6 biz and $10m in 2 years

Busy week, so coming to you on this beautiful Saturday:

- - - -

A deal signed with a 50 day close:

Regional leader in Germany in a niche Logistics and Transportation segment – owners are in their 60s, kids are not interested so they want to sell it.

• Revenue 26M EUR, EBITDA 5.7M EUR with 4.9M EUR free cash flow

• Price 20M EUR (3.5X EBITDA) with 15M EUR today and 5M earnout

A gentleman with private equity investment experience invests 2M EUR of his own money. (He has a 10M EUR debt from the Polish Credit Fund).

If you would like more information, maybe even sign an NDA to view the deal. Please fill out this form or contact me by replying to this email.

- - - -

Story time:

How I met a $500M man by knocking on rich people’s “gates” (and made my first semi-illegally profitable business in the process)

9 years ago, I was confused.

Didn’t know what to do next.

Didn’t speak English.

Had no skills other than sales.

No plan.

So what did I do?

I did what any young, dumb, overly ambitious 20-something from Eastern Europe would do…

I packed my bags and flew to Australia.

With just three goals written on a piece of paper:

1. Learn English

2. Start a business

3. Sell the business

That was it.

No backup plan. No friends. No clue.

Just blind faith and the belief that if I showed up and tried hard enough…

Something good would happen.

Turns out, I was right.

Let me explain…

1: How to Learn English

What’s the fastest way to learn English?

Simple. Get a sales job.

Preferably one where people slam doors in your face and curse you out if you screw up.

I landed at a company called Beevo.

B2B utilities. Electricity. Gas. EFTPOS machines.

Real boring stuff.

Every day, I hit the streets in different suburbs in Melbourne.

Knocking on doors.

Smiling wide.

Butchering my sentences.

Sweating through my shirt.

Did it for four months.

Saved some money.

Then got fired.

Honestly? Best thing that could’ve happened.

Step 2: Talk to Wealthy People

I realized something:

If I didn’t know what to do with my life…

Maybe people who have figured it out could help.

So I asked Google:

“Richest neighbourhood in Melbourne?”

Google answered:

“St Georges Road, Toorak.”

Most expensive street in Melbourne.

So I did what any reasonable person would do…

I walked over and started knocking on gates.

Yup. GATES. Not doors.

Security cameras. Intercoms. Giant steel fences.

And when someone answered, I said:

“Hello, my name is Mikk. I’m from Europe. I’ve never seen a house like this in my life. I’m just curious… What do people like you do?”

It was awkward.

Uncomfortable.

Sometimes I got yelled at.

But I had a rule with myself: if someone calls the police, I leave. No one ever did.

But I kept going.

Two to three times a week.

For three months.

Knocked on 100+ mansions.

And guess what?

Some people talked.

Some even invited me in.

One of them was worth $500 million.

His name? Andrew Abercrombie.

Another? A member of the Smorgon family. Billion-dollar bloodline.

Back to the story. They all told me the same thing:

“If you want to get rich, look into real estate.”

Step 3: Accidentally Start a Semi-Illegal Real Estate Business

So I did.

I found out that a bunch of Chinese entrepreneurs were sitting on tens if not hundreds of apartments in Melbourne CBD.

I pitched them: “Let me manage a few. I’ll take care of everything.”

They said yes.

First one cost me $1,250/month in rent.

I’d say it was dirt cheap.

I bought two bunk beds for each bedroom.

Packed 8 people into one apartment.

Charged $250/week per person.

Doing the math.

$250 x 8 = $2,000/week
$2,000/week x 4 weeks = $8,000/month
Minus rent?
That’s $6,750/month profit… on ONE apartment.

They were happy + I got free food because they always invited me to their place for dinner. Great people!

Then I got more units.

Until…

I found out you're definitely not allowed to put 8 people in one apartment.

I decided to exit and sold my part to my partner..

Not because I wanted to — I felt I had to because I don’t want to be involved in semi-illegal activities.

But honestly?

I didn’t know any better. I came from places where sharing a room was normal. I was just trying to survive and get ahead.

To sum up:

From moving to a foreign country…

To knocking on the gates of wealthy people…

To squeezing every last dollar out of an apartment…

I walked away with one big lesson — one that has impacted my life forever:

You get what you have the balls to ask for.

Ask bigger.

Knock louder.

Take shots that make other people uncomfortable.

Because fortune?

She favors the bold.

- - - -

How has been the week in the small holding company world?

Traditional business

Deal update. Even on a sunny Saturday.

There's a heavy equipment rental company deal I've been working on for 3-4 months.

It's owned by two gentlemen, both 50/50. One is eager to sell, the other wants to stay in business for another 4-5 years.

One guy is willing to sell his share right now, he just wants to relax and surf in Southern Europe. The "problem" is that I want to finance the acquisition with real estate (sale-leaseback); but the other seller doesn't want to give up the majority.

The broker is committed, the seller (the surfer) is committed, and I'm committed to making it happen – find creative ways to acquire 65-70% of the company by making an offer to the 2nd seller to sell some of his shares.

What makes it special is that the CEO and management are in place, and using a sale-leaseback structure, I could finance almost 100% of the acquisition with real estate.

This is one of those deals where the owners have built the company for 20+ years, and the second owner sees another 20% ROE per year for another 4-5 years.

Today, the company generates approximately 12 million in sales and 2 million in EBITDA.

Fintech/Consumer loan company

Few updates:

As we have been busy finding some key people like CFO and have completed equity and debt financing. Both DDs have taken a lot of time.

With a small team this has affected sales – we have done nothing to improve it in the last 6 months (lack of resources).

We will hopefully close the equity investment next week. The new CFO has been on board for the last 2 weeks. So we can finally start working on growing the portfolio more aggressively starting in April, so the second half of 2025 will be much better.

Here is the revenue:

I know this is still Mickey Mouse league for some of you who are following, but do me a favour and follow this journey for another 3-4 years and I hope to surprise you with what we are going to build.

- - - -

This week’s podcast:

Want to see the early days of a great holding company?

Built on one of the biggest leverages of the 21st century – content

I believe this could be the one. Take Arie Scherson.

• A youtuber in his 20s

• loves SaaS and ecom

• already 6 portfolio companies

• $10m+ in revenue

• bootstrapped and profitable

• started 7-8 yrs ago

• tested 15 different products

• $3k revenue in 6 months

• learned and mastered facebook ads

• experimented with spotify

• never got encouraged

• finally the first 10k/month

• followed by additional growth

• first investment

• more investments

• “it’s little bit scary to do multiple things

• does it anyway

• getting better at everything

• building a team and delegating

• repeat for years

Arie's simple yet very effective strategy (=catching fish where the fish are):

1. Traffic from social media

2. Folks interested in ecommerce

3. An agency to provide services for those businesses = cash flow

4. Reinvest cash flow into starting new businesses based on following trends

5. Or reinvest cash flow into acquiring a minority or the majority of other growing ecommerce brands

6. Getting sweat-equity based on your skillset

7. Repeat again

I hope you enjoy it.

Here are the links to Spotify, Apple podcast and YouTube.

That’s all for today.

Thanks for reading and talk to you again next week.

Take care,

PrivateEquityGuy / Mikk Markus