Metalab's Barista-to-Millions Journey
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A story about how Andrew Wilkinson started Metalab, which became the foundation for his $600M company Tiny.
"Andrew started as a barista, and then he began making websites on the side. It was nothing fancy at first - someone would pay him like $20,000 to make a fairly straightforward simple website. He just kept going and kept going.
The company, Metalab, grew to do $62.8 million in revenue by 2021, growing about 23% a year for the last handful of years. They maintain a 40% profit margin, so for every $100 they make, their net income is $40.
This became the foundation for everything else. They have a CEO running that company who gets paid $1.1 million, which is a good deal for everyone. The CEO gets to run an established company that's working, and Andrew used the profits to start buying other companies.
Since 2021, they've taken about $15 million in dividends out of the business. They also took down something like $100 million in debt to grow the company instead of using equity, which is awesome because taking a loan is significantly cheaper than equity if it works out. They also sold a company called Mealtime for $25 million, profiting $13 million from that deal.
Now the whole company, Tiny, is worth about $600 million on the public markets, and it all started with just making simple websites."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.