Big accomplishments take time.
Yet most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in a few years.
Well, in just 3.5 years, this amazing couple have built a 7-figure asset from scratch and today you’ll hear their journey and key lessons they learned along the way, including:
- Why they chose the digital agency route
- What they focused on in their first year
- How they 10x their prices in their second year
- How long it took them to replace their incomes
- 5 keys that helped them create a 7-figure asset within 3.5 years
Plus, you’ll hear how they acquired a website for $6000 that will pay for itself within 12 months.
Click below to hear how Avani & Amish did it, so you can too.
Matt Raad: If you’re a listener of the Digital Investor Podcast, chances are you’re interested in creating a seven-figure digital asset.
Today, we’re excited to share the inspiring story of our graduate students, Amish and Avani from SME Digital, a top rated digital agency in Sydney.
In just three and a half years, they have built a multi-million dollar asset, and it may surprise you how they’ve done it. So, let’s dive into their journey and uncover some key lessons they learned along the way.
Amish & Avani started with minimal experience in digital assets and SEO
Matt: Amish and Avani joined us on the Champions Program about three and a half years ago.
A lot of our regular readers will be familiar with their story on how they built their digital agency while raising a new born baby.
But for our new readers, how did you discover eBusiness Institute? What led you to joining the Champions program? And how much experience did you have in digital assets, SEO, and all the fun things that you do now?
Amish I had an IT/telco background, but I wasn’t enjoying it. We got introduced to eBusiness Institute through a mutual friend, James Schramko, and that’s how we started this journey.. This was around four years ago.
Matt: And Avani, what about you?
Avani: I was running a business in India and had very little experience in digital assets and SEO. I was also working part-time streaming funerals online here in Australia. It was a way to pass the time, but we both wanted something more substantial.
They were a young couple looking for a change, so they joined the Champions program
Matt: Wow. So, you were living on the northern beaches of Sydney. And if I remember right, you were living in a small apartment with no kids on the horizon.
So, a lot has happened over the last three and a half years. And I think your story is so inspirational for so many members of our community of what can happen in your first year when you follow our plan.
The first year of Champions is a learning year, not an earning year. Liz and I are big about teaching people good digital skills and in particular the foundations of getting it right and focusing on that first. And then you start to step it up.
They chose to work together in the Digital Agency strategy
Amish and Avani’s first year of Champions was all about learning and growth
Matt: Let’s talk about your journey. In the first year, you followed our plan exactly, focusing on learning rather than earning. What strategy did you choose, and why?
Amish: We chose the agency model because it offered quicker cash flow. We wanted to replace our incomes as soon as possible. It also allowed us to work from home, which was important since we were planning to have a child.
Avani: Also, we wanted to start something together, build an asset, and create a proper business. We knew when we were going to have kids, we wanted to be around for them.
It was a big learning curve for us, but we were determined to make it work.
Matt: Awesome, and you have never worked together before?
Amish: Never, and so there were quite a few challenges every single month, every single week.
Avani: The first year was literally about learning how to work together, and the skills behind running a digital agency.
They started charging $400 in their first year as a learning experience
Matt: We have a bit of an inside joke in our Champions community which I want to share with our readers here.
Amish and Avani took like a duck to water when it came to learning website builds and SEO. They just love it. And they’re particularly good at SEO, so if you’re looking for quality SEO services in Sydney, go speak to them.
In their first year, they started building websites that were ranking in very competitive niches.
And so, by the end of the first year, you were building websites but charging very little. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Amish: We built a website for a local client in a competitive niche, charging only $150 a month for SEO and $400 for the website build. Looking back, we undercharged, but it was part of the learning process.
Avani: Yes, but the client took a chance with us. We were really upfront about our skillset and that we are still learning. We want to get him the results so he could see how much we wanted to get him to succeed. And that’s the same for all of our clients.
Matt: Absolutely. It’s all about gaining confidence and building skills.
When you first start out on this journey, particularly if you’re doing the digital agency strategy, you always start out small and you build your skills up so that you get your online confidence.
