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Founder Interview

How NJ Media Reached €360,000 in 2020 Revenue and 20 Recurring Clients as a Bootstrapped Lead Generation Agency for Architects (Interview with Founder Niks Jansons)

Interview Date
December 8, 2021
Interviewee
Niks JansonsFounder
Watch
Watch the full interview

Company Metrics at Interview Time

Revenue (Agency) (2020)

€360,000

Customers (Recurring) (2021)

20

Gross Margin (2021)

60%

Team Size (2021)

12

Avg Contract Value (2021)

€3,000

Historical Snapshot

These numbers were reported by Niks Jansons during his interview recorded in December 2021 and are a historical snapshot, not current figures. See NJ Media’s current numbers.

Key Takeaways

  • 01NJ Media generated €360,000 in revenue in 2020, its second year of operation.
  • 02The agency had 20 to 30 stable recurring customers as of 2021.
  • 03Gross margin at NJ Media was approximately 60% in 2021.
  • 04The agency spent €5,500 on ads targeting architects in November 2021 and collected €6,000 in cash.
  • 05Average contract value for NJ Media clients was around €3,000 in 2021.
  • 06The team at NJ Media comprised 12 people, including 7 in sales and 1 engineer.
  • 07Both NJ Media and Sharpify are 100% bootstrapped with no outside capital raised.
  • 08Niks Jansons invested approximately €30,000 of his own money into courses in 2021.
  • 09Sharpify was still in development in December 2021, with one paying customer and one engineer building it.

Company Metrics at Time of Interview

MetricValueSource
Revenue (2020)€360,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
Customers (Recurring) (2021)20Founder interview, Dec 2021
Gross Margin (2021)60%Founder interview, Dec 2021
Avg Contract Value (2021)€3,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
Team Size (2021)12Founder interview, Dec 2021
Engineers (2021)1Founder interview, Dec 2021
Paid Ads Spend (Nov 2021)€5,500Founder interview, Dec 2021
Year Founded2019Founder interview, Dec 2021
Courses Spend (2021)€30,000Founder interview, Dec 2021
Profitable (2021)YesFounder interview, Dec 2021

Growth Breakdown

Revenue

NJ Media recorded €360,000 in revenue in 2020, its second year of operation. The agency was running at approximately €60,000 to €80,000 per month in revenue at the time of the interview in December 2021. The business grew from a broad digital agency into a niche lead generation service focused on architects and interior designers outside Latvia.

Customers

NJ Media had 20 to 30 stable recurring customers as of December 2021. The agency also sold a supplementary course product priced between €1,000 and €1,500 to beginner entrepreneurs, adding a transactional revenue stream alongside the recurring client base.

Team

The NJ Media team comprised 12 people in total, with roughly 7 in sales roles, 5 to 6 working on client advertising, and 1 engineer handling technical work. Sharpify was being built by a single engineer friend who worked from the company office.

Profitability and Funding

NJ Media was profitable at the time of the interview, with Niks stating costs ran at roughly 40% of revenue, implying a 60% gross margin. Both NJ Media and Sharpify were fully bootstrapped, with no outside capital raised. Niks reinvested profits back into the business, including approximately €30,000 spent on courses in 2021.

Growth Strategy

Niching Down to Architects

Niks identified that the architecture and interior design market was underserved by modern digital marketing agencies, with most competitors being old-school operators. By focusing exclusively on architects outside Latvia, NJ Media was able to differentiate and grow quickly in a less competitive niche.

Upfront Package Pricing with Continuity

A mentor advised Niks to sell an expensive upfront package, priced around €3,000 to €4,000, and then follow it with a lower-cost continuity product. This approach generated immediate cash flow while building a recurring revenue base, though Niks acknowledged churn remained a challenge with average client stickiness of around three months.

Paid Advertising for Client Acquisition

NJ Media used paid ads to acquire clients, spending €5,500 in November 2021 targeting architects and collecting €6,000 in cash from that spend. Niks viewed paid advertising as a core growth lever for the agency.

Reinvesting Profits into People and Education

Rather than taking profits out of the business, Niks reinvested them into office infrastructure, team training, and personal education. He spent approximately €30,000 on courses in 2021 alone, treating knowledge acquisition as a direct business investment.

Building a CRM to Solve a Client Problem

Niks observed that many NJ Media clients struggled to convert the leads the agency generated, which led to the creation of Sharpify, a CRM tool designed to help SMBs manage and close deals. The product was born directly from a pain point identified within the existing customer base.

Best Quotes

“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.”
“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 companies outside of Latvia.”
“...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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Everything. Yes. Everything's bootstrapped. ... No. No. No. Nobody gives me money. I have to pay money.”

What Happened Next

This interview captured NJ Media and Sharpify at a specific moment in December 2021, when the agency was growing rapidly in the architecture niche and Sharpify was still in early development with a single paying customer. Niks was actively reconsidering whether to pivot Sharpify toward a tool built specifically for architects rather than a general CRM. For current revenue, customer counts, and product status, visit the live company profile on GetLatka.

View NJ Media’s current profile and metrics

Full Transcript

Chapters

Introduction and Business Overview

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, 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?

