A Side Project about the Post-Acquisitions Phase
Although this website is primarily focused on essays about buying online properties, I obviously am also an ongoing operator of these properties after the purchase.
Back when I was reading, studying, taking endless courses, and learning about how to transition from an employee to business owner, I always felt like I was only getting half the story. Despite all the courses and information out there, I never quite saw what it was really like “under the hood” of all of these Internet companies.
The Joy of Watching Others Perform
Not only did I not feel like I knew how these online companies really operated, but also many times I just wanted to watch and pretend. Fantasize, I guess I could say, about what it was like to have that type of job and career.
Not the material benefits as much. I really just wanted to know what the work was like each day. I wanted to dream about how different that type of day would be from my 9-5 job lifestyle. Maybe that’s just me, but I thought I would love to see the inner workings, yet there was no way to see what was really going on in any of these companies.
Fast forward to 2021…Today we’ve reached a point where watching other people do things – coding, playing video games, practicing music – is an accepted and surprisingly fun style of entertainment. I love watching people play Fortnite simply because I appreciate how hard it is to be good at that game. Watching others excel is a completely unexpected thrill that I would have never seen coming as a “thing” ten years ago.
The OG’s
John Lee Dumas and Pat Flynn were some of the first to go with the idea of adding more transparency into their businesses with their Income Reports and monthly updates. Later on, companies like Baremetrics and other “open startups” added a bit more visibility into the companies by publishing their Stripe metrics.
Unfortunately, transparency in businesses like Entrepreneur on Fire and Smart Passive Income isn’t really that helpful when you’re interested in running a company that is part of the global economy, not informational businesses built around one charismatic person. (That is meant as zero offense to both of those guys, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them, plain and simple.)
Me? I wanted to see inside a real company that other businesses relied upon, but that was operated entirely online.
What Access Would Have Helped 10 Years Ago?
Now that I have a few years under my belt as an online business owner, I keep thinking back to how bad I wanted to just peer inside one of these online companies to see what it was really like behind the scenes. Then, Daniel Vassallo released Profit & Loss. Finally, someone smarter than me had figured out a way to share the type of business visibility I wanted to see for myself over ten years ago.
What if I took his idea and created a membership community with the ability to “ride along” with me each month? Giving each member visibility into real company financials, metrics, performance goals, and multiple walk throughs of what I am doing with each of these businesses as it happens.
Why not give it a try, right?
A few days later, Online Business Ride Along is now open to the public!
Version 1.0 of Online Business Ride Along idea is greatly influenced by Daniel’s Profit and Loss’ program. I credit him 100% with finally squaring the circle in my head of “how to do this right” so that it’s fun for everyone, educational, and provides solid experience for those involved.
I’m going to start in a very similar style as the Profit and Loss program and branch out from there to create – what I hope to be – a very informative, fun, and educational back stage pass into how I manage multiple businesses and projects today. There will be hilarious missteps along the way, that I can promise. But I’ll fix them and make it better every day.
If that sounds interesting, you can check out Online Business Ride Along and subscribe via Stripe. I’m pretty excited about this new venture and am working like crazy to get data and information in there to capture and summarize the last six years. After that, we’ll start with a January 2021 report and go from there.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out at my contact page so I can help answer them. Bug reports are also very much appreciated.
I look forward to this project with everyone!
Image credit to Phinehas Adams on Unsplash
