Chris Do

The Futur

The Futur: How Emmy-Winning Designer Chris Do Built a $4.9M Education Business from YouTube

7 years

$100K ARR

Sonstiges

Growth Channel

Co-Gründer

Founder

Chris Do

Co-Gründer•Non-technical•US

Commitment

Side Project

Experience

Experienced

Product

The Futur

Eine Community-fokussierte Holding-Company, die Internet-Geschäfte aufbaut, akquiriert und inkubiert, die von Online-Zielgruppen und Communities angetrieben werden.

Type

Info-Produkt

Industry

Bildung

Model

Hybrid

Marketing Strategy

How Chris acquired customers

Growth Channel

Sonstiges

Also Used

MundpropagandaSEO / Content

Tech Stack

Tools used to build The Futur

YouTubeWordPressKajabiAdobe Creative SuiteZoom

The Full Story

TL;DR

Nach zwei Akquisitionen (5by von StumbleUpon, Islands von WeWork) und Beraterrolle bei TikTok und Reddit startete Chris Do The Futur. In drei Jahren erreichte es achtstellige Einnahmen ohne externe Finanzierung.

Chris Do ist ein Emmy-prämierter Designer aus Montreal mit einem Computer-Science-Abschluss der McGill-Universität. Sein Karriereweg liest sich wie eine Meisterklasse in Community-gesteuerten Unternehmen.

Zwei Akquisitionen vor dem 30. Geburtstag

2012 gründete er 5by, eine Social-Video-Discovery-App, die 2013 von StumbleUpon akquiriert wurde. Anschließend baute er Islands, eine Community-Messaging-App auf, die 2017 von WeWork akquiriert wurde. Nach der Akquisition wurde Chris Head of Product Strategy bei WeWork und diente später als Berater für TikTok und Reddit zu den Themen Community und Produktstrategie.

Das Holding-Company-Modell

Im Juni 2020 startete Greg das Late Checkout mit einem Modell, das er über Jahre hinweg durch die Beobachtung von Community-gesteuerten Produkten verfeinert hatte. The Futur operiert mit drei Armen: einer Agentur (30-Tage-Design-Sprints), ein Studio (Aufbau und Akquisition eigener Produkte) und ein Fonds (Investitionen in Community-basierte Startups).

Das Playbook: Einflussreiche Zielgruppen finden, Produkte aufbauen, die sie brauchen, Betreiber finden, um jedes Unternehmen zu führen, dann den Cashflow nutzen, um das nächste zu akquirieren.

8 Millionen, $0 Externe Finanzierung

Innerhalb von drei Jahren erreichte Late Checkout achtstellige Einnahmen ohne externe Finanzierung. Chris' 350K+ Twitter-Follower wurden zum primären Vertriebskanal — jeder Post über Community-Aufbau, Startup-Ideen und Internet-Geschäfte trieb Dealflow und Kundeninteresse an.

2024 akquirierte Late Checkout 50% von Boring Marketing, das eine Freigeldflussprojektion von $2-3M generieren soll. Das Portfolio wuchs weiter durch Chris' Fähigkeit, unterbewertete Internet-Geschäfte mit starken Community-Grundlagen zu identifizieren.

Frühere Exits: 5by (StumbleUpon, 2013), Islands (WeWork, 2017)
Gegründet: Juni 2020
Umsatz: Achtstellig ($10M+)
Finanzierung: $0 externe Finanzierung
Twitter-Follower: 350K+
Modell: Agentur + Studio + Fonds

Key Takeaways

Das Studio/Holding-Company-Modell lässt Sie mehrere Versuche machen, statt alles auf ein Startup zu setzen

Community ist der neue Wettbewerbsvorteil — jedes Geschäft im Portfolio wird von einer Internet-Zielgruppe angetrieben

Nutzen Sie Agentur-Umsatz, um Produktentwicklung zu finanzieren — Services generieren Cashflow, während das Studio Eigenkapital aufbaut

Bauen Sie zuerst Ihre persönliche Zielgruppe auf (Twitter, Newsletter, Podcast), dann nutzen Sie sie als Vertriebskanal für alles, was Sie aufbauen

Originally published onThe Futur (Chris Do Bio)

Founder proof brief

A one-page proof brief turns Chris's The Futur playbook into your next test.

