00:00:00Here's how my $250 million plus portfolio
00:00:03actually makes money.
00:00:04Welcome to ACQ.
00:00:05I'm Alex, co-founder of the company.
00:00:07And the point of this video is to help show you
00:00:10how acquisition.com and ACQ actually make money.
00:00:14And so what I want to walk you through
00:00:16is how we turn raw attention, so eyeballs, into money.
00:00:20And then what we do with that money
00:00:21to kind of spin the entire flywheel.
00:00:23And we do all of this in the service of the larger mission,
00:00:26which is to make real business education
00:00:28accessible for everyone.
00:00:29And the reason we made that the mission
00:00:31is because when Laela and I had sold our first company,
00:00:33we were like, you know what,
00:00:34what's something that gets us out of bed every day?
00:00:36What's something that we're really motivated by?
00:00:38And we are products of the personal development,
00:00:41alternative education, if you will, world.
00:00:43And it's the thing that lights us up the most.
00:00:46And there are very few people
00:00:47who have the credibility to teach business.
00:00:49There's some people who do it.
00:00:50Not all people who have a lot of credibility who do it.
00:00:52And the people who have the most credibility don't do it
00:00:55because they're doing other stuff.
00:00:55And so we thought that that would be a really good
00:00:57void to attack.
00:00:58So let's walk through how we actually make money.
00:01:01So at the onset, we have eyeballs.
00:01:06So there's this big world of people out here, right?
00:01:09And so these eyeballs for us,
00:01:11the ones that we are really targeting
00:01:12are business owners and people who are one degree from that,
00:01:15which would be business interested,
00:01:16watchpreneurs, seekers,
00:01:17people who want to turn whatever they do
00:01:19into some sort of business.
00:01:21Now, the vast majority of people
00:01:23who are what I would consider the watchpreneurs,
00:01:26we help them directly, but mostly for free.
00:01:29And then the business owners who ascend up
00:01:31are the ones that we end up eventually monetizing
00:01:33and create further relationships with.
00:01:35And so you can kind of think of this kind of like an onion
00:01:37and there's going to be a handful of arrows that work around,
00:01:39but I'll do my very best to describe this to you.
00:01:41So in order to kind of get people into our world,
00:01:45the first thing we do is have good markers.
00:01:47So we have, there we go, that's nicer.
00:01:51All right, so this is where we put our media.
00:01:53So this is kind of the first big input
00:01:55that we have as a business.
00:01:56This is where our content goes.
00:01:58This is courses that we have on our site,
00:02:00content, podcasts, et cetera, YouTube videos.
00:02:06All of this stuff goes in here.
00:02:07This is what we create every day.
00:02:08We put money and we put effort and we put team into this.
00:02:12This thing gets some of this attention.
00:02:14And so then we move to the next part of this process.
00:02:17So we have to get this raw attention
00:02:19to then give us some sort of contact information
00:02:21so that we can create some sort of conversion event.
00:02:23Now, depending on where these people are,
00:02:27some people convert because they want to join our email list
00:02:30for the Mosey Minute,
00:02:31which is in some ways a product in of itself,
00:02:33which then gets people on that list
00:02:34so we can further advertise to them.
00:02:36The next thing that some people do
00:02:38is that they'll go to Skool,
00:02:41which is one of our portfolio companies that we have,
00:02:44so people can start communities online.
00:02:45It's the only big brand association that we've made publicly.
00:02:49And that company continues to grow and grow and grow.
00:02:52And the rest of kind of the conversion mechanism
00:02:55then goes to books.
00:02:57So this is people who buy books on our site
00:02:58or buy books on Amazon.
00:03:01And through these things,
00:03:02we get these kind of like minor conversions.
00:03:04This is a free trial into a $9 thing.
00:03:06This is a $30 book.
00:03:07This is a free email list.
00:03:10So once we have these conversions that come in,
00:03:13at this point, we can funnel them
00:03:14to the different components of the business
00:03:15that have higher value added services that we can offer them.
