The Most Hands-Off $192K/M Business Anyone Can Copy - Ep. #315

Chris Koerner (0:00)

Why don't you start by telling us who you are and what you do?

Luke Van Der Veer (0:02)

My name is Luke Vanderbeer, and I rent websites, lead generation websites to businesses.

Chris Koerner (0:07)

What got you into that? What led you there?

Luke Van Der Veer (0:10)

I had a job, an HR job, and I did not like it. And I was searching for ways to quit, and I tried all these different side hustles, selling on eBay, selling on Amazon, drop shipping, affiliate marketing. I paid for a course and learned Facebook ads. I tried to create a Facebook agency. I actually made some money with that. Then my last attempt here before I kind of pivoted was an SEO agency. Started running an agency, picked up a bunch of clients, but it just turned into another job. It made more money, but I didn't want to be working all the time. I wanted to build something upfront and then try to make it somewhat passive so that I wouldn't have to be there grinding it out in an office for 45 years or whatever. I just don't agree with that thing that society pushes. So I was running an SEO agency, not for very long, under a year.

And I just had a client call me in the middle of the night complaining about his results, which were stellar. And it really made me mad. And I woke up the next day and I just shut it down. And I was thinking about it and I'm like, I don't know how do I remove his control or take back the control? And the only way I could think of was if I own the asset, because then he can't tell me what to do. And so I was like, OK, I'll just build stuff and all the niches I'm already in with clients, fire all of them and I'll just rent the site out. And then if somebody doesn't want to deal with it, I got 50 other people I could rent the site to.

Chris Koerner (1:25)

Yeah, so I guess in other industries, you might call this vertical integration. Correct me if and or where I go wrong. Like you develop all these SEO skills. They're very valuable. You're implementing them for other people. It's working well for them. But you feel like, OK, I own a job. I don't own a business. I'm still kind of working hourly. I only get out what I put in. This doesn't feel much better. It doesn't feel like as free as I thought it would feel. So like why drive all these results for other people when I can just vertically integrate, have my own websites, drive results for myself and make this more passive, more scalable?

Luke Van Der Veer (1:59)

Right. Yeah. I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner. It just had that like trigger and it just made me so mad. I was like, I don't I'm like, how do I get rid of this? Yeah, I just need to remove all of these people. Like, how do I make them like change the dynamic? And that was the only thing I could think of. But it worked. So I was like, OK, let's just keep doing this.

Chris Koerner (2:15)

Yeah, it's kind of like a friend of mine. He had a Facebook ad agency for Shopify brands, for e-commerce brands. And he got really, really good at turning $1 into $5, specifically driving people to Shopify sites to buy physical goods. And then he's like, why don't I launch Shopify brand? Like, that's the hardest part is finding customers. I can find customers. And he did, you know, and now he's vertically integrated. He makes more money.

Luke Van Der Veer (2:38)

So yeah, so he's looking for like higher level uses of the skill set, which is kind of, yes, you know, taking me into other things. So I love that.

Chris Koerner (2:45)

So you fired all your clients like you woke up, had this realization and said, I can't help you anymore.

Luke Van Der Veer (2:50)

All of them, I kept one of them.

One's a friend. I kept him. Everybody else went. I was just like, I'm not doing this anymore. Here's some other people you could use. I'm done.

Chris Koerner (2:59)

How much of like an immediate revenue or income hit was that to you?

Luke Van Der Veer (3:03)

It was 108,000. Just go.

Chris Koerner (3:05)

Okay. A year?

Luke Van Der Veer (3:07)

Yeah.

Chris Koerner (3:07)

Wow. And did you have, like had you started already building websites before you did this or?