Deep Dive: Spirituality Niche

I’m a “spiritual” person. 

But that term—spiritual—is largely mysterious and can be taken a thousand different ways. However, that might be a good thing!

I just signed a letter of intent for a massive online media property in the spirituality niche. For the last 3 months, I’ve been doing some outside diligence on this property, and I’m deeply excited. 

One of the three types of businesses I invest in & advise on is Education, Software, and Media. 

Under each of those types, there are 3 subtypes: Business, Wellness, and Lifestyle.

For me, spirituality goes under Wellness and Lifestyle, and this new investment will begin my portfolio "silo” under Wellness in the spirituality niche. 

One of my guiding principles for investing is that I only invest in what I believe in…

I’m neither a value investor nor a day trader—I don’t just invest anything purely for returns. I invest only in what I believe will bring the world closer to a version I’d like my son to enjoy. 

That excites me so much about this investment—it’ll help improve the world. 

A second guiding principle is to invest in what I believe will continue to be needed in the future…

Truth is, when times are good, people turn to spirituality and self-development… but they also turn to these things when times aren’t so good. 

When things are “good,” we spend more time “being” and less time asking questions. But when times aren’t as “good,” we dive more deeply to find answers. 

As we continue into the future, I believe the number of people who utilize personal development (and be interested in spirituality) will increase. 

The third reason I believe this is a great investment is because of my experience…

I don’t invest in things I don’t understand. That’s why I’ve assisted dozens of spiritually-based businesses (selling those services, coaching, content, etc.) and helped many go beyond 7 figures. 

Simply put—if the business model is right, a business can scale quickly when its core job is to help people help themselves. 

Once I decided I wanted to be inside of the spirituality niche…

I decided I wanted to acquire a business that would be the “center-point”… generally speaking, this is a website with either a great client base OR a high level of traffic. 

An online property (website, blog, newsletter) with 5.5 million unique visits over the past year has amazing SEO and all the organics where they should be. 

It has a baseline of revenue ($40K~/month) with limited costs ($4K/mo). This baseline is perfect, especially as it hasn’t used many methods of generating revenue. 

This high traffic and positive cash flow will make entry into this ecosystem much easier. 

What are the steps from here? 

Generally speaking, when building a “sub-niche,” I’ll combine the efforts of 10-20 different properties/businesses. 

My biggest steps will be increasing traffic, converting traffic, building products, creating an overview business model, and then finding businesses to acquire and partner with that are a good fit. 

My growth path is simple. 

Build audience & audience depth—instead of trying to dive deep into building this as its own revenue generator, the worst case is the loss leader of the traffic source for our portfolio of spiritual and personal development education and media properties. 

While we can bring this to $3-4M/year by itself if by 2025, it will have yet to profit. However, we’ll direct traffic and audience to our other properties furhter as we develop this niche. That’s a winner. 

Which brings me to my lesson today…

You need a reason behind acquiring or partnering. Otherwise, you may need to clarify your intentions. 

Sometimes you’re trying to test your thesis. 

Sometimes you’re trying to create lifetime value.

Sometimes you’re trying to get less expensive traffic.

Sometimes you’re trying to get a good exit in 3 years.

Sometimes you don’t know what to do with all your profit. 

Sometimes you need a key team member or client of the business.

All reasons are valid. But knowing the ones for your partnership or acquisition and how it’ll impact the bigger 5+ year vision? That’s the unfair advantage. 

Time will tell, however, I expect that we’ll have dozens of spiritually based businesses inside of our portfolio in a short few years.