We’re Nathan Hirsch and Connor Gillivan. We’re long time entrepreneurs and business partners. We met in college where we went from selling textbooks to starting an Amazon dropshipping business in 2009 with only $5,000. At first, we struggled to hire college students then a fellow entrepreneur introduced us to the idea of virtual assistants and freelancers. We spent years developing the perfect hiring process for virtual assistants and once we figured it out, our lives changed. We sold over $25 million on Amazon and then started another company FreeUp.net, again with only $5,000 in capital, to help others get access to great virtual assistant and freelancer talent. In 4 years, we scaled FreeUp to $12 million in yearly revenue with no office and no US employees. FreeUp was acquired at the end of 2019 by The HOTH. (https://freeeup.com/blog/freeeup-updates/freeeup-acquired-by-hoth/) This pivotal event sent us on a new adventure to help entrepreneurs in a multitude of different ways using the skills we had acquired. Since the sale, we’ve launched three new companies: Outsourceschool.com, a membership site that teaches entrepreneurs our exact VA hiring processes. SimplySOP.com, a tool for creating and sharing processes for remote teams. And HG Ventures, a holding company that invests/partners with other digital businesses to help them scale. We love entrepreneurship and the ability to solve real problems through building new businesses. We both currently live in Denver, Colorado.

The goal of HG Ventures is to find win-win situations that benefit both the original business owner and the HG Ventures team. We want to help companies scale to 6, 7, and 8 figures by tapping into remote talent and utilizing the growth skills we’ve acquired in the past 10 years of growing our companies.

We look for businesses in the digital space (SAAS, marketplaces, agencies, eCommerce, etc.) that are doing $25,000+ in monthly profits. Businesses that are already profitable with 2 current owners or less that have not taken prior funding. Businesses in our area of expertise where we can bring our team, skill sets, resources and experience to help the business scale faster.

We look for minority ownership in companies where the original owner keeps all decision making power and 100% ownership of the business entity. The typical agreement involves HG Ventures getting 10% to 20% profit share plus a 10% to 20% stock option in the event of a sale. Every deal is different and we approach it that way with the owner of the business to make sure that it’s a win-win situation. 

The short answer is no. We like to build all of our businesses to be sellable, which means great systems, processes, and people. We will work with all of our partner companies to make it so that their business is 100% sellable by implementing all of those factors, but the final decision is up to the original owner if they want to pursue an acquisition. We will not pressure you to sell in any way and we’re 100% satisfied with keeping the business running at a profitable level. We understand it can be an extremely difficult decision to make with regards to selling and we can bring our experience to the table to help the original owner make the best decision possible for them and their life.

The thing to keep in mind with HG Ventures is that you are not just getting access to us. Rather, you are also getting access to our team as well. This includes, but is not limited to virtual assistants, copywriters, video editors, email marketers, graphic designers, etc. As certain hires are needed in scaling your business, we can provide individuals from our team and it will be paid for by the business in a fashion that makes sense for both parties. In addition, our role will be more high level and strategic, helping to get the team, funnel, goals, and other key parts of scaling in place. We will not be on the organizational chart for the business and we will not be involved in daily operations such as talking to clients, closing sales, responding to customers, or actively promoting the business. Our partners can expect weekly meetings with both of us along with hours that are necessary to implement such processes, systems, and objectives using their team. While a few hours each week is a reasonable estimate, hours tend to be frontloaded and it is impossible to put an exact number of hours in the week for our time. We are fully committed to all of our partner companies and will do whatever it takes within reason to help achieve the agreed upon goals. We also want our percentage ownership to accurately reflect the time spent which is why the original owner will keep the majority percentage profit share of the business.

The short answer is yes, but within reason. We’re all in to help our partner businesses grow and are very easy to contact in general. We love talking business, ideas, and strategies so those conversations are always welcome. However, we ask all partners to respect our time and contact us during business hours unless it is an emergency, which should not happen daily. We expect more meetings and contact early on as we get to know each other and get all systems in place for the business to really scale.

Over the past ten years we have gained knowledge and experience with systems, processes, hiring, marketing/funnel building, building sales teams, website optimization, goal setting, SEO, finances, and more. Our commitment with any company we invest in is to help them build out their back end so it’s off their plate, help them duplicate themselves by hiring the right people, and help them set up a sales funnel that continuously allows the business to scale quickly and efficiently.

We have one deal under contract that we cannot disclose at this time and we are consistently receiving new applications to work with us on a daily basis. We plan on adding one new deal a quarter going forward keeping all details confidential to respect the original owners. This is subject to change and we will always make sure that we have enough time and team bandwidth before taking on any new partner business.

While each deal is unique, we strongly believe in dating before getting married. This means an initial period of time where both sides can opt out if it is not a fit. We don’t want you to have to work with us if we can’t help you scale and likewise, we are at a point in our entrepreneurial journey where we don’t want to be forced to work with people we don’t get along with. However, once the opt out period is over, we expect both sides to honor the agreement, which could also include future buyout opportunities where either party could get out of the agreement based on specific payment measures. With that said, if it is clearly not a fit, we will just back out early and move on. Again, we are only interested in win-win situations and it is the only way we prefer to do business. We have spent years building up our reputation in the business community and won’t jeopardize that for any amount of short term money.

Again, every deal is unique. We have started 3 businesses with $5,000 or less so we are used to running very lean, cash positive businesses that don’t require large cash investments. Businesses we partner with are normally very similar with low overhead costs. Then the question becomes what is the money being used for and when does the money need to be inserted into the business? This is answered on a case to case basis with our partner businesses. In addition, remember that we believe in dating before getting married which means we don’t want to give you a large amount of money only to have you realize you don’t want to work with us, but we’re both stuck with the situation. So there are other factors at play. If you are looking for a million dollar investment into your unproven startup, we are not the right fit. If money makes sense for both sides, it can of course be part of the agreement.

Outside of our original specifications, we are looking for like-minded hungry entrepreneurs who are committed long term to their current business and making it as profitable as possible. The perfect partner brings opposite strengths and weaknesses from us. It is important to us that we share the same goals, mindset and ETHICS with anyone we work with. There will be conversations upfront to make sure we want the same things across the board so we avoid any situations where we won’t align on any parts of the business.

You can apply here: https://hirschgillivanventures.com/apply. We will review your application and reach out with next steps. If we are interested in learning more, we’ll typically set up a phone call where we can speak with you and any other owners to go over your application, answer any questions you have, and discuss next steps.