Dom Wells on Agency Acquisitions, Greg's ACP Funnel, and Q4 GTM Forecasts
Mario Peshev
Serial CEO & Investor | Driving Enterprise Go-to-Market Strategy | B2B Advisory + Execution + Media Network
Busy week with a handful of updates here:
Onfolio CEO on buying, structuring, and scaling agencies
I’ve been pretty comfortable in the agency space having built a 7-figure agency of 50 with a strong track record in the WordPress space (consistently ranked as a top 20 and often top 10 agency worldwide), and years in successful case studies and pivots in inbound marketing, go-to-market strategy, SaaS development, and lately Experimentation as a Service.
But I always stay “radically openminded”, humble and actively listening when discussing agency business with folks like Eric Siu and Neil Patel in their agency community or Greg Isenberg around Late Checkout and their countless automation.
So I’m trilled to share this podcast episode with Dominic Wells, CEO of Nasdaq-listed Onfolio (ONFO) and the pioneer behind the Onfolio SPV:
Acquiring and Scaling Profitable Agencies - Nasdaq CEO on Onfolio Growth w/ Dominic Wells (#7)
Dominic has acquired a handful of agencies (some you’ve seen countless times) and designed a strategic framework for cross-selling, bundling, and smart optimizations to keep them generating profits consistently over time.
Check out the episode and look up the SPV site above if you want to invest in profitable businesses and receive dividends in the process.
Building audiences is hard
As we scale a handful of clients in our agency portfolio (and some of my advisory clients in the process), collecting valuable feedback is harder than ever.
Social noise, AI-generated content, fake avatars, video overload lead to lower engagements and siloed conversations. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and more importantly, compiling actual problems, is not an easy feat.
Sure, common frameworks include:
Greg Isenberg has launched his new cohort of Community Empire which I joined and his first lesson is about the ACP funnel:
“Build the audience, design a community for the audience, and give your community the product to achieve their goal.”
This is pretty common for creators, freelancers, solopreneurs, but getting increasingly more important for B2Bs and even larger corporations.
Working with influencers, subject matter experts, key opinion leaders, event organizers on sourcing and scouting problems is a competitive advantage today.
I’ve served on advisory boards back in my active WordPress days due to the ability to make strategic connections and bridge conversations between SaaS businesses and the WordPress audience. Some of these businesses sold for tens of millions of dollars a few years later.
So I’m capitalizing on the audience/community-development journey through first-party conversations and niching down specific topics into tools, frameworks, worksheets to increase the value added to you (the reader) and the rest of my community.
Is Q4 the right time to build?
Yes and no.
No, because Q4 is for revenue growth. Most businesses are capitalizing on revenue generation - including the DTC/ecom crowd selling on Amazon this Tue and Wed. The Black Friday week is coming next week, with Christmas holidays after (and other seasonal sales in December).
However, when it comes to warming up B2B audiences and leads:
So the answer is - keep going 12 months a year and mix in some promotional content and upsells with the ongoing though leadership journey.
And in the meantime, I’ll keep cranking new resources and freebies to grow the digital channels I’m methodically developing over the past few years. Hope you’ll stay along for the ride!
Yours,
Mario
My Take
✍️ The True Cost of Building Cheap Software - Ever heard the phrase "you get what you pay for"? That couldn’t be more true in software development. Developers often face a choice: build a cheap product quickly or invest in something scalable from the start. But what happens when you take shortcuts?
✍️ The Top 100 B2B Creators to Follow voting - Building a "Top 100 B2B creators to follow in 2025" list - who should be in?
🇧🇬 Entrepreneurship and Education Podcast - For my Bulgarian followers: A 3-hour-long rundown with the Übermensch, a.k.a. the "Superhuman" of podcasting in Bulgaria, the one and only Georgi Nenov. The full rundown touches on entrepreneurship, education, creativity and critical thinking, startups vs. corporations, internships and career opportunities, raising kids, value systems and principles, frugality, committing back to humanity - and a ton more.
✍️ Growth Blueprint Podcast #7 Acquiring and Scaling Profitable Agencies - What drives successful agency acquisitions? Dominic Wells, CEO of Onfolio Holdings, dives into the intricacies of acquiring profitable online businesses. With a focus on the unique challenges and advantages of agency ownership, Dominic shares how consolidating diverse teams can create unexpected synergies and foster innovation.
Newsletter Recommendations
📧 Business Briefs - Business Briefs is exactly what it sounds like – a bite-size newsletter that takes just five minutes to read, delivered to your inbox every morning. It is uniquely positioned to give you the highlights of the news without the need to wade through thousands of articles or spreadsheets. Sign up Here!
📧 WorkLife News - @worklife_news on hiring trends, remote, and any worldwide tendencies of human capital and employment. Sign up Here!
Business Strategy
📃 Samsung’s “Crisis”. Samsung, the world’s leading memory chip manufacturer, issued a rare apology after saying it expected to post just $6.78 billion in operating profit for the most recent quarter, about $900 million short of analyst expectations.