From our experience, this works really well. You need to get the foundations dialled in, and you do that by starting out small. And if you decide on building a Digital Agency like Amish and Avani have done, it is a lot quicker for cashflow, but you do start out small.
And this site you built was a beautiful looking website. And I remember at the time saying, “Ok, there is a bit of a mindset issue here. The site you’ve built is worth 10 times more than this. You should have charged $4,000!” Technically, you could have also charged $1,500 a month in SEO, particularly because the client’s niche was so competitive.
As their mindset and confidence grew, they increased their rates
Matt: In the second year, you started charging more, reflecting the value you provided. What were your average charges, and how did that year pan out?
Amish: Well, the great thing about the first client build was we saw how the process worked really well with the foundations you taught us. It just worked like magic. And it gave us the confidence that if we could achieve those results in a competitive industry, we can do it again in another.
So, since this, we’ve started charging $1,500 onwards per month for our SEO services.
Matt: Would you say by the end of the second year you had replaced your incomes?
Avani: Yes, I think we did.
Amish: At the end of the second year, we did. We had COVID at the end of the first year, so there was a bit of on and off as well. But by the end of the second year, yes, we had replaced our incomes.
Matt: That’s fantastic. Even with COVID in the mix, you managed to achieve this. You guys really took to this and were very driven to make a change in your lives. My guess is you didn’t want to go back to your normal jobs.
How they scaled up and achieved recurring revenue
Matt: You decided to go full-time with this. Can you explain how you decided to go all-in and when you saw the potential?
Avani: Yes, even six months in, I had just come off maternity leave, and Amish said, “Just do it. You can’t keep doing the $400 a week job.”
It was still a small business, but in my head, I was thinking if we went full-time with this, there’s a lot more scope. I now look back and realise how much headspace I got back to invest in the digital agency. It was a risk, but we were both very sure we were going to make it happen.
Matt: That’s great. So, Amish, it was basically you deciding at first to go all-in on the digital agency strategy. You saw the potential there. And then Avani joined in later.
Amish: Yes, we saw the potential because of the amount of clients we started getting in. So, it needed both of us in it, otherwise it couldn’t have happened. It was all pretty organic.
They each focus on their own strengths to deliver great results for their clients
Matt: Who’s the more technical one out of you two?
Avani: I’m more technical.
Amish: That hasn’t changed in the last three and a half, four years. It’s going to stay like that.
Avani: I’m actually moving him away from the technical stuff. I try to get him to focus on top-level things. When he goes into the backend, sometimes he messes things up, and then my team has to fix it.
Matt: You both learned the foundations and are very good at building websites. Amish, you focused a lot on learning SEO. Avani, did you spend a lot of time learning SEO as well, or did you focus on something else?
Avani: Early on, we decided on our areas of focus. We both know each other’s stuff, but I can go into the backend of a website and do a full audit.
- Amish’s skillset in SEO has gone up quite a bit because he spends about three to four hours a week learning SEO.
- I focus on web design, UX/UI, and everything related to that.
This is how we can deliver really good value to our clients. We’ve found some clients who come to us from SEO agencies who didn’t have the right web designer in them. So, they struggled with the conversion. When people actually get onto the site, they’re not converting enough.
Whereas web designers don’t know SEO that well. But we realised this is what we are experts at. We are going to combine the two and run through everything together.
For every client, it doesn’t matter if it’s an SEO or a web design client, we still collaborate and then go through the whole process together.
And so, we specialise in our different areas to deliver really good value to our clients.
Matt: You guys are the perfect couple.
I want our readers to understand that whether you’re buying websites or building them for local businesses, you need to be strong on these foundations and have that confidence. It’s the broad knowledge as well across the two skill sets, SEO and building websites and making sure they convert and make money.
So, you have the perfect combo as a couple—legendary website builder and legendary SEO. And that’s why you’ve been able to scale this.
How Amish & Avani built a 7-figure digital agency in 3.5 years
Matt: Let’s talk about your digital agency and why it’s now worth seven figures in just three and a half years. Where did you start to see the big wins? What’s the main income generator in? What services have you focused on, and what has made it so successful?