00:03:19Now, as of today, we really only have one,
00:03:22which is AP or the advisory practice.
00:03:24These are the workshops that we actually hold in Vegas
00:03:29at our headquarters with our associates, our analysts,
00:03:32our directors, who help hands-on with business owners.
00:03:35And so we have three levels within the advisory practice.
00:03:38We have L1, L2, and L3.
00:03:41And some of these things may be subject to change,
00:03:43but as they currently exist right now,
00:03:45this is about $5,000, this is $35,000,
00:03:48and this is $135,000.
00:03:51And so people come into L1,
00:03:53a certain percentage of those people then say,
00:03:55hey, I want more help, so they go to L2.
00:03:57And some of those people say, hey, I want even more help,
00:03:59specifically from Alex or more detailed help,
00:04:01and they go to L3.
00:04:03Very simple names here.
00:04:04Now, underneath of this,
00:04:07this then generates, obviously, revenue.
00:04:10And this is where it gets a little bit more interesting.
00:04:11And I'm gonna fill this extra space in in a moment.
00:04:14But as the revenue comes out the other side here, right,
00:04:18and we have revenue that comes in from our media as well,
00:04:21right, and books also create revenue,
00:04:22and school also gives us revenue.
00:04:24But all of these things then shuttle
00:04:26to money on this side, right?
00:04:28All of these are, in some ways, revenue producing.
00:04:31Once we have this revenue,
00:04:33we then redeploy this revenue into various buckets.
00:04:37So one of them is ACQRE, so that's our real estate arm.
00:04:41This is where we buy real estate properties,
00:04:43typically multifamily.
00:04:44We have a good partnership through ARK.
00:04:46And we've raised funds to do these properties
00:04:49and these deals.
00:04:49And we can also solicit back to the front of our audience
00:04:52and say, "Hey, would you like to do deals alongside us?"
00:04:54But this is one of the prior methods
00:04:56that we reinvest cash, the cash that we have.
00:05:00And part of this is because it's also tax efficient
00:05:02for us as a business.
00:05:03And so that's one of the places that we put the money.
00:05:07The next place is that we put the money.
00:05:09And this is obviously outside of more people,
00:05:11more infrastructure, more tech,
00:05:13the reinvestments we put inside of the business.
00:05:15The excess cash goes into ACQ Ventures.
00:05:20So this is our venture portfolio.
00:05:22This is where we make either one of two scenarios.
00:05:24We either make very, very small bets
00:05:27on kind of unicorn-style tech companies.
00:05:29So we're talking one, two, three, 5% bets
00:05:33in smaller companies that we think have high growth potential.
00:05:36Or we're actually seeding a company at the onset
00:05:38that we think is a good idea,
00:05:40that we can then sell through this distribution base.
00:05:43Now, the reason that this is important
00:05:44for anybody who's joining the ACQ team
00:05:46is that the ultimate career path that I see
00:05:48for anybody who does a really good job,
00:05:50especially like in the advisory practice,
00:05:52is that you get so many repetitions
00:05:53of learning how businesses work,
00:05:56our process of creating value in businesses,
00:05:58that who do we think are the best people
00:06:00to start some of these other ventures
00:06:02that we would love to kind of sponsor on the way in?
00:06:04Well, the people who actually have implemented our process
00:06:07across hundreds of different businesses, right?
00:06:08And so this is where we will have,
00:06:12you could kind of consider this as a separate arms here,
00:06:14kind of coming this way.
00:06:15But this is where insurance, lending,
00:06:19some sort of sales AI,
00:06:22there's tons of different opportunities that are here
00:06:25that businesses that are in our ecosystem
00:06:27would love to participate in.
00:06:29And we would love to fund those opportunities
00:06:31for people who are on our team.
00:06:33So we have our real estate arm, we have the venture arm.
