72% IRR with $1-10m EBITDA companies

A quick note before we jump in…

I made an investment.

A growth agency focused on traditional niche companies.

It’s called Conversion-Ninja

Why invest in a growth agency?

I'll explain + why it'll help tons of traditional niche companies.

So..

1. If you run a traditional niche business which does $2 million to $10 million annual revenue.

2. And you have a board level desire to grow 50-200% annually.

Link to: Conversion-Ninja

I started using Conversion-Ninja in 2022; our revenue was $150,000

In 2023, we tripled it to $600,000

This year 2024, we’re on track to do $1.4 million to $1.5 million

Why Conversion-Ninja and CEO Priit?

• Email workflows,

• A/B testing,

• technical SEO,

• CRO,

• optimizing product pages,

• building & testing landing pages,

• defining buying journeys, etc.

Things most traditional business owners in their 50s, 60s and 70s never heard of…

Forget folks in their 70s, there are people in their 30s and 40s who have seen such words once or twice in life.

When it comes to implementing it – it's rocket science in the truest sense of the word.

So, here is the opportunity:

Conversion-Ninja already works with companies in the following areas:

• Manufacturing,

• Banking,

• Construction,

• Logistics,

Consumer goods type of businesses.

So, if you're a founder or an operator with a revenue between $2m to $10m AND you have a desire to grow 50-200% annually...apply here.

We’re growing this slowly. And we're only taking 3-4 new clients (for now).

Conversion-Ninja is going to be life changing for our customers.

If our team does a good job helping companies grow, I think we will help create tens if not hundreds of new jobs each year.

So, now you know.

Conversion-Ninja is a growth agency focused on boring niche companies and I'm pumped to show you everything we have planned.

- - - -

Too many people sleepwalk through life.

Mega post on how NOT to be the one, even if your second car is a Porsche 911, you have 3 kids and make $250,000+ a year.

Because it’s not about whether you follow your passion or not.

It's not about the amount of $$$ you make….

It's not that you're out of shape or have 6-pack abs….

It’s not that you take 3-4 family trips a year vs doing none…

None of that…

Actually It’s quite the opposite, and something we can all do.

It ALL comes down to picking up small tiny wins in whatever you do.

You know that feeling when something goes really well, you almost like to surprise yourself.

It makes you so happy that you want to listen to loud music while driving and feel like it's time to celebrate.

The feeling you post on FB or Instagram and Likes start coming in.

These small victories allow you to feel it — the power of "success events".

None of the grand things I mentioned very earlier in this post matter if you don't get those little dopamine hits from small accomplishments.

It's very hard to be happy and excited when nothing really happens and you pretty much lose all the time (a bit harsh, but you get the idea).

So how to NOT sleepwalk through life and how to achieve small victories?

I’ve seen it best when I’m setting small goals for myself:

• Posting a podcast for people to listen

• Sending out this weekly newsletter

• Raising a new round of funding for our company (could be as low as $10,000; the amount doesn't matter)

• Getting another 500 people who want to follow my journey on Twitter

You see, this allows me to win almost every week, sometimes even daily.

This makes it much easier for me to chase bigger long-term goals, like putting together a large private equity fund. Because I get that dopamine hit so often that it doesn't matter if it takes a year or two longer to reach a BIG goal.

These are all work-related goals, but this is who I am and this is what drives me.

You have to find what drives you.

Yes, you can keep winning all the time, you just need to set right very short-term goals and achieve them like clockwork.

You trick your brain by doing so.

Big wins take longer, and achieving those comes down to your attitude and tolerance for instant gratification.

I believe all this is to be a recipe of how NOT to sleepwalk through life.

Doing what I've described makes life so much fun and goal setting, and eventually achieving much easier.

Most importantly, you’re constantly happy — which your wife, kids and family appreciate more than you can ever imagine.

- - - -

I thought I loved what I was doing...until I couldn’t find product market fit.