1./ They focused on services that produced recurring revenue
Amish: SEO plays a big part because we’re really good at client retention. Most of our clients from day one are still our clients, which adds recurring revenue.
And so, we focus on SEO as an offshoot of our web design projects. We have a lot of clients who weren’t looked after well enough, or had things messed up. And so, it became an organic thing to also offer ongoing website maintenance and SEO services to make sure they were taken care of properly.
2./ They were clear on what they do (and don’t) offer
Avani: In the beginning, people kept asking if we were going to do EDM, social media, etc. We have partners for that, but our three core services are:
- Web design,
- SEO, and
- Website maintenance.
These are what we love doing and what we do best.
Now as we are growing, we have the time, ability, and energy to put into diversifying our services a little bit more. But at its core web design, SEO and website maintenance is what we do best.
3./ They increased their prices as their experience grew
Matt: What do you charge for website maintenance, which is quite passive for you guys?
Avani: We start at about $110 for local clients, and for bigger sites, it can be $149 to $179.
For local clients, $110 is a win-win because we look after their websites, speed optimization, technical issues, and more. This ensures everything runs smoothly for SEO.
Matt: Good for you guys in looking after the clients and then their sites. They don’t have to stress, and know it’s being covered properly.
So, how much now do you charge for ongoing SEO? What are the two main brackets?
Amish: We charge a bare minimum of $1,500 per month, and it goes up to $3,500 to $4,500 depending on the client and their needs.
4./ They deliver incredible results for their clients
Matt: Wow. When you think back to when you first started, $4,500 per month is a pretty darn good income, isn’t it? Especially when you’re throwing in a few big clients mixed in with smaller ones, that’s a good income when you’re working from home.
Avani: 100% yes. And when we look at the ROI that a client is getting out of these numbers, they’re getting great results. We know that even if we’re charging them $1,500, we’re making them a lot more money than that.
For example, we have a concrete client who gets an average of seven new leads per month just through the web forms. Then there’s about 10 or more phone calls that we track per month. And for one conversation they have from 10 to 15 leads, they’re earning about $10,000. So, that’s a huge win for us and the client.
Amish: We’ve also been able to teach our clients what Matt & Liz Raad have taught us around treating your website as a valuable digital asset. There is a lot of value in building leads.
We had one client who is a level 2 sparky. He is based in Sydney and was about to shut down his business. I said, “Wait, don’t do it. You could make a lot of money if you sell it.” He had never thought about this. And in the end he sold for over $200,000 for the website.
Avani: The great thing with that client was they were a 50-year old business. When they came to us they had great domain authority but were only getting 2 leads. So, we built up the website into an asset he could actually sell, and it ended up generating 15 to 18 leads per month.
Of course, this doesn’t just happen for any sparky out there because it’s a very competitive niche. But because of their reputation, their domain authority, and the work we did for them, it worked out very well for them.
Matt: Well done, guys. That’s awesome.
5./ They now charge a minimum $4,000 for a website build
Matt: How much do you charge for website builds these days?
Avani: For a five to seven-page website, we charge about $4,000 to $4,500, depending on the industry. And especially if they’re a client who wants good online presence, we keep building the website out for them. We set it all up so they’ve got the perfect base for when they’re ready to start SEO.
The importance of building long-term business relationships and networking
Matt: In the last three and a half years, you haven’t just been selling to individual customers. You’ve also secured some big corporate and industrial clients, which is really impressive.
When you first started out, where did you get most of your leads from? How did you get the initial momentum going before your second year when things really started to take off?
Amish: The second year was when I had the light bulb moment. I got really excited and just kept reaching out to every contact I knew in my business network. It was a lot of word of mouth at first, followed by cold calls to businesses and industries.
Avani: We’ve put in a lot of effort to build our network.
We’ve done cold calling, door-knocking, and faced rejections. We did what it takes to ensure a steady flow of leads.
Matt: Well congratulations. You all took on board what Liz and I teach. Whether your business is online websites or traditional business, our approach was always through door knocking, cold calling, and the online equivalent—emails.
