Are you a Master of Marketing Ops? Build a $9M+ ARR Business in 24 Months

Have a knack for marketing operations and want to go from 0-$9M+ ARR in 24 months?

Offshoring marketing operations for mid-market companies could be your ticket to a great business.

Hi, I'm?Aaron Vidas, an entrepreneur from Vancouver, Canada. I shut down my data management platform and got stuck figuring out what to do next. So I’m talking to 100 CEO’s, Private Equity MD’s and SME’s over the next 100 days on their big pains. Things that if solved generate $100M+ in value - money made, cash saved, enterprise value increased - for them. Then I’m picking 1-3 ideas to execute this year and sharing the rest with you.

THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF MODERN MARKETING

Marketing in 2023 is a paradoxically complex and simple process in a business.

There’s a lot of noise on what channels, and activities, to pursue. How much to spend on what and determining what drives sales. That’s the complexity.

The actual “making” of marketing - creating social media posts, giving influencer copy, writing ads, setting up campaigns on DSP’s, SEO - requires skills, but is not difficult. It’s a very rote, repetitive process.

Plus, virtually no systems marketers use on a day-to-day basis talk to each other. You have a lot of copy and pasting. Weird google docs, workarounds and processes activate the creative campaigns we love.

Unfortunately, it means a lot of highly compensated, creative people are stuck doing very repetitive work that isn’t reflective of the value they can deliver to the company creating awesome campaigns, cool influencer partnerships or crafting blog posts that genuinely help.

Enter the Marketing Operations Focused Offshoring Firm

Labour arbitrage through offshoring isn’t new. A company contracts cheaper overseas labour to fulfill a process in their business. Some of the largest businesses in the world, Tata Consulting or InfoSys, do this.

This is just a niche in high demand.

Companies like GrowthAssistant, Shepherd find experienced overseas labour to take care of the drudgery of modern marketing.

GrowthAssistant’s CEO has shared they’ve gone from 0-9M ARR in ~24 months.

HOW I’D GET STARTED

A wonderfully simple business the offshore marketing operations firm can be a recurring revenue business with a simple markup on labour.

I love GrowthAssist pricing. With a recurring revenue service you have to think more about lifetime value of a client. How much you’re willing to spend to acquire a client.

The unit economics might look something like:

Lifetime Value - $36,000 ($3K/month for 12 months)

People - 16,260 (45%)

Overhead - 5300 (33% of People Costs)

Marketing - 5400 (15%)

Net Profit - 9040 (25%)

Churn would also have to be accounted for here.

What I love about this business is its inherent demand. You provide an exponentially more efficient solution than what the company is currently doing. The client’s team gets to spend time on higher value tasks like campaign strategy and your offshore team gains specialized skills, and a great income, for the work.

In speaking with my friends with large agencies they are planning, or have already carried out, some deep cuts. This is a great time to make an offer that gives overworked marketers their time back.

RISKS + UNKNOWNS

If I was serious about starting this business the keys will be:

• Selecting one country to offshore to. The Phillipines looks to be the current favourite when I spoke with agency owners offshoring to services there. That will mean a great lawyer familiar with working in that geography.
• Great technical vetting process and consistent training will required for employees. Marketing systems, and best practices, change with fair regularity.
• Owning the employee and client relationship. If you want steady revenue, and low churn, the people doing the work have to be enthusiastic, well-trained and detail oriented. They have to care. That comes from you making the investment in finding the best, vetting and training.

This is my fifth post of my new 100 Business Ideas. $100M Each. 100 Days. series. Interested in seeing more? Want these in a different format? Comment below.