How I Made $7,000,000 from Instagram in 18 Months
Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Isaac French's remarkable journey of building a $7 million hospitality empire through strategic storytelling and audience development.
1. Build less, spend more to create exceptional experiences
The secret to creating wildly successful hospitality ventures lies in a counterintuitive approach: build fewer units but invest significantly more money per unit. Isaac French distilled this wisdom into six words: "Build less units, spend more money." This philosophy runs counter to the American mentality of bigger being better, but it creates exponentially better results.
When French built Live Oak Lake, he focused on seven carefully designed cabins rather than pursuing maximum capacity. Each cabin was meticulously crafted with Nordic-inspired design elements, perfectly framed views, and thoughtful details that created a magical, transportive experience. The investment of $2.3 million across seven units allowed for an extraordinary level of quality that guests had never experienced before.
This approach works because customers notice care and craftsmanship, even when they can't articulate exactly what makes something special. The extra 20% of effort and investment yields 80% or even 800% more value in terms of guest satisfaction, word-of-mouth marketing, and premium pricing power.
2. Document your journey while building to maximize storytelling potential
The biggest missed opportunity in French's Live Oak Lake project was failing to document the building process in real-time. He admits this was his number one regret because the construction journey contained absolute storytelling gold that could have built an audience from day one. Building in public creates a natural narrative arc that people love to follow.
The power of journey documentation lies in people's inherent desire to follow transformation stories. Whether it's a couple driving the Pan-American Highway or someone building a cabin on a Finnish island, audiences are magnetically drawn to authentic progress narratives. These stories work because they're impossible to replicate with AI and offer genuine, human experiences.
French learned this lesson and now emphasizes that if you're building something interesting like a micro-resort or landscape hotel, you must share the process publicly. The storytelling becomes a marketing asset that continues paying dividends long after the project is complete, as evidenced by his viral Twitter threads about past projects.
3. Combine online and offline strategies for exponential growth
The most powerful business model emerges when you seamlessly blend digital audience building with physical experiences. French's approach created a flywheel effect where real-world experiences generated content, which attracted audiences, which drove bookings, which funded expansion. This virtuous cycle compounds over time.
At Live Oak Lake, French built an Instagram following from 5,000 to 150,000 followers, driving 80% direct bookings. This audience became so valuable that it represented a substantial portion of the $7 million exit price. The buyer explicitly stated that the audience was a primary reason for the acquisition, as it could be leveraged across multiple properties.
The key insight is that neither purely digital nor purely physical businesses can achieve the same exponential results. Physical experiences provide authentic content that digital-only creators struggle to generate. Meanwhile, digital audiences provide sustainable revenue streams and customer acquisition that traditional hospitality businesses find difficult to achieve.
4. Design and taste are the biggest levers for making people feel something
Design represents the most powerful tool for influencing how people feel, whether in physical spaces or digital experiences. French learned from Hans Lauray that "design is the biggest lever that you can pull in the way other people feel." This principle applies equally to hospitality environments, branding, content creation, and storytelling mediums.
Taste, while seemingly subjective, can be developed through intentional observation and practice. It involves the ability to discern beauty across various mediums—music, art, writing, architecture, and human interactions. French emphasizes that anyone can improve their taste by studying what they admire and copying great examples until they internalize the principles.
The marriage of excellent design with genuine hospitality creates an unbeatable combination. When guests at Live Oak Lake experienced the handwritten notes, perfect lighting reflections on water, and carefully framed cabin views, they felt truly cared for. This emotional impact translated directly into repeat bookings and word-of-mouth referrals.
5. Twitter serves as the ultimate testing ground for viral stories
Twitter functions as a petri dish for stories—if content performs well there, mainstream media will likely pick it up. French's train car restoration thread reached 20 million views in two days, leading to coverage in Vice, New York Post, Business Insider, and numerous podcasts. The combined reach exceeded 100 million views across all platforms.
The platform's unique ecosystem includes lurking journalists and producers with minimal followings who actively search for compelling stories. These media professionals monitor Twitter for content worth adapting to larger platforms and traditional media outlets. A single viral thread can cascade into television appearances, documentaries, and sustained media coverage.
