We bought a business

Heey there,

Something different today.

For a quick step away from our usual Friday course,
I’m sharing behind-the-scenes info with you.

Top secret.

We acquired a small business.

Bear with me for 1 sec.

Why is this interesting to you?

Because for the next few months (likely along with other actionable tips) we’ll be sharing a lot of data on how we are trying to build this venture up.

That means, that whether you are in business in general
or specifically in a growth-related position,
you can tag along, as we experiment with tactics,
test strategies and report on what worked and what failed.

So you can follow along and get direct information
on what it takes to build a business from about step 1 to profit.
That’s rather close to a course I think.
For free.

Topics I’ll cover today:

questions Ricardo, our founder answered 👇

• how did you find the business?

• what made you decide to acquire it with Saasmic?

• what are the goals with it in 2024?

• what are the long-term goals with it?

• how will you decide if it was a good acquisition?

So the business is called BetterPic.

It’s an AI tool for professional headshots. Instead of booking a photographer to get your pictures taken, you can upload a few selfies and boom.

The process looks like this:

1. you select the outfit & background you need

2. upload a few selfies

3. wait around an hour and select the best results

Where can you find a business like this
& what makes a business ‘like this’:

The project was found in the newsletter of sideprojectors.com.

What made this business stand out, besides the fact that it was for sale, were that:

• it has already generated ~$5K sales, and has monthly revenue, all without any advertising 

• it aligns with our goal of building our own ventures as an agency instead of constantly growing with new clients and new team members

• it consists of 1 AI developer which means our expertise has added value to the business

• founder wanted to stay and build together, which means we also gain new expertise as a team

• it’s relevant to current market trends » not much more relevant today than a business completely based on AI

• it’s also relevant to us, as we’ve been incorporating AI into our daily operations ever since the new language models emerged

• finally, it also helps our team to learn and gain further experience and lets us test a ton of ideas without having to risk clashing with clients

What is our goal with the business short & long term:

2024 goal:

Currently, the business generates around $1.5K/month in revenue.
We want to scale that to $50K/month, without expanding the team.

Long-term goals:

• build it up in the coming 2-3 years and then look for an exit

• expand current use cases and build to $125K/month

• see if it makes sense to further expand with it or sell

Evaluation criteria of the investment:

When it comes to evaluating the business there are a few different aspects to it.

Above all, with a smaller business like this, the goal is to experiment, learn and apply learnings.

The list of criteria can be summarised like so:

• Can we gain experience & further knowledge from building it up

  • The goal is to scale the experiences of each team member 

• Can we reach milestones along the way to $50K/month

  • There needs to be a constant evaluation along the road. For example at 10k, 25k etc.

• Did we gain a new relationship that can help expand our knowledge base

  • Even if this project doesn’t work out, we gain a smart team member, with skills that we didn’t have before, and we may pivot

Finally, while the ultimate goal when it comes to finances is profit if we manage to reach breakeven in the next 12 months, it’s a good indicator to scale further.

So that’s it for today.

Before I say goodbye, a quick poll:

Thanks for sticking all through the end 🤙

Keep learning and growing! 🚀 ❤️

1. How do you create a viral post?

Well, it’s probably not a silver-bullet situation.
But there are a few things I did, and you can do right:

1. used a meme - people love to let go

2. on a Friday - especially at the end of the week

3. used a proven template - people created very similar memes I’ve seen that had great results

4. added a controversial hook - people don’t like to feel like the butt of the joke

5. kept engaging - reacted to as many comments as fast as possible

Still, I won’t lie, how this post is doing surprised us all. But the point is to experiment with things that already have a proven track record. I don’t just mean the meme itself, but how something that did well was created and why it potentially did great.

Enjoyed the read?

Could you forward it to a friend? ❤️

Any questions or feedback you would be up to share with me?

I am all for it 🥷

Simply reply to this email as I answer every question personally 🤙

See you next week!WE