2026 marks the eighth anniversary of these quarterly updates. They serve as my personal newsletter, offering a way for friends, family, and others to follow my professional career and personal life. This quarter, my update is very professionally focused. With Homegrown Capital completing a successful raise for its second fund and MarketBeat crossing $50 million in annual revenue, I feel like I am at an inflection point in my career. Things are going well objectively, and I think I am well-positioned to do the best work of my career over the next decade. The key will be to remain focused on the things that I am uniquely good at and not get too distracted by side projects and community work. I am up for the challenge.
Work and Family Travel
Our fall travel schedule was a little different this year. We traveled a bit too much over the summer and got “traveled out.” We did, however, go to every Vikings home game besides the Christmas day game. We’ve really enjoyed using our suite this year and bringing family, friends, and MarketBeat employees to games. The cheerleaders and Viktor the Viking were fantastic with our daughter Ady. She asks almost every day when we can go on the “M plane” again to watch football. With my plane, we can depart from Sioux Falls at 9:30 AM for a 12:00 PM game and return to Sioux Falls by 5:00 PM. It’s a neat, albeit expensive, setup.
I also didn’t travel for work in Q4, but I have a couple of conferences on the calendar already for Q1. I’ll be attending Financial Marketing Summit, which is the industry event for the financial media and publishing space, in January. In February, I’ll be traveling down to Austin, TX to speak at the New Media Summit that Matt McGarry runs. If you are interested in joining me at New Media Summit, you can save 10% on your ticket with the coupon code “MARKETBEAT”.
Homegrown Capital Completes Fundraise for $22.5M Fund II
Homegrown Capital, a regional venture capital firm run by my partner Tim Weelborg and me, recently completed a $22.5 million fundraise for our sophomore fund – Homegrown Capital Fund II. Our firm now has $40 million under management and 16 companies in our portfolio. To facilitate further growth, we hired a full-time associate out of Minneapolis and a part-time venture partner in Fargo. We will use this fresh round of capital to invest in the next generation of high-growth technology startups in the region on behalf of our limited partners.
In venture capital, it’s commonly said that raising your second fund is the hardest. This is because you often don’t have tangible results to show from your first fund to prove to potential investors that you know what you’re doing. Our Fund I companies have seen some notable growth and a few markups, but no exits yet. We really had to raise on our Fund 1 portfolio companies’ revenue growth, showing that they are doing well. The results were enough for many of our Fund I investors, but not all, to re-up for Fund II. We also have three legitimate institutional investors in Fund II, which is a great endorsement of our work.
MarketBeat Crosses $50 Million Top-Line Revenue
MarketBeat ended the year at $50.2 million in top-line revenue, with the bulk of that coming from our large and growing advertising business. This is an increase of about 20% compared to last year, which is difficult to do given how big MarketBeat is these days. The catalysts that drove this growth include expanding our top-of-funnel advertising efforts, doubling down on SMS as a distribution channel, adopting Beehiiv as a second email service provider, and revamping our display advertising strategy.
We said farewell to our longtime managing editor, Don Miller, in December. He has been with MarketBeat in one capacity or another since 2012. He and his wife, Linda, moved to Sioux Falls a couple of years ago from Florida, and they plan to stay in Sioux Falls in retirement. Jessica Mitacek is our new managing editor, and we also hired Clare Titus as an associate editor to backfill Jessica’s role.
An exciting development this quarter is that MarketBeat’s content is now featured on Yahoo Finance, which is the largest stock market and investing website on the web. We had been chasing this deal for many years and finally were able to make it happen after some changes in the management team at Yahoo. MarketBeat content is also featured on several other prominent websites, including Entrepreneur, Google News, Google Finance, MSN, NASDAQ, and TradingView.
My personal focus at MarketBeat for 2026 is growing our top-of-funnel marketing efforts. Our email and SMS marketing efforts are dialed in; I just need to get more people in our universe. I plan to test paid advertising campaigns on several new channels, such as TikTok and Taboola, and increase our spending on higher-cost-per-lead, higher-quality marketing channels (primarily Meta), while trimming back channels that haven’t performed well in recent months.
