HoldCo War Stories: How this plumbing owner turned content into equity

Hi everybody. 

HoldCo War Stories #3 here for you. Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s issue. 

Today: John Wilson is one of the original founders of HoldCo Conference, and shares how he turned his media channels from a fun way to learn into a multi-million dollar revenue source.

Let’s do it.

And Why Media Isn’t About Going Viral

From John Wilson’s talk at HoldCo Conference 2025

Most business owners think media is vanity content. John Wilson used to think that too.

Three years ago, Wilson's business partner Brandon Niro was "rightfully opposed" to starting a podcast. Wilson was CEO of a third-generation plumbing company that had grown from $3 million to $31 million through acquisitions. The last thing they needed was a distraction.

But Wilson had a problem that traditional networking couldn't solve: he was hungry to learn from other operators, and cold outreach wasn't working.

"Every white man loves a microphone. It's a proven fact," Wilson says with characteristic directness. "You can get the smartest people that you've ever met to share some of the most fascinating things about their business by just putting an hour on their calendar and giving them a mic."

This media strategy came from one of our most popular HoldCo Conference sessions.

What started as pure curiosity evolved into something Wilson never expected: a strategic business accelerant generating $5 million in annual profit with cash flow that "would make you blink a lot."

The key insight came gradually. Media isn't content creation. It's direct distribution with unique properties that traditional marketing can't replicate.

Wilson now runs "Owned and Operated," a 40,000-subscriber newsletter and 20,000-listener podcast focused on home services operators. But here's the twist: they don't make money from ads or sponsorships.

Instead, they take minority stakes (typically 30%) in companies they promote, plus revenue shares on attributed leads. This unconventional monetization strategy turns content into equity-building instead of just audience-building.

Access to Industry Leaders: When Wilson lightly mentioned considering acquisitions in their newsletter, they received four serious responses within days. One was an $18 million company wanting to sell with no cash down because the owner had been following their content for two years.

Hiring Advantage: Job candidates now approach them specifically because of their media presence. "I've had interviews where people walked in and said, 'Hey, I'm not really applying anywhere else. I saw what you were like, I saw some of your videos.'"

Vendor Leverage: "Nobody wants to piss off the guy with the third largest podcast for your industry," Wilson notes. This translates to real savings: "We tend to buy better than anyone else that I've met at our size."

Internal Credibility: When Wilson's 145-person team sees industry titans visiting their office for podcast recordings, the company's $100 million vision becomes believable. "It's a lot easier to point to that and be like, yeah, this is real."

Wilson's advice cuts through the complexity: "All it really is, is direct distribution. We can make it sound complicated. We can think it's kind of weird to be in front of a camera, but at the end of the day, it's direct distribution in a B2B or B2C sales format."

The economics only work if you have something to sell. Wilson's blunt assessment: "Media itself is not an amazing business. I think you need something to sell. You need a way to monetize it to make the juice worth the squeeze. Or alternatively, just a barrel of money to burn, which I don't have."

The savviest holdco operators understand media as a business tool, not vanity content. They start with writing and newsletters before expensive video production. They align every piece of content with their core mission. And they measure success by revenue attribution, not engagement metrics.

For multi-business owners, Wilson's approach offers a template: use media to buy the audience you want to sell to, then use the cash flow from that media to fund your growth strategy.

As Wilson puts it: "We launched a multi-level marketing scheme. I've wanted to do this for years. I think I finally did it."

The key is treating media like any other business unit: it needs to generate profit, support the core mission, and scale sustainably. Everything else is just expensive content creation.

That’s it for today. 

Media isn’t taught in business school. But operators like John share what works. It’s part of what makes HoldCo Conference such a special room to be in for your business. 

Hope you’re enjoying the War Stories. See you tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

The HoldCo Conference Team

P.S. Did we mention it’s held at a gorgeous resort in Utah, and your ticket is all-inclusive?

Editor’s note: Any factual errors or misunderstandings in the article are ours, not the presenter’s.