Greatest Hits #3 - Selling a Blog For $9m with Ramon van Meer
About This Episode
Host Shaan Puri interviews serial entrepreneur Ramon van Meer about how he built Soap Hub, a soap opera news blog, and sold it for $8.75 million cash. The episode explores how Ramon used Facebook engagement data to identify a high-passion niche and scaled it into a massive content business despite having no prior knowledge of the subject matter.
Episode Description
Show Notes
- * (7:32) Who is Ramon van Meer?
- * (10:50) Why Ramon decided to focus on soap operas
- * (16:25) Ramon's mindset while building his business
- * (21:31) How Ramon built a 350k mailing list with quizzes
- * (30:00) How Ramon comes up with ideas for businesses
- * (35:30) The moments Ramon thought he would fail
- * (39:55) Why did Ramon decide to sell?
Key Takeaways
Identify high-engagement niches by testing low-cost Facebook fan pages across multiple topics and monitoring organic shareability before building a website.
Hedge against platform algorithm risks by aggressively building owned channels like email lists and community-driven platforms like Facebook Groups.
Reverse engineer successful but poorly executed business models found on acquisition marketplaces like Quiet Light or Flippa to find validated market opportunities.