What happens when you decide to stop talking about building a business and actually start trying to build one?
That’s what we’re going to find out.
Ninetwo Holdings is being built around a simple idea:
Find opportunities. Acquire them when the numbers make sense. Improve them. Grow them.
But we’re not starting with a huge investment fund, a large team or a portfolio of successful businesses.
We’re starting from the beginning.
And we’re going to document the journey as we go.
What is Ninetwo Holdings?
Ninetwo Holdings is being built as a long-term business investment company.
The ambition is to eventually acquire small businesses and digital businesses that have potential but aren’t performing as well as they could.
That could mean an online business that has been neglected, a SaaS company that has stopped growing, a website with a good underlying idea but poor execution, or eventually a traditional small business where better systems and management could make a difference.
The aim isn’t simply to buy businesses.
It’s to find opportunities where we believe there is a realistic opportunity to create more value than we paid for.
We’re not looking for perfect businesses
In fact, we’re interested in businesses where there is something to improve.
Maybe the website is outdated.
Maybe the owner has stopped marketing it.
Maybe the product is good but isn’t reaching enough customers.
Maybe the business has potential but lacks the systems needed to grow.
Those are the situations we want to investigate.
But there’s an important rule:
Cheap doesn’t automatically mean good.
Before anything is acquired, we’ll need to understand the numbers, the customers, the competition, the risks and — most importantly — what we could realistically improve.
Project Phoenix
One of the first things we’re working on is Project Phoenix.
The idea is simple:
Find an overlooked or underperforming online business and see whether it can be turned into something better.
We’re going to research businesses that are available to buy, study their numbers and look at what could potentially be improved.
Some opportunities will look exciting.
Others will fall apart once we dig deeper.
That’s fine.
We’re not going to pretend every opportunity is a winner.
Learning what not to buy is just as important as finding something worth buying.
What we’ll be looking at
Ninetwo Insights will document the areas that matter when evaluating and building businesses.
Business acquisitions
How do you find a small business worth considering?
What should you look for before making an offer?
How do you decide what a business is actually worth?
Digital businesses
We’ll look at websites, SaaS businesses, online businesses and other digital assets.
The internet has created thousands of small businesses, but not all of them are being run to their full potential.
Business turnarounds
If a business has good fundamentals but poor execution, what could be changed?
We’ll look at areas such as marketing, websites, customer acquisition, pricing, operations and systems.
The numbers
Revenue is only one part of the story.
We’ll look at costs, profit, cash flow, valuations and potential returns.
Because ultimately, an acquisition has to make financial sense.
The mistakes
Not every idea will work.
Not every business will be worth buying.
Not every improvement will produce the result we expect.
We’ll document those lessons too.
We’re starting from the beginning
There’s a reason we’re documenting this journey now rather than waiting until Ninetwo Holdings has already become successful.
We want to show the process.
The research.
The opportunities we investigate.
The businesses we reject.
The ideas we test.
The mistakes we make.
And, hopefully, eventually, the businesses we acquire.
There won’t be a polished success story written after everything has worked.
You’ll see the journey while we’re figuring it out.
Where are we trying to get?
The long-term ambition is straightforward:
Build Ninetwo Holdings into a company that owns and improves businesses.
There’s a long way between where we are today and that goal.
So we’re starting with the fundamentals.
Research.
Learning.
Finding opportunities.
Understanding valuations.
Building relationships.
Building an audience.
And eventually putting the first deal together.
We don’t know exactly where this journey will take us.
And that’s what makes it interesting.
We’re going to find out.
Welcome to Ninetwo Insights
This is where the journey starts.
If you’re interested in small business acquisitions, online businesses, business turnarounds and the reality of trying to build something from the ground up, you’re in the right place.
We’ll share what we learn along the way — the opportunities, the numbers, the decisions, the successes and the failures.
Ninetwo Holdings
Find. Acquire. Improve. Grow.