Firecrown's Profitable Growth

A story about how Craig Fuller turned Flying Magazine into a massive media company called Firecrown.

"Craig Fuller had Freightwaves as his main business, but he started this side project where he bought Flying Magazine. He also bought a $7 million, 300-acre plot of land in Tennessee to turn it into a flying club - like a country club but with an airplane strip and hangar. They used the magazine to sell plots of land.

Now Craig has acquired 44 different magazines and they're going to do roughly $50 million this year with 18% EBITDA. His prediction is by 2030, this side business could reach $1 billion in revenue with 30% profit margins. Last quarter they did $15 million in revenue profitably.

Here's what he does: He finds old magazine titles around expensive hobbies - boating, RC planes, RC cars. He uses what he calls 'negative CAC' meaning people pay for the magazine, so that's how he acquires customers. Then he creates commerce products to sell to that audience. The media business pays for the audience creation, which helps bootstrap other businesses selling to this audience.

He's buying these companies for 3-5 times EBITDA. While it's a dying medium, he's turning them around. What's crazy is this is just his side hustle - his main business is still Freightwaves. They now have 257 employees in Seattle and it's grown way beyond what was initially planned as just a lifestyle side project."