Recommended by LinkedIn
📃 Meta’s tips on Threads profile growth. Last week, Meta ran an info session for creators, within which it shared some practical tips for growing your Threads presence. Threads is currently sitting on 200 million monthly active users, according to Meta’s most recent update. Which is still a long way off the major social apps, and a distance away from X, its main rival for real-time social updates (X has 500 million MAU). But Threads is gaining momentum, with the app continuing to rise in the overall download rankings, and catching on with certain niche communities.
📃 TikTok’s launch of AI. TikTok is introducing new advertising solutions to help brands achieve real business results with the launch of new automated Performance Tools, additional Measurement Capabilities and new Privacy Technologies. Smart+ automates the performance advertising process across targeting, bidding, and creativity to deliver the right ad to the right person to offer the best performance.
📃 Google to open Android devices for 3rd party stores. Google must give rival third-party app stores access to the full catalogue of Google Play apps — and distribute third-party stores. Judge James Donato issued his final ruling in Epic v. Google, ordering Google to effectively open up the Google Play app store to competition for three whole years.
📃 Activist Starboard has a $1 billion Pfizer stake. Starboard Value has amassed a roughly $1 billion stake in drugmaker Pfizer, according to people familiar with the matter. The activist fund run by Jeff Smith is looking to tap former Pfizer CEO Ian Read and ex-finance chief Frank D’Amelio, although it is unclear in what capacity. Starboard’s stake comes amid a time of serious struggle at the drugmaker, which has begun to cut costs aggressively as demand for its Covid-19 medicines continues to recede.
Global News
📈 Better-than-expected U.S. economics data has led markets to dial back expectations of how aggressively the Fed will cut interest rates, which he says has put downward pressure on gold prices.
📈 National mortgage rates increased for all loan terms compared to a week ago, according to Bankrate data. Rates for 30-year fixed, 15-year fixed, 5/1 ARMs and jumbo loans moved higher.
📈 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President Alberto Musalem said on Monday he supports more interest rate cuts as the economy moves forward on a healthy path, while noting that it is appropriate for the central bank to be cautious and not overdo easing monetary policy.
"Further gradual reductions in the policy rate will likely be appropriate over time," the official said at a meeting of the Money Marketeers of New York University, noting that "patience" has served the Fed well. "I will not prejudge the size or timing of future adjustments to policy."
📰 Here are some of the most prominent headlines this week:
Investment News
📈 September 2024’s Portfolio Success stories from SeedBlink - We’ve featured many of these companies throughout these months. If any of them have caught your eye, you can have a look at how they’re doing in SeedBlink’s latest article.
Note: Got a round going that you want to feature - your own business or a portfolio company? Get in touch.
There’s an exciting Flippa update I want to share with you. They’ve now created a category for digital agencies.
The global market for them was estimated in 2021 at about $4.2B and is expected to double by 2027. As part of the digital agency community for about 15 years, exciting times are up ahead!
Prop Trading SaaS Product and Service - This business offers trading education and a trading platform has generated a staggering $970.7K in revenue in one year of operation.
AI Meeting and Notetaking Tool - This AI SaaS tool featuring a meeting recorder and notetaker has grown primarily through word of mouth.
Chatbot Digital Product Store - This ecommerce business sells multiple digital products for business uses including ChatGPT prompts, Whatsapp tools, and ready-made website templates.
Need My Help?
I'm involved with a number of initiatives - here's what I can do to help you:
🌐 Scalable and secure WordPress? DevriX provides WordPress retainers to SMEs, publishers, eCommerce, SaaS, and more. Our plans start from $1,200/mo to $40K/mo for anything from support through engineering, CRO, performance, security, to fractional CXO services and managing the data stacks of large corps.
🚀 Want to scale and optimize your business? Growth Shuttle offers personalized advisory plans starting at $600/hr. Tap into my personal pool of business know-how and my data warehouse of industry data.
👥 Want access to my blueprints/books and a weekly Slack planning session? Join my Community and grab my Entrepreneurship book.
📈 Looking to start a US company? Check out doola and their “Business in a Box” model. Suitable for both foreigners and US citizens and both for residents and non-residents.
📊 Have you tried buying and selling digital property? Have a look at Flippa’s marketplace. They offer a vast variety of online businesses for any buyer’s interest. Or if you’re ready for an exit, Flippa provides you with the necessary tools to list your business and close the deal.
💡 Eager to incorporate my recommended solutions? Track my angel investments. Sharing, applying for open roles, or writing reviews helps a ton. And anything else I try to publish on my blog and my courses here!
building audiences feels like herding cats, right? so many distractions. what’s your secret sauce for cutting through the noise?
Sales and Marketing at CBF Labels
2moLove the idea of focusing on first-party conversations and niching down. That's how you create a truly engaged community
Sales and Marketing at CBF Labels
2moBuilding a genuine audience in today's noisy digital landscape is a real challenge. Love the focus on first-party conversations and niching down to provide real value
Top Ecommerce Email Marketer & Agency Owner | We’ve sent over 1 billion emails for our clients resulting in $200+ million in email attributable revenue.
2moI agree. Building a community takes time and effort, but it's worth it