microsoft: ~$1.1 million per employee

But this isn't another "OnlyFans is crushing it" story. There's a bigger lesson here for every business.

The real story? It's about platform economics

The old playbook of "more revenue = more employees" is dead. While this applies to most businesses, platform businesses in particular are proving you can scale revenue exponentially while keeping your team surprisingly small.

Here's what makes this possible:

1. User-generated content is the ultimate hack

   When your users create your product, you've cracked the code. Your only job? Build the infrastructure and curate. That's it.

2. Automation isn't optional anymore

   This level of efficiency only happens when you automate everything—from content moderation to payments. Leveraging the capabilities of large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard can handle the heavy lifting, allowing you to stay focused on strategy and growth.

3. Small teams, big impact

   While everyone else is hiring like crazy, the real winners are staying small and focused. They're building systems, not headcount. In case you missed it, here is more about the impact small team can have on B2B marketing.

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What this means for you

Before you post that next job listing, ask yourself:

• Could this be automated?

• Could your users/customers do this?

• Is this truly core to what makes you money?

Everyone's obsessed with hiring and "scaling teams", blah, blah. But maybe the most contrarian move is to keep your team small and focused on building systems that scale instead. Ah, that sounds much better.

Think about it: Would you rather build a company that needs 1,000 employees to generate $1 billion, or one that can do it with 50?

The answer might challenge everything you think you know about growing a business.

But hey, that's what being contrarian is all about.

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