NJ Media and Sharpify Revenue (2024)

[00:00] Hey, folks. My guest today is Niks Jansons. He build he's building two tools, nj-media, which helps architects to attract more clients with digital media and also Sharpify, a simple and powerful CRM tool for SMBs. He's 27 years old, started in 2019, now doing and on track to do about $700,000 here in 2021. Niks, you ready to take the top? [00:19] >> Yes, Nathan. [00:20] Let's take So nj- nj- it's not is it njmedia.com? People are gonna think it's a media business, but are do you have SaaS recurring revenues here? [00:28] >> No, no. We're current that's primarily an agency. The the another business we have, that's kind of the SaaS tool. [00:36] Okay. And so what's that tool? [00:38] >> That tool is called Sharpify. Why we're doing that? Because nj-media is a lead generation agency that we are currently doing around 60 to €80,000 a month. And we saw many of our customers struggling to convert leads. So we made a small CRM, which kinda helps them to manage them, talk with them, communicate them, activity planning, deal planning, so they can close more deals. Mhmm. [01:00] So let's focus on the agency here for a second. What year did you launch them? [01:04] >> We started 2019 in the beginning of that. So the first year was 1000, second year was around 360, and this year it's gonna be close to 700, 750, something like something like that. [01:17] I love it. You you you hold up the magazine real quick. You showed me before the call. See, you just give me the data because you know what I'm gonna ask. You got the magazine. That's great. So this year, you can go to 700 k. Now is it are these folks sticky or do they do they pay you for like a month and then leave usually? [01:32] >> What we did so one of our mentors teach me to sell upfront a of expensive package, is around 3,000, 4,000. And then we are selling them a continuity that seems very cheaply, but still we have problem with churn. So our our stickiness on average is like three months, which we are trying to fix because nj-media when we started, we were doing basically every type of service business and now we're specifically working with architects and interior design [02:00] >> companies outside of Latvia. So I'm from Latvia, a small market locally. So we wanted to grow to, like we wanted to do 2,000,000 this year. We didn't do that, but we wanna grow it outside. So we're that's why we niche down a little bit. [02:14] Yes. You still doubled year over year, and I can tell from your background, you know what you're doing when it comes to interior design. Very clean, very nice aesthetic. Were you [02:21] >> That's an my wife. [02:22] Oh, your wife. [02:23] >> I'm not an architect. That's my wife. [02:24] That's my wife. Okay. [02:25] >> Design. That's my wife. [02:26] So why choose why niche in architecture? [02:29] >> It's like I was doing initially SaaS business. And I looked at the market and was like, damn, this is so red. Like many people doing that. Many people competition big. And then the second niche, which I was about was digital agencies like helping them to grow because many agencies struggle to get to 50 a month. So maybe that one and also it's a red ocean. And then I saw, hey, we have good clients in our damn, [02:55] >> there's like nobody doing this stuff. And the dudes who are doing that, it's super old school guys. And that's why we chose this niche. And first month we launched it, it was middle of October. November, we spend on ads 5,500. We got cash collected 6,000, and revenue was 19,000. And this month, probably, we're gonna triple that number for those for architects. [03:20] This is inside of nj-media or on Sharpify? [03:24] >> That's in that that's only nj-media. Only nj-media. [03:26] Okay. Interesting. [03:28] So tell me about Sharpify. When did it launch? [03:31] >> We are still building it. We have the website ready. Everything is ready. We're still building that. We like let it to have people in the middle of this year. So some users do it and we have it like a free plan. So many, many people not to just use the free plan. We have like fifty, sixty people losing free plan and we have one customer actually who's actually paying. We're not kind of pushing it because we're [03:54] >> still in development. I want to like, I have one coder. So guy who's holding me the soft and I'm paying him a salary. [04:02] How much? [04:03] >> I just wanna make it's €2,000 in years. Yeah. [04:07] Yeah. Yeah. And is he in or she in Europe? [04:12] >> Yeah. He's like a friend of mine. He comes to our office. We have like a cool office for like like really cool office. [04:19] Does but you own a 100% you own a 100% equity in Sharpify? [04:23] >> Both. Yeah. Both. Yeah. Yeah. [04:25] Okay. And both nj-media and Sharpify, you own a 100%? [04:28] >> Yeah. Those are two separate entities, but yeah. Yeah. We wanna make it mix mix them together like so. [04:33] Yep. Okay. Cool. And then how many at nj-media doing about $80,000 a month right now in revenue? 