00:06:37And then beyond that, this is more or less the landscape
00:06:41of what acquisition.com looks like.
00:06:43So what's all this blank space here?
00:06:45So the blank space here is these pieces
00:06:48as they will exist in the future, right?
00:06:51This is where we will probably have the ACQ network, right?
00:06:55So a business owner association,
00:06:57which is a more scalable offering
00:06:59that costs less than this in-person experience
00:07:02or consulting work that we do.
00:07:04And people would just simply get value
00:07:05from the network of many other business owners.
00:07:07Included in this would be our AI,
00:07:10kind of business consultant that has been trained
00:07:12on all of this in-person experience here.
00:07:14They have obviously the community of other people.
00:07:17They'll have industry calls based on the best practices
00:07:19that we find from the AI that we're seeing
00:07:20in people who are like in home services or healthcare,
00:07:22brick and mortar or professional services.
00:07:24And so this is a membership that'll probably be,
00:07:27and this is probably looking at 2026,
00:07:30somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $10,000 per year
00:07:34as a membership.
00:07:36So this is not intended to be
00:07:37some super, super expensive thing.
00:07:39It's intended to have enough of a barrier of entry
00:07:41that it should be only for business owners.
00:07:44But the aggregate value of that distribution base,
00:07:47one, obviously it provides cashflow for us,
00:07:48which then feeds this entire machine.
00:07:50But also this base gives us a stronger negotiating position
00:07:54for vendors.
00:07:55So if we say, "Hey, all these guys want to have an agency."
00:07:58We don't want to do agency work,
00:07:59but we'd love to find a handful of agents
00:08:01that we could pre-negotiate a great deal for them.
00:08:03"Hey, we have a credit card provider
00:08:05"that has specific benefits
00:08:06"to the size businesses that we look at.
00:08:08"Can we negotiate on behalf of thousands of businesses at once
00:08:11"so we can get better rates or better deals?"
00:08:13All the way across the board.
00:08:14And so this then creates a huge value-added network
00:08:16where the savings accrued and the value-add
00:08:19is so far in excess of this
00:08:21that no one would ever want to leave.
00:08:22And that's kind of the thought process behind this.
00:08:24And so this in the future will actually, in my opinion,
00:08:26sit as the base mechanism.
00:08:28And then a certain percentage of these people will go up
00:08:30and they will send into the various other things.
00:08:33So it could be advisory practice.
00:08:34They might ascend into sales AI.
00:08:36They might ascend into lending.
00:08:37They might ascend into insurance.
00:08:38They might decide to do a real estate deal with us.
00:08:40We might decide to invest in their business
00:08:43from the venture component.
00:08:44And then the last piece here
00:08:46is that we do have our private equity side, right?
00:08:49And so some of these businesses that come in
00:08:51on the advisory practice or the ACQ network,
00:08:53we eventually say,
00:08:54"Hey, instead of taking one to 5% chunks,
00:08:57"we may take a 30 to 51 or even 100% stake in this business
00:09:02"and allow it to run independently,
00:09:04"maybe take some of our talent and put it inside of it."
00:09:07It's functionally, this is the ACQ universe.
00:09:10And so if we're to fast forward and say,
00:09:12"Okay, well, what's the vision?
00:09:14"What does this look like when it's right?"
00:09:15So that's kind of the flow of how the money would work.
00:09:17But if you wanna have a different visual
00:09:19of how this looks like,
00:09:20we have this big media arm at the top.
00:09:22This is the big brand, right?
00:09:24And then from that brand,
00:09:26we're essentially able to monetize it
00:09:28in many, many, many different ways.
00:09:30And so if you were to think of this like Disney,
00:09:33so Disney is a big brand
00:09:34and they have their Star Wars universe,
00:09:35they have their Marvel universe,
00:09:37they have their theme parks,
00:09:38they have Disney Plus.
00:09:39And so for us, the Disney Plus version of this
00:09:42is essentially the ACQ network.