This involved finding contact forms, reaching out to people confidentially, and asking if they were interested in collaborating with us on their websites or selling them to us.
So, congratulations on doing the hard yards.
Putting their efforts into networking early on helped Amish & Avani grow their business quickly
Matt: Like Avani said, in those early years, you both really pushed hard. The two of you worked tirelessly on networking and securing sales.
Honestly, we can teach digital skills all day. We’re good at that—it’s what we do at eBusiness Institute, and our coaches are phenomenal. They all run six- and seven-figure digital agencies themselves. So, teaching digital skills is relatively easy for us, and we love helping people like you to learn them.
But the bottleneck in this digital agency space is getting that deal flow—the leads coming through the door. The skills are not the real challenge because you’ve mastered them so well; it’s all about getting those deals in.
Amish: Even now, that’s our main focus. We work through different channels like Google Ads and professional cold calling. We’re reaching out to various industries to keep the leads coming in.
Avani: We get leads from our website, cold calling, Google Ads, Meta Ads, and networking from within the Champions Group. We typically use five to seven marketing strategies at once.
Matt, your guidance on cold calling and networking has become a core part of who we are.
They dedicated themselves to growing their digital agency no matter what
Matt: I love your dedication. If you go back and read the previous article on Amish and Avani’s online journey, you’ll hear that Avani was giving birth while they were still building a website in a hospital. She was literally in the hospital with a laptop.
Amish: I still get in trouble for this. I was so eager to learn and get results for clients that I asked a question during a contraction and thought, “Never again”.
Avani: Then, he asked me a question, shoved a laptop in my face, and said, while I was having contractions, “Not much is happening; Can you just do this one little thing for me?”
Matt: My goodness. You’ve literally given birth while building websites during labour.
Amish & Avani are now earning over $50,000 in monthly income!
See the consistent incremental steps they took to achieve this amazing result…
Matt: Let’s dive into the exciting part: the numbers and your monthly income.
If you’re reading this, don’t think Amish and Avani are just running a small home business. They are absolutely smashing it.
When did you first start hitting $50,000 months? Was it in your second year or third year?
Amish: I think it was in our third year when we started getting those bigger months, with a few web designs coming in and SEOs staying at that level. Then, we started building up from there.
Matt: And seriously, that’s mind-blowing because as soon as you start reaching $50,000 per month, you’re essentially building a seven-figure asset.
It goes even beyond that. Would you mind sharing with the readers how your recent months have been in terms of results?
Amish: It’s definitely much higher than $50,000 for many months, which is great. It’s more about consistency now. It’s not just about hitting $50,000, but about it steadily increasing.
This level of recurring income has significantly boosted the value of their digital agency
Avani: We consistently see our graph trending upwards month after month, which is exactly what we want. We aim to avoid having one month significantly higher and the next much lower. This stability is the true value of SEO.
Matt: You both have done incredibly well in turning this into significant recurring revenue. What I love is how it aligns with our teachings on building long-term client relationships. It’s not just $50,000 a month—it’s even more, recurring with the same clients, and growing exponentially.
The value of digital agencies with recurring revenue is high, with brokers noting they can be worth four to six times their profit.
American buyers are interested and willing to pay in cash. Recurring revenue is crucial, and the digital agency strategy, like what Amish and Avani have used, can quickly reach seven figures.
You’re not ready to sell just yet, though. You’re focused on growth, right?
Amish: Yes, we enjoy this more than the money. It’s the satisfaction and the community with our clients that matter most, and we’re definitely not looking to sell—we’re focused on scaling up.
…and they’ve built a thriving local community around them with their clients
Avani: Matt, it’s incredible. I only moved to Australia about eight years ago, so I didn’t grow up with this community. Now, it feels special to walk down the street and see clients like the hairdresser, physio, and café.
At the recent local business awards, 10 to 12 of our clients were featured as finalists in the local business awards. While we might consider an exit someday, we’re thoroughly enjoying what we’re doing now.
