01
Operators, not spectators
Every business in the portfolio is run by people who’ve carried a quota and made payroll. We don’t hand a company a check and a board seat and wish it luck — we help run it.
Ethos Ventures — Operator-owned holding company
We back what we build.
Ethos Ventures is an operator-owned holding company. For 20+ years we’ve built and run businesses we actually know — a marketing agency, an automotive software platform, and the operating chops that tie them together. We’re not spectators with a checkbook. We’re operators with our sleeves rolled up.
Operator-owned · Built in Minnesota
01 — Who we are
We’re not a fund. We’re operators who got tired of watching good companies get bought by people who’d never done the work — so we started owning them ourselves.
Ethos is a small group of operators who’ve spent 20+ years building and running real businesses — a marketing agency and an automotive software platform among them. We didn’t want to hand them to people who’d never done the work, so we put them under one roof and kept running them. Ethos is how we keep doing it — and add more.
02 — The model
We don’t place bets. We build businesses.
- 1
We start it or buy it
Businesses we actually understand — automotive technology, software, and the service work we came up in. If we can’t add something real, we pass.
- 2
We operate it
We’re owners with our sleeves rolled up, not a fund watching from the sidelines. Product, sales, hiring, the hard calls — we’re in the room.
- 3
We hold it
No flip clock running in the background. We build to own, reinvest the winnings, and let good businesses compound the slow, durable way.
03 — Why Ethos
Owned and operated.
02
Earned the hard way
Two decades in the service trenches — agency work, dealerships, the daily grind — taught us how businesses actually run. We built software because we needed it ourselves.
03
Built for the long run
Ethos is Greek for character, and character compounds. We hold for years, not quarters, and judge every decision by what it does a decade out.
04 — The portfolio
Two companies. Room to grow.
Operated by Ethos
Marketing & agency
A full-service marketing agency in St. Cloud — SEO, paid media, web, video, and brand. 200+ clients and 20+ years with one job: grow the business.
Visit jivemedia.co →
Operated by Ethos
Automotive SaaS
Every OEM offer, and every one of yours — matched to the cars in stock and kept current on its own. Built FTC-first for dealers, groups, and agencies.
Visit dealercentives.com →
Building something we should know about?
We’re always glad to meet operators, founders, and people thinking about what’s next for their business. No pitch deck required — just a real conversation.
Start a conversation