See what it covers before you sign up: the pattern worth copying, the channel to test, and the risk to avoid when you adapt this story.

Pattern

$100K ARR

Channel

Sonstiges

Output

Action checklist

What a proof brief covers

A one-page brief that turns Chris's pattern into a testable plan
Channel bet: start from Sonstiges
A risk check before copying the The Futur playbook

See what a proof brief covers

See what it covers first. Create an account only if you choose to unlock.

Inspired by Chris's journey? Generate a business idea in the Bildung space using AI and real founder data.

Milestone Journey

Chris achieved 3 milestones on the path to $100K ARR

Erster Kunde

2 years

January 2016

Avg: 1 month

+3 years to next milestone

$10K MRR

5 years

January 2019

Avg: 1 year

+2 years to next milestone

$100K ARR

7 years

January 2021

Avg: 2 years

7 years

Total journey time

Milestones achieved

Against every documented journey

Chris Do reached $10K MRR in 5.0 years, faster than 5% of the 295 documented $10K journeys (median 12 months). The amber bar is this journey.

See the full distribution

Chris's Path to $100K ARRPremium

The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone

How Chris actually did it

7/7 funnel stages sourced

Reconstructed from Chris's own published sources. Quoted claims are the founder's words, verified verbatim; anything marked as our analysis is exactly that.

Where the idea came from

Pivot from prior productPivot from The School — a design-education venture Chris Do co-founded around the mid-2010s with fellow ArtCenter alum Jose Caballer. They ran it together for about two and a half years before they could no longer run it together and split up; Chris then continued alone under the new name The Futur.

Chris Do had taught design at ArtCenter for 15 years while running his agency Blind. Fellow ArtCenter alum Jose Caballer, who had seen Chris post about running workshops, approached him about partnering on an education company. They co-founded a venture called The School and ran it together for about two and a half years until they could no longer run it together and split up. Chris then continued alone under the new name The Futur; he credits Jose as the one who pushed him onto YouTube and into information products in the first place.

“we started this company called the school and we ran the school for two and a half years together until we couldn't run it together”

Chris Do, "Who Is Chris Do & The Futur? Origin story" (The Futur's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript)

Validation

OtherValidated

There was no discrete pre-launch validation step (no survey, landing page, or presale). The channel's own content was the test: early general-interest design videos drew little engagement, and only once Chris started talking candidly about pricing, business practices, and delegating work did the audience visibly respond — which the team then doubled down on.

Chris Do says the switch from general design videos to direct, practical business-education topics is what made an audience first show up in a real way.

“it wasn't until i started talking about being very transparent about pricing business practices how to delegate work that then the audience showed up”

Chris Do, "The Story Behind The Futur YouTube Channel & Chris Do" (Chris Do's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript)

First test users

Content readersFree testersYouTube — The Futur channel

The first audience was made up of free YouTube viewers. Chris Do's own account is that the audience only really showed up once the content shifted from general design topics to direct, practical business-education content (pricing, delegating, sales).

“it wasn't until i started talking about being very transparent about pricing business practices how to delegate work that then the audience showed up”

Chris Do, "The Story Behind The Futur YouTube Channel & Chris Do" (Chris Do's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript)

First paying customer

Content readersFree to paid upgrade$99

The first paid product was Typography I, Chris Do's first ever course, sold at a $99 early bird rate. He acquired buyers out of the free YouTube audience: each week's lesson was livestreamed free on YouTube as a preview and then taken down after 24 hours, which drew a record live turnout and pushed viewers who missed it or wanted permanent access to buy. The price later went to $299, and he says the course has grossed over $700k in total.

“the course was Livestreamed for free, on YouTube each week, as a preview, and then taken down after 24 hours”

Chris Do public LinkedIn post: "Several years ago, I launched my first ever course—Typography I for $99 (early bird rate)"

Acquisition channels, and whether they worked

Other · YouTube — The Futur channel (free content)Pre-launchWorked

Shifting video topics from general design content to direct, transparent business-practice content (pricing, delegation, sales negotiation) is what Chris Do credits with the audience first showing up in numbers.

“it wasn't until i started talking about being very transparent about pricing business practices how to delegate work that then the audience showed up”

Chris Do, "The Story Behind The Futur YouTube Channel & Chris Do" (Chris Do's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript)

Other · YouTube — The Futur channel (funds paid products)ScalingWorked

Ben Burns frames YouTube as the passive top-of-funnel layer, with courses/community as the active layer for people who want deeper implementation support.

