New episode of Acquiring Minds dropped this morning!

What I love about today's episode is the intersection of "make money online" and SMB acquisition.

Story time!

@Gundwolf hated the 9-to-5.

So he decided to figure out how to make money online. (Heard that before.)

Yeah but this guy was committed.

So he buys courses on affiliate marketing, which is where lots of $$ is made by lone wolves like redacted (He stayed anonymous for our interview; that's his Twitter handle.)

He gets up at 4am before his day job to work 4 hours by the glow of his laptop.

Building funnels, writing copy, testing, iterating, figuring it out.

He's pouring his salary into courses and PPC campaigns.

His tiny apartment is 1 minute from work to save time commuting.

No furniture — unless you count the air mattress & foldable table.

EVERYTHING is about cracking this affiliate thing.

(Which is difficult and risky and brutally competitive, despite what the courses tell you.)

This is his life for many months.

Eveeeentually, he starts hitting. Having breakthroughs. Making $$.

Like, crazy money.

He pocketed $35,000 on his biggest day. (One day!)

So that's it, right? He wins.

Well... the affiliate game kinda sucks. Even when you know what you're doing.

You're always drilling for oil. When you hit a gusher, yes it's amazing.

But that gusher doesn't last & isn't defensible, so you gotta go find another.

You're not building anything lasting. No brand. No EQUITY. (see where this is going?)

So Gundwolf starts looking to put this new wealth into something more durable.

Real estate is an obvious choice, but he doesn't like that you can't grow it like you can grow a business.

So he turns his attention to businesses.

Old, steady-eddy, durable businesses.

And what is more steady than the searcher-favorite...HVAC!

I'll skip the details of the acquisition (post is getting long), but Gundwolf finds and buys a local HVAC business for $4m.

The acquisition wasn't easy.

Hard to get people to take you seriously when you're 24. (oh did I forget that detail?)

But he finally did close in late 2021...

And THAT is how you go from college grad to owner of a $4m business by age 24.

Many more fun details in the episode, which you can find below.

(P.S. He still has his affiliate stuff going!)

Listen to the episode:

Apple

Spotify

Acquiring Minds website