Announcing My 2026 Podcast Tour
In the first quarter, I plan to participate in a series of podcast interviews as part of an effort to re-establish my personal brand in the new media and creator space. There are very few digital media operators who operate at the level I do, creating content, and there’s a real opportunity to be a thought leader and trusted voice in the broader digital media industry. I will also be speaking at Financial Marketing Summit in Orlando in January and at the New Media Summit in February (use code MarketBeat for 10% off your ticket).
Here are a few of the podcast interviews I’ve done that are out already:
I also plan to use the transcripts from these interviews to further train A.I. Matt, an A.I. chatbot based on my books, various writings, interviews, and social media posts.
How One Tweet Created a $98,000 Consulting Business
A while back, I had an idea for a data services business that would show other financial media companies which advertisers offered the highest affiliate payouts and best conversion rates. Like any good entrepreneur, I posted on social media about what I had available and asked if anyone wanted to pay for it. One person said they did, so I made a Stripe payment link for $2,500 that offered the list of top advertisers for three months, a call with me, and some direct introductions to advertisers. For fun, I also created an upsell package for an additional $2,500, which included three calls with me and six months of data.
The market immediately responded. Within hours, I had a dozen people who purchased the service. So naturally, I raised prices. I turned off the old link and opened it back up with a new link for $3,000. A week later, I had 25 consulting clients who paid me a total of $98,400 for calls and data. The only promotion I did was sharing the link on X/Twitter. No marketing emails, LinkedIn posts, Facebook posts, or promotion anywhere else. It turns out most of my customers just wanted to hop on a call with me and ask questions about building their media companies. A few people wanted the data, but most people wanted the Zoom call.
The checkout link is closed for now because I have ~40 hours of calls to make over the next quarter. While the money is nice, my hope is to learn something that I can implement at MarketBeat from all the conversations I have and get a better understanding of how the consulting industry works. It’s not my desire to create a professional consulting business because my time is generally spent better working on MarketBeat, but it’s a fun experiment.
Washington Pavilion Completes Science Museum Renovations
Three years ago, MarketBeat and Dakota State University entered into an agreement with the Washington Pavilion that would revamp the Space and Technology floor in the Kirby Science Museum. The two organizations, along with the city of Sioux Falls, provided funding to develop new exhibits that teach students about the future of space exploration. 
Now known as “Space Explorers: Mission Infinity,” the STEM-focused exhibit engages children and families with hands-on learning experiences. Learn more here.
Karine and I sponsored the project because my daughter Ady loves the Kirby Science Museum. It’s one of our regular Saturday stops, especially during the winter months. We wanted to do something for the community that would involve our kids, since they can’t directly relate to much of our family’s giving and philanthropic work.
Odds and Ends
Here are a few other things that happened in Q4:
- In October, I participated in a panel discussion on the state of philanthropy in the Sioux Falls community at Downtown Rotary. Both The Dakota Scout and Dakota News Now did a write-up on the presentation.
- The Furniture Mission recently completed its new facility, and I had the opportunity to go on a tour. They are a shining example of how non-profits can make donor dollars go further and do more with less.
- Lallycooler Music Festival will return in 2026, and we plan to serve as the presenting sponsor. It will be held at Sioux Falls Stadium this year and will be headlined by Jason Derulo.
- In December, I hosted a lunch for legislators and legislative candidates at MarketBeat. The aim was to connect pro-growth legislators and legislative candidates with some of the state’s next-generation leaders. Special thanks to Ryan Budmyar, Taylor Rehfeldt, Casey Crabtree and Maureen Ohm for helping organize the event.
- In December, I invested $500,000 in Beehiiv, a fast-growing email service provider that excels in list segmentation and email deliverability. Tyler Denk and his team are doing a great job building the tools that modern creators need to reach their audience.
- Avera is wrapping up a $50 million capital campaign to focus on women’s and children’s care. As two-time NICU parents, Karine and I agreed to sponsor a NICU patient room as part of the campaign.
Wrap-Up
If you have made it this far, I would encourage you to learn more about the work of the Furniture Mission in Sioux Falls. They provide bedding, furniture, and household items to families coming out of homelessness. They run lean, efficiently, and do good work. Visit their website here.