Quiet Giants Episode 2: The Fighter with Ramon Van Meer

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Quiet Giants is a video series that celebrates the spirit of entrepreneurship and the triumphs of those who have built, bought, or sold online businesses. In the second installment of the series, we headed for the Northern California coast and caught up with serial entrepreneur Ramon Van Meer. Ramon’s story is one of our favorites, from spending some time as a homeless teen in his native Holland, to having several false starts as a business owner, to emigrating to the US, to becoming a single father, to exiting his content site business for high seven figures. He is a great example of how real entrepreneurs are born not bred, and that in order to find success you have to get up each time you’re knocked down.

TRANSCRIPT

Chapter 1: The Entrepreneur’s Grind

My favorite part of being an entrepreneur is really the uncertainty. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

You can either let it get to you and then just sit and cry, or you can suck it up and take the punch. You get knocked down, you get up.

Chapter 2: Overcoming Early Hardships

I grew up in a city called The Hague that is in the Netherlands. My life pretty much changed when my mom got sick. I had to move to my dad, who was battling alcoholism.

There were some days he was just too drunk and would lock the door from the inside and pass out in bed, and I couldn’t get in the house.

So, yeah, those teenage years were pretty rough. I had to learn to stand up for myself from an early age, and I think that helped me. I think if I didn’t have all these hardships growing up, then I would not have been here now.

My son and I have a really strong bond because it’s really just us against the world, so to speak.

The first four years of me being in the United States, I was living in Vegas with my ex-wife and my son, Victor. Our marriage became really rocky and resulted in a pretty nasty custody battle.

Chapter 3: Years of Failure

My son and I moved to San Francisco. I was basically living paycheck to paycheck. I was like, “I don’t want to raise my son in this 800-square-foot apartment. I want to get a better life for him.”

It’s easy to now look at where I am right now, but not a lot of people know that I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, and 19 of those years were a lot of failures.

I had small successes, but then, you know, it’s like one step forward, two steps back. Going all in on an idea, and then the idea didn’t work.

I never had a second that I thought, “Okay, hey, let’s just get a day job,” or whatever. I’ve always known that I would be successful one day, and that really helped me get up every time a business failed.

Like, sh*tty, but let’s try something else. So maybe the idea was not right. Maybe the time was not right. But one day, I will get it right.

Chapter 4: Finding the Soap Opera Niche

So, I was testing different ideas, 13 different niches on Facebook. What I would do is create a fan page about a specific topic—animals or cars and soap operas.

As you might can tell, I’m not really the average soap opera watcher. I’ve never watched a soap opera, but the soap opera fan page was just blowing it out of the water as far as engagement.

I wanted to go all in, actually, on this idea. I didn’t know if it would work, but I knew this is something I really wanted to do.

But once you have kids or family, it’s not just about you. When I lost all my money, I was single. I could just live anywhere and just have some bread and some water every day, and that’s fine.

But once you have kids, you need a roof, you need food, and so on.

I had no Plan B, right? I had to make Soap Hub work.

Chapter 5: Scaling and Selling the Company

So, I decided to try to find a writer to write articles about soap operas because I had zero knowledge about it.

She started writing one article a day, and it started to grow and grow and grow faster. After probably 18 months, like two years in, I thought, “Okay, we could basically sell this.”

In all honesty, when I started the soap opera blog, I didn’t expect my quote-unquote “big exit.” If you would have told me that in the beginning, I would have told you you’re crazy.

But working with Joe at Quiet Light taught me how to, before you’re even thinking of selling, get everything ready for your business, having all your ducks in a row. So, when you do want to sell, the transaction is much easier and smoother.

Joe and I are still joking right now that he’s a therapist more than a broker because he has to deal with so many emotions.

But at the end, it was great. Actually, I got the life-changing, amazing exit.

Chapter 6: Future Goals and Final Advice

Everybody advised me, like, you know, “Just take it easy. Take a couple months. Take a break.”

But I want to build more businesses, help more people. My next target is to sell a $100 million company.

I like to be the underdog, where people say, “Well, there’s no way you’re going to do that.”

It’s still an emotional roller coaster. One day, I feel that I’m the smartest person in the world. The next day, I feel like a loser.

But the number one key to building a successful company, hands down, is really people. I think the best part of having a staff is really building something together and hopefully changing lives, where we all reap the rewards, so to speak, when we have the exit that could be life-changing.

Hopefully, they learn a lot and then do it on their own, and they become entrepreneurs themselves.

You don’t need to create the next Facebook or Tesla to create a business that creates financial freedom for you.

It’s going to be a lot of sucky moments and failure, but if you love the grind, if you love entrepreneurship, it’s the best job in the world.