How to Build a $5m Media Business Into a $20m Flywheel

It brought together 300 of the most powerful real estate brokerage owners in the country. But we bought it in a year where the event wasn't hosted because of COVID So we had the bones of a lot of event knowledge that we had informed internally. I'd say we were kind of doing things on a shoestring decent events and this was executive powerhouse White Glove.

Awesome experience. And the first year we hosted at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and incredibly nice venues and that experience that we kind of acquired into the organization changed the face of how, how we do events. So that kind of elevated our strategy to serving executive audiences.

Are we good at integration? And can we grow businesses post deal at a much faster rate than they were being grown at previously? And we definitely proved that out with.

Real Trends and and so Real Trends was both data and event business because it had these, these rankings and then the gathering of each Eagles event.

Yep.

And of course if it's not obvious to the audience, one of the amazing things about a media business is that you are your own distribution. So turning on an event, you have a captive audience that you can then drive ticket sales to. In theory, as with all of these things, it may never go quite as it should.

In theory. How did, how did that particular piece go? Were you able to grow these acquired businesses pretty readily because you had such a such incredible reach, such incredible distribution?

Yeah. Each of our M and A deals had a little bit of a different strategic complexion. So with, with Real Trends that was propelling our strategy forward of bringing mortgage and real estate closer together. And the biggest challenge we had as we later moved the Real Trends gathering of Eagles to Housing Wire.

The gathering, which is our event that is for all housing executives and senior level professionals, is convincing the audience segment that have been going to that event for, for decades that we weren't diluting the quality and we were going to give them a better experience. As we expanded the size and expanded the audience to match that Housing Wire thesis that I talked about in the very…

We want to bring people together across the housing sector. So that was one of the biggest challenges will and growing that business was helping the audience and attendees see the unique value that our vision would bring. And we have 1,000% achieved that.

It just took a few years. And the digital strategy, having owned and operated distribution gave people a taste of our approach and how we think about content and how we think about community 365 days a year and you know, 360 days a year before the, before the event. So people aren't exactly walking into an unknown when they bought a ticket to that event.