How I’m Building A $100M Agency Holding Company | John Ghiorso

Recent data shows 90% of founders sell within 7 years—but what if you could break that cycle? In this episode, I interview John, who founded a full-service Amazon growth agency at just 23, sold it for 8 figures in 2020 (to S4 Capital → Media Monks → Monks), and retired by age 40. Now, he’s running VantaFive, a unique venture studio designed to build the next wave of Amazon-like agency businesses.

✅ What You'll Learn

- Agency scaling secrets: How John built a 100-person team and 8-figure business from scratch

- Acquisition & earn-out insights: Why consolidation in 2020 was the right move

- Founder psychology: Balancing obsession, burnout, and building meaning

- Post-exit life: What real retirement feels like—and why it wasn’t enough

- What's next: Launching Vantafi to spot the next big opportunity in emerging marketing domains

- Hiring right: Traits needed in a CEO/founder—grit, humility, sales chops, and more

- Service expansion: How to add new offerings thoughtfully and profitably

- Marketing blueprint: Choosing alpha channels and focusing for 7- and 8-figure growth

CHAPTERS

⏱️ 00:00 – Intro: Building a $100M Agency

⏱️ 00:44 – Getting into agency life

⏱️ 03:00 – Why I started VantaFive

⏱️ 07:24 – First hires & early team

⏱️ 10:48 – Scaling content teams

⏱️ 15:02 – Our delivery tech stack

⏱️ 17:35 – Getting first 10 clients

⏱️ 22:27 – How we price services

⏱️ 25:45 – VantaFive financial model

⏱️ 28:39 – Launching new agencies

⏱️ 33:43 – Build vs. buy strategy

⏱️ 38:00 – What would make me sell

⏱️ 41:25 – Equity splits explained

⏱️ 45:29 – Hardest part of the journey

⏱️ 48:59 – Our 12-month game plan

⏱️ 51:46 – Final advice for founders

⏱️ 55:04 – How I hire top operators

⏱️ 59:17 – Systems vs. hustle

⏱️ 1:04:38 – Testing new services

⏱️ 1:09:01 – Picking agency markets

⏱️ 1:14:22 – Growth mistakes to avoid

⏱️ 1:18:00 – VantaFive’s future vision

🔑 Keywords & Topics

Amazon agency, agency exit strategy, founder retirement, scaling service business, venture studio, hiring founders, marketing strategy, product-market fit, remote leadership, direct-mail, subscription business, TikTok Shop agency, B2B growth, performance-based retainers