French's success came from understanding that Twitter rewards concise storytelling with powerful visual hooks. His train car thread succeeded because it combined two photos showing dramatic before-and-after transformation, paired with carefully crafted copy that took eight hours to perfect. The visual storytelling worked across two mediums simultaneously, creating a compounding effect.
6. Hospitality mindset drives successful negotiations and relationships
The hospitality mindset—genuinely caring about others' needs and finding creative solutions—applies far beyond guest services to business negotiations and community building. French's family successfully acquired properties by understanding what sellers truly valued, often discovering non-monetary motivations that traditional buyers missed.
When purchasing the brick building in Derry, they realized the elderly owner cared more about his car collection than maximizing sale price. By offering to build him a covered structure for his vehicles and handle the relocation, they secured the property at below-market rates while providing immense value to the seller. This white-glove approach demonstrated genuine care for his actual needs.
The same principle guided French's approach to content creation and audience building. By sharing detailed financial information, mistakes, and lessons learned without immediate monetization, he built trust and provided value first. This generous approach to sharing knowledge created reciprocal relationships that generated exponentially more opportunities than protective strategies would have achieved.
7. Personal brands and business brands should be strategically separated
French learned the importance of maintaining separate personal and business social media accounts to maximize flexibility and value. Personal brands should focus on individual stories, experiences, and behind-the-scenes content, while business accounts concentrate on the product or service itself. This separation creates two valuable but distinct assets.
The strategy allows creators to leverage their personal story to build business brands through Instagram's collaboration features. Personal accounts can tag and cross-promote business accounts without limiting either brand's development. People trust individuals more readily than companies, making personal brands crucial for initial audience building.
This separation becomes critical during business exits. When French sold Live Oak Lake, the business brand and email list transferred to buyers, but maintaining a separate personal brand allowed him to continue building his own audience. The lesson applies to any entrepreneur who might eventually want to sell their business while retaining their personal platform and influence.
8. Email lists provide the highest value per subscriber
Email subscribers represent exponentially more value than social media followers because you own the relationship and can directly reach your audience. French emphasizes that email conversion should be the primary optimization focus for any content creator building a business. The bridge between content and email signup requires seamless integration rather than generic calls-to-action.
Effective email acquisition involves providing story-specific value that directly relates to the content people just consumed. Instead of generic newsletter signups, French recommends offering detailed breakdowns, financial information, or exclusive insights that extend the story readers just invested time in. This creates natural curiosity and provides immediate value.
French's email list of just 1,800 people generated a $330,000 course launch in seven days. This demonstrates the power of highly engaged subscribers who trust the sender and value the content. The recurring revenue from his membership program now generates hundreds of thousands annually, proving that smaller, engaged email lists outperform massive but disengaged social followings.
9. Content creation becomes a systematic operating system
The most efficient content creators develop systems that transform one piece of high-quality content into multiple formats across different platforms. French invested heavily in perfecting Twitter threads, which then became the foundation for newsletters, short-form videos, podcasts, and other content types. This approach maximizes the return on creative investment.
Starting with writing forces clarity of thinking and story structure. French quotes the distinction between "writing that clarifies your thinking" and "writing that amplifies your thinking." Twitter's character constraints teach concise storytelling, which then adapts easily to other mediums that require even more brevity, like short-form video content.
His first short-form video generated 160,000 views by simply adapting an existing thread with green-screen presentation. The story structure, visual assets, and key messages were already refined through the Twitter process. This systematic approach allows creators to scale their content production without proportionally increasing their creative workload.
10. Building with family creates unmatched trust and scale
Working with family members provides a foundation of trust and understanding that's nearly impossible to replicate with traditional business partnerships. French's family successfully operated multiple businesses across Derry, Idaho, because they shared common values and could depend on each other's commitment to collective success.
The Patel motel strategy demonstrates how family collaboration can create lasting wealth and impact. By pooling resources and paying success forward to other family members, they eventually owned more than half of all motels in the United States. This model works because family members naturally think in longer time horizons and prioritize collective success over individual gain.
French's family transformed an entire town by approaching business development as a team effort. Different family members contributed their unique skills—construction, baking, quilting, hospitality—while supporting each other's ventures. This approach allowed them to tackle projects that would be impossible for individual entrepreneurs while creating a sustainable economic ecosystem that benefits the entire community.