Here's the story of what I learned from a guy who built a business that made almost $10 million in NET PROFIT selling VPNs.

With 9 employees…

In 2017, I found a VPN/affiliate site that made 6,500,000 USD profit.

Yes, in profit.

I did some research and found the owner of this business.

Surprise, surprise, he lives in the same city as me. Small world.

I approached him at a restaurant as he was eating out alone — sounds really weird but I smiled and said how are you and then introduced myself. (A closed mouth doesn't get fed anyway.)

I  was very generous, we talked for 10-15 minutes and he asked me to email him.

My goal was to create a website that reviewed CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software companies.

• Keap

• HubSpot

• Monday dot com

• Pipedrive

• Salesforce

• SugarCRM

• Freshsales

• Zoho

• Insightly

Sending emails back and forth.

His number one piece of advice:

“I would focus on creating content for the next year so your page gets bigger and so on. Try to become an industry 'go to' page - as much information as possible about CRM and CRM software.”

That's what I did the next year.

I was single back then, so I had a lot of time.

I woke up at 5 am and wrote straight until 10 am - again, I did that for more than a year.

It felt like I was torturing myself.

Which in some day I felt I did.

But I got used to it.

And I started to like it because I started to get better at it.

Years later I found a video of Jerry Seinfeld (the almost-billionaire comedian) saying:

“Find the torture you can tolerate that nobody else can. What's the painful thing you can do and think about for hours that would make others tap out within minutes? It can be difficult to find since you might not understand how unbearable things are for others when they're tolerable for you. It feels like trying to swim in the middle of the ocean for most, but for you, it's like doing some simple laps of a pool; tiring, but not hellish. If you can find it, you'll do well.”

Anyway, I researched different CRM software providers.

In short, this site started making me money.

But not through CRM affiliates, but rather through consulting.

Although I did not expect to build it. I received an offer to sell the page for $100,000; which I respectfully declined.

6 months later — I didn't want to do it anymore, I almost hated it — I asked if they were still interested in buying and they said no.

I shut down the website: CRMAdvice dot org; and moved on and started building another company.

The goal was to redirect my mind (since troubling, nagging thoughts about this business will always keep popping in).

A few months later I was free.

My mind was free.

Lesson 1 and 2:

Humans are extremely capable of doing anything they truly desire. You just have to put your head down and get the job done. For me, it was a writing period from 5am to 10am every day.

The importance of selling the right product: I couldn't really find the right product-market-fit; After 18 months, I learned that people and businesses don't buy CRM the same way they buy a VPN. Although they preferred to buy a consultation from me.

One thing leads to another.

Lesson number 3:

Having someone who is 5 or 10 years ahead of you, or someone who has built the exact business you want to build, gives you a huge advantage.

Looking back, he told me he wasn't sure about the niche, but when it came to traffic, content and growth, he was a true master and didn't hold back on advice

- - - -

This really went viral last week (550k views).

- - - -

How has been the week in the small private equity world?

Traditional business

I am negotiating terms with two companies. In both transactions, the current owner first wants to acquire the passive owner's shares. Then move on with me.

Why, you asking? This is because we only make acquisitions if there is a management team in place or the owner continues to run the business.

Consumer loan business

Few DD are going on with larger bond tickets:

• One is interested investing $300,000

• The other is a local fund, they’re interested in $1,000,000

Very important news: we offer customized payment solutions for our merchants, and one of the products is Click & Try - where customers can order up to 5 products at home without paying in advance.

People love it, it brings in thousands of new customers every month, and we do it profitably. (Which is often rare in our space.)

Take care,

Mikk Markus aka PrivatEquityGuy

Here is my 25 minute conclusion on the 7 hours of research I did on Justin Ishbia of Shore Capital Partners.

• 586 transactions

• Acquires $1-$10 million EBITDA companies

• Average deal $12 million

• 72% IRR

• 7x cash on cash returns.

Links to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YT can be found in the comment section below.

Thanks a lot for following the journey.