700,000 this year. How many customers do you have right now paying you? [04:41] >> Sorry. What did you ask? [04:43] How many customers do you have right now paying you on nj-media? [04:47] >> Onwards, like recurring customers, we have like stable recurring customers like twenty, thirty, like stable recurring. Most of them we get new onboarding for them [05:00] >> because we have one supplementary product for nj-media which is a course for beginners, big beginner entrepreneurs which we sell around 1,000 to €1,500 depending on if they use the incentive deal we offer them. So we're but in Latvia, we're selling also a course and a service. So it's like [05:17] And and Niks, when you do at nj media 60 to $80,000 per month in revenue, are you profitable? [05:24] >> Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I'm like, I I don't pay don't like, for cost 40%. Yeah. [05:31] So what do you what do you think that capital? Because you own a 100%. What do you do with it? [05:35] >> I just put it back inside of the business. Buying buying office gear. We have, like, really cool office, like investing in people, trainings. I buy courses. Like, this year, I've spent, like, €30,000 on courses alone. I just put it back because one of my other mentors said, you have to, like, put it back to everything you have and to to make a significant amount, I think. My goal is, like, to have a €100,000,000 company, not not [06:00] >> not [06:01] Will it be nj-media or Sharpify, you think? [06:05] >> The the my idea of Sharpify probably is a shitty idea because it's super red ocean. So I'm thinking about to pivot the Sharpify tool for specifically architects. I think that's my kinda idea, make it more valuable, but I still The CRM is a bad market to do it, I think. [06:24] And have you seen nj-media to date or have you raised capital? [06:27] >> Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Everything. Everything. [06:30] So you've you've bootstrapped? [06:32] >> Everything. Yes. Everything's bootstrapped. [06:34] Very cool. [06:35] >> No. No. No. Nobody gives me money. I have to pay money. [06:37] Any plans to raise at Sharpify? [06:40] >> No. If I if I'm thinking about the ideas. Right? I'm, like, looking for the ideas. I'm thinking about them. I'm gonna plan to do interviews in January for architects. And if I have some idea and I understand, okay, shit, I wanna do it fast and I need the money. I now I have contacts. Actually, I could get money from my friends who have businesses like Colgate for making, like, like, millions a month, and he could maybe [07:03] >> give it to me if I need. [07:06] >> So, yeah, I don't have it yet planned out, but maybe later. [07:10] What would make you take capital? [07:13] >> I don't know. Like, if I think I need it, you like, if I have this so the idea, okay, I have plan. I see huge demand and I just don't have the resources to take from my own money to just do it. Maybe I could hire two guys to program. Maybe they could do it, you know. Because my nj-media is basically a consultancy which is very, no. It's it's there's huge margins, big margins. So we have, [07:38] >> like, room to operate. [07:39] Right? Mhmm. [07:41] How many are full time at the agency? [07:46] >> Like, twelve, thirteen people. [07:49] Yeah. And how many of those are engineers? [07:52] >> One. One. So we have like seven. Yeah. Like seven people me included are like sales guys, selling things and five, six people are working with the client ads and we have one guy who's coding things and like doing that stuff. [08:07] Very cool. Well, if people wanna follow along, watch the story and go to nj-media.com as Niks jumps into his new SaaS business. We'll see how if he pivots it or stays with it at sharpify.io. Niks, in the meantime here, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book? [08:24] >> I will say two. One of the recent ones, which I really like, and a shout out to him if he sees this video, it's Alex Hormozi, $100M Offers. Very good book. Like, really good book. Damn. Like that book. And the second is The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. Actually, like a lot. [08:38] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [08:43] >> The the same guy, Alex Hormozi. [08:45] Number three. What's your favorite online tool for building your business? [08:53] The [08:55] >> I I I think Zapier and ClickFunnels. I I like those two. Those are the best. [09:00] Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night? [09:04] >> I know precisely, like, six point five. I use Oura, so I know precisely. [09:09] And what's your situate and we know you're it sounds like married. So any kids? [09:15] >> No. No. Not yet kids. We're to do that, but married. [09:18] Married and no kids. And how and how old are you, Niks? [09:21] >> I'm I'm 27, I think. [09:23] 27. [09:24] >> I'm 27 or 28. I didn't I was, like, thinking how old I'm? But I think it's funny. [09:29] Alright. Take us home here. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [09:33] >> Damn. Like, I I was very bad in like, was smoking, drinking till I was 23. And I I I thought I I I wish I knew faster to do something, like, meaningful, like, or something useful. [09:48] So what so maybe start a company faster? [09:50] >> Yeah. Like, do something faster. That's, like, number one. My brother is now like 14. He's like having a YouTube channel and making like €100 or €200 a month. It's like crazy. I was like, what the hell? [10:02] Guys, you have it. Njmedia.com. They launched back in 2019, did a $109,000 in revenue, doing 700,000 this year and now niching down serving architects. About 25 customers paying on average $40,000 per year. Profitable, taking $35,000 to the bottom line, bootstrapped as he looks at launching his own SaaS tool called sharpify.io. Niks, thanks for taking us to the top. [10:23] >> Cool. Love to be here. [10:26] One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers. They try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM [10:51] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central to make sure you don't miss any of that. 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