00:09:45It's a B2B version of something
00:09:47that would have some level of media and education,
00:09:49but also a lot of ancillary benefits.
00:09:51But it's super scalable.
00:09:52It's meant to be something that everyone can participate in
00:09:54outside of the obviously just the content
00:09:57that the whole world can participate in.
00:09:58Beyond that, they have their parks, right?
00:10:00And for us, the parks translates in a B2B setting
00:10:04as the advisory practice.
00:10:06This is where they come in person,
00:10:07they get a great experience with us.
00:10:09They get hands-on help from our team,
00:10:12the people that they've looked up to,
00:10:13the people that made a lot of the case studies
00:10:15that come out in our content,
00:10:16they actually get to meet them.
00:10:17So this is meeting Mickey, meeting Minnie,
00:10:19meeting Goofy and all those people,
00:10:21but in a B2B context.
00:10:22Now, the remainder of these pieces are the other spokes.
00:10:29So for the Star Wars,
00:10:30that's like what's the Star Wars universe here?
00:10:32So for us, that would be like school.
00:10:33That's like a franchise that we're invested in.
00:10:35For a specific type of avatar,
00:10:37there's a lot of people who have knowledge
00:10:39and they would like to monetize that
00:10:40in some sort of community and we own the platform, right?
00:10:43Or we're co-founders of the platform.
00:10:44And so this is a mechanism for us
00:10:46to take some percentage of the audience
00:10:48that isn't maybe ready for the advisory practice
00:10:51or ACQ network and put them in here.
00:10:54Now, some of these people are totally qualified
00:10:55for these other things 'cause this can scale,
00:10:57but it's such a low barrier entry
00:10:59at like a $9 a month price point
00:11:00that it completely works, right?
00:11:02Now, the future arms here
00:11:05are going to be the other elements in the future.
00:11:07Like I said, the insurance, sales AI,
00:11:11and plenty of other opportunities that are going to come up.
00:11:15Now, where does the private equity
00:11:18and the real estate arm fit in here?
00:11:20Well, these are just other spokes
00:11:22that are still on this larger machine.
00:11:26And the difference is that our,
00:11:32I'll call it legacy portfolio,
00:11:34were just companies that we thought we could provide value to.
00:11:36Future looking, we're trying to only do deals,
00:11:39especially in the private equity side,
00:11:41to companies that we think can directly benefit
00:11:43the distribution base of businesses that we have,
00:11:45rather than just be businesses
00:11:46that we're very comfortable growing,
00:11:47instead be businesses that we think can handle the scale
00:11:50of what we bring.
00:11:51And so this is where the types of bets we're doing
00:11:53at ACQ Ventures,
00:11:55which will then stand up some of these other entities,
00:11:57and the ACQRE, which we can obviously raise from the audience.
00:12:01But functionally, this is what we're doing.
00:12:03We're trying to build this universe
00:12:04where once a business owner comes in,
00:12:06they don't want to leave
00:12:08because we have provided so much value on the media side,
00:12:12so much value in the network,
00:12:13or when they came out in person to meet us
00:12:16and meet the team and the consulting work that we did,
00:12:18they were like, you know what, I trust them,
00:12:20and I would like to invest my money with them.
00:12:21I would like to buy insurance with them.
00:12:24I would like to use their platform
00:12:25for the community that I have for my drumming business,
00:12:28or for my real estate business.
00:12:30I put all my home buyers into a school community
00:12:32so I can stay in touch with them.
00:12:34So this is what we are building.
00:12:37And functionally, the flow of money is straightforward.
00:12:40We put money in effort here.
00:12:42We then capture information here.
00:12:46We convert through different conversion mechanisms.
00:12:50So we had a launch, and this is where we had a webinar
00:12:53that went to the book packages,
00:13:01which for us was 6K.
00:13:04Here, the ACQ network, this might be a checkout,
00:13:07it might be a phone, it might be both.
00:13:09Here, we do almost all of these conversions over the phone.
