Why I spent $1,000 of my own money on SOFAST, and what I'm doing about it

Six months ago I started building Team SOFAST in the open.

The plan was simple. Take 21 years of Special Forces combat-medic work and put it into formats civilians could actually use. Books for the shelf. An app for the workout. A blog for the long answers. A discount tier on Patreon for the people who wanted closer access.

I funded the whole thing out of my retirement pay. Roughly $1,000 in the last 60 days — paid subscriptions to publishing tools, sponsorship trials, an audiobook narrator I ended up canceling, a video editor I ended up canceling, the Apple Search Ads activation that took me three weeks to even get a certificate for.

Today I'll tell you what that $1,000 has produced in revenue.

Zero dollars at first. Then $34.78 from the first Shopify buyer this week.

Not a complaint. An accounting.

Here's what I think I got wrong, and what I'm changing.

What I got wrong

I priced myself like a content creator. Not like what I actually am.

The market has tens of thousands of "tactical fitness coaches." Most of them have a YouTube channel and a CrossFit cert. There are approximately five hundred living Special Forces 18D combat medics in the United States. I'm one of them. I have 21 years of operational experience, including roles as Program Manager for the 10th Group Combatives, Advanced Combat Marksmanship, Urban Tactics, and Demolitions programs that trained over a thousand SOF Soldiers. I've taught the medics who teach the medics.

But on the page, I look like the other tens of thousands.

That's on me. I built the bottom of the funnel — $9.99 books, $4.99 app, $9 Patreon tier — and I never built the top of the funnel. The top is where someone who needs a Green Beret 18D and has the budget to hire one actually goes.

So that's what changes.

What I'm doing about it

I'm opening direct consulting slots starting this week.

Three tiers:

30-minute screening call · $50 — a call to see if I can actually help with what you're bringing me. If we book a paid session in the next 14 days, the $50 credits.

60-minute standard consult · $250 — for CCW practitioners, EDC owners, family safety planning, civilian medics, fitness coaches with operator-adjacent clients.

60-minute operator consult · $750 — for corporate security teams, executive-protection details, school safety committees, LE training units, EMS programs.

Every session is recorded for you to keep. You get a written framework summary inside 48 hours. You get 30 days of text follow-up on whatever we covered.

Limited slots, because it's me and there's only one of me. Booking opens at the link below.

What stays the same

Books still ship. The app still ships. The blog still ships. The Patreon tiers I have still run, and I'll be adding higher-touch tiers above them this week.

What changes is I'm not pretending to be the volume guy when I'm the credential guy. The mission stays the same — get the work I did downrange into the hands of the people doing it now in civilian life. The pricing just finally matches the math.

The honest part

If this lands, the next blog post will be "Why I made my first $5,000 in consulting and what I'm spending it on." If it doesn't, the next blog post will be "Here's what didn't work and why I'm changing direction again."

Either way, I'll keep the books open in public.

— Patch