Niks Jansons

00:19>> Yes, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

00:20Let'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?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

00:36Okay. And so what's that tool?

Agency Revenue: €60–80K a Month

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

01:00So let's focus on the agency here for a second. What year did you launch them?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

01:17I 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?

Client Stickiness and Churn Challenge

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

02:14Yes. 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

Niks Jansons

02:21>> That's an my wife.

Nathan Latka

02:22Oh, your wife.

Niks Jansons

02:23>> I'm not an architect. That's my wife.

Nathan Latka

02:24That's my wife. Okay.

Niks Jansons

02:25>> Design. That's my wife.

Nathan Latka

02:26So why choose why niche in architecture?

Niks Jansons

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,

Why Architects and First Month Results

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

03:20This is inside of nj-media or on Sharpify?

Niks Jansons

03:24>> That's in that that's only nj-media. Only nj-media.

Nathan Latka

03:26Okay. Interesting.

Sharpify: Still in Development, One Paying Customer

Nathan Latka

03:28So tell me about Sharpify. When did it launch?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

04:02How much?

Niks Jansons

04:03>> I just wanna make it's €2,000 in years. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

04:07Yeah. Yeah. And is he in or she in Europe?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

04:19Does but you own a 100% you own a 100% equity in Sharpify?

Niks Jansons

04:23>> Both. Yeah. Both. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

04:25Okay. And both nj-media and Sharpify, you own a 100%?

Niks Jansons

04:28>> Yeah. Those are two separate entities, but yeah. Yeah. We wanna make it mix mix them together like so.

Nathan Latka

04:33Yep. 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?

Niks Jansons

04:41>> Sorry. What did you ask?

Customers Paying on NJ Media

Nathan Latka

04:43How many customers do you have right now paying you on nj-media?

Niks Jansons

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

Profitability and Margins

Nathan Latka

05:17And and Niks, when you do at nj media 60 to $80,000 per month in revenue, are you profitable?

Niks Jansons

05:24>> Yeah. Yeah. Of course. I'm like, I I don't pay don't like, for cost 40%. Yeah.

Nathan Latka

05:31So what do you what do you think that capital? Because you own a 100%. What do you do with it?

Reinvesting Profits and Capital Allocation

Niks Jansons

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

Nathan Latka

06:01Will it be nj-media or Sharpify, you think?

Sharpify Pivot Thinking

Niks Jansons

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.

Bootstrapped and No Plans to Raise

Nathan Latka

06:24And have you seen nj-media to date or have you raised capital?

Niks Jansons

06:27>> Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Everything. Everything.

Nathan Latka

06:30So you've you've bootstrapped?

Niks Jansons

06:32>> Everything. Yes. Everything's bootstrapped.

Nathan Latka

06:34Very cool.

Niks Jansons

06:35>> No. No. No. Nobody gives me money. I have to pay money.

Nathan Latka

06:37Any plans to raise at Sharpify?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

07:10What would make you take capital?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

07:39Right? Mhmm.

Team Size and Structure

Nathan Latka

07:41How many are full time at the agency?

Niks Jansons

07:46>> Like, twelve, thirteen people.

Nathan Latka

07:49Yeah. And how many of those are engineers?

Niks Jansons

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.

Famous Five: Books, Tools, and Habits

Nathan Latka

08:07Very 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?

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

08:38Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

Niks Jansons

08:43>> The the same guy, Alex Hormozi.

Nathan Latka

08:45Number three. What's your favorite online tool for building your business?

08:53The

Niks Jansons

08:55>> I I I think Zapier and ClickFunnels. I I like those two. Those are the best.

Nathan Latka

09:00Number four. How many hours of sleep do you get every night?

Niks Jansons

09:04>> I know precisely, like, six point five. I use Oura, so I know precisely.

Nathan Latka

09:09And what's your situate and we know you're it sounds like married. So any kids?

Niks Jansons

09:15>> No. No. Not yet kids. We're to do that, but married.

Nathan Latka

09:18Married and no kids. And how and how old are you, Niks?

Niks Jansons

09:21>> I'm I'm 27, I think.

Nathan Latka

09:2327.

Niks Jansons

09:24>> I'm 27 or 28. I didn't I was, like, thinking how old I'm? But I think it's funny.

Nathan Latka

09:29Alright. Take us home here. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

Niks Jansons

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.

Nathan Latka

09:48So what so maybe start a company faster?

Niks Jansons

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?

Nathan Latka

10:02Guys, 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.

Niks Jansons

10:23>> Cool. Love to be here.

Nathan Latka

10:26One 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

10:51Central. 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. Make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. I wouldn't want you to miss breaking news in the SaaS world, whether it's an acquisition, a big

11:13fundraise, big sale, a big profitability statement or something else. I don't want you to miss it. Additionally, if you want to take this conversation deeper and further, we have by far the largest private Slack community for B2B SaaS founders. You want to get in there. We've probably talked about your tool if you're running a company or your firm if you're investing. You can go in there and quickly search and see what people are saying. Sign up

11:35for that at nathanlatka.com/slack. In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode. If you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We got

11:55to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments. See you.