Frame Breaking Companies
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A look at companies that have massive success but fly under the radar, showing a gap between their public perception and actual business performance.
Key Examples of Frame Breaking Companies
CompareVPN (Comparetech)
- Started in 2015 as a VPN review website
- Financial Performance:
- $12M revenue with $10M profit in recent year
- Sold for approximately $200M
- Business Model:
- Gets ~1M visits per month
- Makes money through affiliate commissions from VPN companies
- Simple website design but highly effective
Quinstreet
- Publicly traded lead generation company
- Revenue: ~$600M annually
- Business Model:
- Owns multiple simple-looking websites like:
- directory of schools.com
- campuscorner.com
- insurance.com
- insure.com
- carinsurance.com
- Appears unsophisticated but highly sophisticated in SEO and traffic generation
- Sells leads to highest bidders in insurance and education sectors
- Owns multiple simple-looking websites like:
Wonderful Company (Stuart & Linda Resnick)
- Started from a janitor business in 1970s
- Evolution:
- Expanded to security guard services (1000+ armed guards)
- Sold security business
- Bought Franklin Mint
- Developed multiple successful brands
- Current Portfolio:
- Wonderful Pistachios
- POM Wonderful
- Fiji Water
- Teleflora ($350M/year business)
- Large farming operations
- Current Status:
- $4B annual revenue
- Largest farmers in America
- Privately owned
- Known for creating strong brands with distinctive packaging
Common Traits of Frame Breaking Companies
- Focus on results over appearance
- Often have simple or dated-looking websites/branding
- Highly profitable despite low public awareness
- Usually operate in established, unsexy industries
- Strong underlying business fundamentals
- Gap between public perception and actual business performance
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.