AUX Insights

Jesse's breakthrough came from his network and timing. After selling Ampush, a digital marketing agency, he noticed a pattern: private equity friends would call him during deal evaluation asking about the companies' digital ad performance. "I'd get a call from one friend once a month without fail, who worked at Blackstone or TPG," he recalls. They'd ask questions about Google and Facebook ads performance, wanting to know if ad channels were working well before committing hundreds of millions to acquisitions. McKinsey and BCG were charging $200,000/week but didn't understand digital marketing. Agencies gave recommendations nobody understood. There was a gap for someone who spoke both languages: marketing execution and PE financial impact.

Jesse didn't need to pitch. When a PE friend asked if he could analyze a deal, Jesse quoted $200,000+ casually. The friend said done. Within weeks, another deal came. "That's what happened with growth assistance and that's what happened with AUX and early days of Ampush—they'd ask, can I get one of those people? That's your signal," Jesse explains. The validation was immediate: in the discovery phase, people started asking to buy the service before it was fully built. He tested the idea at ShopTalk conferences—the Growth Assistant rep got 25 meetings while a competing Kahani rep got 3. That comparison alone convinced him AUX was real.

AUX Insights targets ultra-wealthy customers (private equity firms, hedge funds) with a specific offering: marketing due diligence on acquisitions and post-acquisition value creation. They charge $50,000/week for consultant teams—75% cheaper than McKinsey but infinitely more practical because they actually understand Facebook ad account structure, creative testing velocity, event match quality, and campaign consolidation. The business model has two revenue streams: pre-close diligence (analyzing target companies during deal evaluation) and post-close value creation (optimizing marketing after acquisition). The first 20 projects showed the approach works—25% of deals they recommend walking away from, including one that had straight-up SEO fraud. Private equity partners need certainty and CYA (cover your ass) before investing hundreds of millions. AUX provides both.

After one year, AUX hit $5M ARR. Jesse invested one-tenth of what he spent on the failed Kahani product into AUX and got dramatically better results. The business is building internal tools (color-coded Excel analysis sheets) that they plan to productize into software. They're earning by selling to the richest buyers, solving a specific problem (translating marketing metrics to EBITDA impact) that only they understand deeply. The success followed Jesse's core principle: find the richest market, understand their exact pain, and charge accordingly.