They’re now scaling their agency by hiring fellow Champion graduates
Matt: Congratulations on your impressive scaling! As you expand, where are you finding your best staff in Australia? I know you have offshore staff, but where are you sourcing top talent locally?
Amish: The eBusiness Champions community has some of the best minds. I work with former Champion graduates who have exceptional SEO skills—much better than mine. It’s invaluable to be surrounded by such knowledgeable people.
Avani: We rely on the community because we know the foundations are solid. If we were to hire offshore, we’d face challenges due to unfamiliarity. Hiring from within our community ensures that new staff implement things the way we would, based on the same principles we’ve learned.
Matt: It’s great to see Champions like what Pete and Renee did, hiring locally as they scale their digital agency.
How purchasing a local business directory can boost Amish & Avani’s agency even further
Matt: Since we also teach buying websites, I’d like to hear about a recent Flippa purchase you made. What’s the standout website you bought to boost your growth, and what can our readers learn from it?
Amish: We found a listing on Flippa that had been there for a while. It’s an Australian-based business directory called SearchFrog.
I kept an eye on it, and when the deal fell through, I grabbed it. It’s been adding great value for our clients.
Avani: It’s a high-DA site, so it’s adding value not just to our clients but also to the digital agencies listed there.
Matt: That’s great. Instead of buying a typical semi-passive site on Flippa, you acquired a directory site with high domain authority. It sat on Flippa unnoticed, but you recognised its value.
They bought the directory for $6,000 and it’s already making $600 per month
Matt: With your successful digital agency, the site’s value multiplies significantly. You paid $6,000 for it—what does it typically earn per month, even before you’ve started working on it?
Amish: Yes, we haven’t started working on it yet, but it made around $500 to $600 in the first month. We expect to stay on track for about $600 a month this month as well.
Matt: That’s a nice multiple. This directory site can accelerate your digital agency’s growth by adding value for your clients and enhancing your networking opportunities. You now own a directory that connects you with other agencies and businesses.
Are you planning to renovate it or keep it as is, given it’s currently earning $500 to $600 a month? What are your plans?
Amish: Our plan is to drive more traffic to the site and monetise it through guest posting and other methods. For now, we’ll focus on adding high-quality content to boost traffic. We have bigger plans to execute in the next three to six months.
Avani: We are not going to leave it for sure. I don’t think that’s in our DNA to leave things.
Matt: No, I wouldn’t expect that to happen at all. How old is the website?
Amish: It’s seven years old with the other buyer and probably it has around 8,000 listings on it.
Avani: Oh, it actually has 12,000 listings and a database of around 35,000.
Matt: Wow, a lot of work has gone into that over the six years, and you snapped it up for just $6,000. It was a local directory and had been overlooked on Flippa, making it a great find.
They are also looking to purchase other agencies to accelerate their growth even more
Matt: Another strategy for growing digital agencies is buying other agencies.
Have you considered this? Many Champions are acquiring small digital agencies for $5,000 to $50,000. If you want to accelerate growth, buying neglected or small agencies could be a great opportunity.
Avani: Absolutely, we’re open to acquiring other digital agencies and would love to discuss with anyone looking to sell. We’re interested in agencies across Australia, regardless of size.
Many smaller agencies hesitate to sell due to client care concerns, but we excel in maintaining long-term relationships. If anyone is considering selling, please reach out.
Amish: We’re also keeping an eye on various platforms for opportunities. If something comes up, we’re ready.
Matt: And for everyone reading this, it’s smart to grow through acquisitions once you have a successful business. Big corporates do this to saturate markets, and it’s a strategy we can use too.
For digital agencies, acquiring other agencies can be particularly effective, especially when you’re already successful. Buying a directory site and similar assets can really accelerate growth.
Thank you both for sharing your journey and insights today. Your success story is inspiring and shows that reaching multi million-dollar goals is achievable. You’ve built a multi-seven-figure asset from scratch in just over three years. It’s incredibly impressive and exciting for all our readers.
Amish: Thank you, Matt and Liz. The last few years have been incredible, and your support has made a huge impact on our lives. We appreciate everything you’ve done.