The Futur's COO Ben Burns describes an explicit reinvestment loop: revenue from paid courses, resources, and the Pro Group community is put back into producing more free YouTube content, rather than YouTube being treated only as a lead-gen funnel for the paid side.

Per Outseta customer case study, "How The Futur Built A $1M+ Community" (third-party, quotes Ben Burns, COO of The Futur, and Pro Group member Marcelo Russo)

What didn't work

TeamPre-launchCost: time

Chris Do and Jose Caballer co-founded and ran a joint education venture called The School for about two and a half years before finding they could no longer run it together, and split up.

“we started this company called the school and we ran the school for two and a half years together until we couldn't run it together”

Chris Do, "Who Is Chris Do & The Futur? Origin story" (The Futur's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript)

What they did instead: Chris continued alone under the new name The Futur. He still credits Jose as the person who got him onto YouTube and into information products in the first place.

PositioningPre-launchCost: time

In a separate account, Chris Do describes the channel's earliest videos as promotional — made to sell the products and courses he and Jose had already built — rather than purely educational.

Per Fabian Geyrhalter (FINIEN), "How Chris Do of The Futur Disrupted Design Education The Moment He Stopped Selling And Started Giving" (third-party written Q&A, condensed/edited, interview conducted Nov 2018)

Chris Do says the sales angle undercut the value the content actually delivered, and views stayed low until the tone changed to pure teaching with no pitch.

What they did instead: Dropped the sales framing entirely and published a purely educational branding deck with no product pitch; view counts jumped from roughly 30–50 per video to the hundreds per day once that shift landed.

How it changed as they grew

Bootstrapped

Pricing restructure: monthly Pro Group membership billing → quarterly ($449) or annual ($1,495) Pro Group membership billing

The Futur's COO Ben Burns says they learned through experimentation that a monthly commitment wasn't long enough for members to see results, while a full year was too large a commitment to ask for upfront, so quarterly became the middle ground.

Per Outseta customer case study, "How The Futur Built A $1M+ Community" (third-party, quotes Ben Burns, COO of The Futur, and Pro Group member Marcelo Russo)

What broke as they grew

Alongside the scalable YouTube/course/community model, The Futur also sells Chris Do's personal time directly — one-on-one coaching sessions and paid speaking engagements — which is priced at a premium precisely because it cannot scale the way the free content and productized courses do.

Our analysis, not the founder's claim

Sources (3 in the founder's own words)

Chris Do, "The Story Behind The Futur YouTube Channel & Chris Do" (Chris Do's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript) · founder-authored · 2021-12
Chris Do, "Who Is Chris Do & The Futur? Origin story" (The Futur's own YouTube channel, auto-caption transcript) · founder-authored · 2024-02
Fabian Geyrhalter (FINIEN), "How Chris Do of The Futur Disrupted Design Education The Moment He Stopped Selling And Started Giving" (third-party written Q&A, condensed/edited, interview conducted Nov 2018) · third party · 2020-09
Outseta customer case study, "How The Futur Built A $1M+ Community" (third-party, quotes Ben Burns, COO of The Futur, and Pro Group member Marcelo Russo) · third party
The Futur, Chris Do bio / coaching page (company site, third-person marketing copy, not founder-bylined) · third party
Chris Do public LinkedIn post: "Several years ago, I launched my first ever course—Typography I for $99 (early bird rate)" · founder-authored · 2022-06

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Frequently asked questions

How much does The Futur make?

The Futur's current revenue is not publicly tracked. The story documents the journey to $100k arr (achieved in 7 years), but the founder has not published updated revenue figures.

What is The Futur?

Eine Community-fokussierte Holding-Company, die Internet-Geschäfte aufbaut, akquiriert und inkubiert, die von Online-Zielgruppen und Communities angetrieben werden. It operates in Bildung.

How long did it take The Futur to reach $100k arr?

Chris Do took 7 years to reach $100k arr with The Futur.

Was Chris Do a solo founder?

No. Chris Do built The Futur with co-founders.

What marketing channel did The Futur use to grow?

The Futur grew primarily through Sonstiges.

What industry is The Futur in?

The Futur operates in Bildung.

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