Secret Entourage

Pejman Ghadimi started Secret Entourage in 2007 with a goal he described simply: to help inspire young people. He brought together a group of his friends who were exotic-car owners and successful operators, and asked them to teach what they had learned in their industries and specialties. He framed it as a passion project rather than a money-driven business.

The business was built around a membership academy. Members get access to more than 200 interviews, with new ones added weekly, plus mastermind groups and live events. The company also publishes a free blog with over 2,000 articles and sells books. Ghadimi has authored about 10 books, and his best seller, Third Circle Theory, has sold over 220,000 copies. The company owns its publishing arm, which it uses to publish other entrepreneurs' books. The team was small, with four or five core members, and most of the teachers were contractors or unpaid contributors who featured in the academy for exposure and credibility.

Ghadimi said the main traffic driver is social media, especially Instagram, where the brand posts clips, motivational quotes, and business tips. The company also writes profiles of featured people, and those people share the stories with their own audiences, which brings in new customers. SEO is the second channel, through keyword-driven articles and stories that attract people searching for particular entrepreneurs. The site gets about 6,000 unique visitors a day, according to Ghadimi. The email list is under 100,000, and he said it is used for targeted content and relevant promotions rather than mass sales blasts.

Revenue grew each year: about $1.5M in 2013, $2.3M in 2014, and just over $4M in 2015. In 2015 the company signed up roughly 36,000 new customers. Pricing was flexible. The entrance fee was about $200, but it has ranged from $99 during holiday promotions up to $400, and bundles were common. Ghadimi acknowledged that the business is not recurring in the way a SaaS company is. There is no monthly fee, so growth depends on continuously attracting new members.

As of the interview, Ghadimi described Secret Entourage as a small team supported by a network of contributors, with steady growth and a sizable audience. He also ran VIP Motoring, a separate exotic-car investment business that he described as his biggest source of income, but that business is not part of this startup's traction story.