Ramon van Meer Profile picture
Oct 12, 2021 11 tweets 4 min read Read on X
2.5 years ago I bought a dog ramp business for $300,000.

Since then, I’ve sold $35,000,000 of dog ramps.

I’m going to explain

Why I bought it
How I scaled
Why I bought a business vs built from scratch

But first...dog ramps?

👇
Yeah. Dog ramps. I know. Odd.

But there’s a reason behind this: dog ramps solve a very specific problem.

If you have a small or old dog that struggles to get onto your bed or couch, you immediately react when you see a dog ramp ad.

Why? Image
It's a very specific problem for a relatively small but targeted audience that you can explain very well in a video.

Jumping of sofa hurts dogs joints and can cause injuries and spinal issues --> surgery can cost up to 8k --> a ramp can prevent your pup from a painful surgery
Let's go over why I bought it, scaled it, and why I personally like to buy vs build:
👇
Reasons why I bought it:

1. Solves a specific problem for a targeted audience.
2. Prev owner wasn't doing any FB ads.
3. No email marketing or retention AT ALL.
4. Old, crappy website with poor conversion
4. Huge social media following but no way to convert into sales
👇
How we scaled:

1. Moved to @Shopify, updated all images, videos and copy
2. Social ads, just took videos from customers and created ads
3. Built email flows and campaigns with @klaviyo
4. Paid ads, mainly FB/Instagram

Now expanding into dog food, cat litter, and more
Why buy vs build:

1. For me, it is easier and faster to go from 1 to 10 vs 0 to 1.
2. There is already a product-market fit (of some sort), there is history, revenue, and data you can work with.
👇
3. Similar like real estate, I look for "crappy fixer-uppers" in "up-and-coming areas". I know how to fix and increase value, I am not a great building.
4. Typically I want to see 3 things I can improve on the website and increase value

to find deals I use: @quietlightinc
I typically like to stay low-key (I am shy and an introvert AF), but I want to get out of my comfort zone and start building more in public, as it maybe can be helpful for others.

Follow me for more
I am pretty unknown but would be cool to do some podcasts or interviews with @Forbes or @Entrepreneur or something.

I have a lot more stories and I will be tweeting them as well. If you know someone in PR let me know, would appreciate it a lot!
If you liked this thread, sign up for my free newsletter:
getrevue.co/profile/ramonv…

I will write more about e-com, buying or scaling businesses and more:

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More from @ramonvanmeer

Feb 8, 2023
In 2016, I created a fake story to test media gullibility.

The fake story was that I hacked my Tesla and installed Pokemon Go.

We edited a video together, wrote up a release, and hit send:

12 hours later my VM box was full and over 40 sites picked it up.

Here we go: 👇 Image
I had no financial gain from this stunt.

I simply wanted to observe media behavior: would they verify before publishing or jump on it.

You probably know the answer, a lot of them jumped on it and ran with it.

Here is why I think this stunt worked so well:
👇
I took 2 items that were trending at that time: Tesla and Pokemon Go, both were in the news all the time.

I came up with an interesting story that was far-fetched but could be true.

Made a video that looks real on the surface but if zoomed in, you see it was edited
Read 9 tweets
Jan 29, 2023
Marc Benioff was 34 years old when he launched SalesForce, a 160 Billion company.

The marketing stunts he used are pretty amazing.

👇🏽👇🏽
1. Hired fake protesters

When salesforce launched on Feb 2000, Marc Benioff hired fake "protesters" at a conference for their biggest rival Siebel Systems.

The protesters called for the “End of Software”.

Marc even hired a fake TV crew (Channel 22) to cover the "protest".
Siebel called the police and a big news story was born.

From this stunt, the Ghostbusters-inspired "No software" logo was born.
Read 10 tweets
Jan 26, 2023
How I bought a blog about @WWE for $16,000 and sold it for $240,000 one year later.

I was looking for a niche content site that had a good foundation but still had 3-5 easy wins that would increase traffic and increase RPMs.

👇
When I look for websites to buy in the $500-$50k I typically go to flippa.com - great market place to find 1000s of listings.

I like to filter for websites that are older then 2yr and have decent amount of traffic and some revenue.
In this case I was looking for niche topic, reason because for me it is easier to build communities (email list, FB groups/pages, Instagram) around a niche vs a broad subject. For example instead doing soming around sports, or soccer, do something around a club
Read 12 tweets
Jan 10, 2023
Today I became an American!
I can here 14 years ago. Now I
have an amazing American son,
started a bunch of businesses (some failed, some sold for over $10m)
- worked my ass off.

Here’s my story and my take on the American Dream
👇 Image
Ever since I was young kid, I was intrigued by this country, not sure if it was the movies, music or my grandpa's stories about how the US is the land of the opportunity

My fav song growing up was Born in the USA, here embarrassing pic of me performing that song for my family: Image
In my opinion, the United States is truly the land of opportunity, and the American dream is still alive and kicking.

I am living proof, I came here with little to no money, no education, no family here or any other support than my friend Mo.
Read 13 tweets
Aug 24, 2022
Many years ago I flipped a blog about scary stories and made 45k profit in 6 months.

This is how I did it:

👇 Image
I have flipped over 25 (mostly small) websites, but the concept always stays the same, I either look for highly undervalued websites (what is rare nowadays to find) and/or look for "fixer-uppers" (meaning a site that I think I can improve)
Typically I would like to see at least 3 things that I think I can improve that will increase traffic --> Revenue --> Profit, with the goal to flip the website.
Read 10 tweets
Oct 14, 2021
My last tweet about my 35M dog ramp business kinda went viral.

Common question I got was: where did I find the this business?

Let’s go over it + I will give you my black book with all broker’s info

👉 How to find deals
👉 What to look for and what are red flags

👇
3 ways to find deals:

1. Brokers: I often work with QLB but there are tons of similar ones with great deals.

I made a G-sheet with all the links, the link is at bottom of thread.

Pros: Brokers will filter out the bad apples (risk is lower), data room is ready, fair valuation
Cons: Often there will be multiple bidders, so sometimes difficult to get a good deal.

There is an extra layer between you and the seller that sometimes makes negotiating more difficult.
Read 15 tweets

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