00:13:12So our phone team then sells people
00:13:13into these various levels.
00:13:15But functionally, that is how the money works
00:13:18and how we make money at acquisition.com.
00:13:20We make money from our content.
00:13:22We make money from people buying books.
00:13:24We make money from people buying school,
00:13:26and obviously there's an equity value in that company as well,
00:13:28but we also get distributions from school as well.
00:13:30We make money from all the people who come to our parks,
00:13:33our themes.
00:13:34In the future, we'll make money
00:13:35from the people who join the network.
00:13:37And we'll make money from all the other ancillary services
00:13:40that they choose to buy.
00:13:42And should they choose to invest with us,
00:13:43we would make money there too.
00:13:45But all of this is predicated on the one single promise
00:13:47that has to be true before any of this works,
00:13:49which is that we have to make real business education
00:13:52accessible for everyone.
00:13:53And we have to make our free stuff
00:13:54better than everyone else's paid stuff.
00:13:55And we have to maintain absolute premium brand credibility
00:13:58that we are who we say we are,
00:13:59that we've done what we've said we've done,
00:14:01so that that reinforces the position
00:14:03that we have in the marketplace.
00:14:04And functionally, this is a position
00:14:05that very few people can occupy
00:14:07because the only people that I think
00:14:09have more credibility than us,
00:14:10most of them don't want to do this part.
00:14:12They're just running their businesses.
00:14:13And I think this is the unique wedge in the marketplace
00:14:16that exists that we are capitalizing on.
00:14:19And at the end of the day, what we're doing
00:14:20is we're helping the people that we care the most about,
00:14:22which is the backbone of the economy,
00:14:24the small business owner.
00:14:25And from a who is the avatar for this,
00:14:29for us right now, in terms of our monetization,
00:14:32it's usually about $500,000 to $50 million in revenue
00:14:35is kind of our sweet spot of the business owners
00:14:37that are coming in through this network.
00:14:38Now, for everybody who's less than $500,000 per year,
00:14:42it doesn't mean that there's zero, quote, monetization
00:14:45of those people or those eyeballs.
00:14:47It's just different.
00:14:48It's very distributed.
00:14:49And so we're going to get some ad revenue
00:14:50that comes from the platforms.
00:14:51We're monetizing through a lower ticket platform here.
00:14:55Books are, you know, between, you know,
00:14:57the books are free, but if you want hard copies,
00:14:59they can buy them, or if they want to buy them on Audible,
00:15:01they can get them.
00:15:01We can make a couple bucks on that stuff.
00:15:03But for these people, the goal is not to monetize in this way.
00:15:07The goal is that these people use these tools
00:15:10to create businesses that then ascend them
00:15:13into this category, which then opens up
00:15:15this entire universe of potential products and services
00:15:17that we can help them continue to scale their business.
00:15:20And then ultimately, maybe we buy the company.
00:15:22Maybe we invest as a venture company.
00:15:25Maybe they just make enough money to exit
00:15:26and they want to put some of their money with us
00:15:27in the real estate arm.
00:15:29Or they just want to buy other services from us.
00:15:32And so functionally, this is what we're building.
00:15:36And we're super excited to have you on.
00:15:37And hopefully that helps you understand a little bit better
00:15:39of how ACQ makes money.
00:15:41This is actually an internal recruiting video
00:15:43that we share to new recruits.
00:15:45And I thought that would be cool for one,
00:15:47you guys to see everyone I think should have
00:15:49a video sales letter that sells your company as the product
00:15:52to new potential candidates.
00:15:54And then second, if you are a true A player,
00:15:56especially AI or tech forward in any kind of function
00:15:59in the department or roles within a business,
00:16:01we'd love to talk to you.
00:16:03Hopefully my team will put the little link here.
00:16:05Apply if you're a star.
00:16:07And we are always hiring for A talent.
00:16:09Doesn't matter the role, we're always hiring.