There’s an old saying: When everyone’s talking, no one is listening.

And right now, acquisition entrepreneurship is louder than ever – everywhere you look, there’s a new course, a new community, or a new accelerator promising to help first-time buyers get in the game.

And sure, the opportunity is real – $10 trillion in business assets are transferring hands from baby boomers to the next generation over the next decade.

But with all this noise, how do you separate what actually works from what’s just hype?

Although this is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth-building opportunities of our lifetime, not all of these educational programs are created equal.

When we launched Acquisition Lab in 2020, there were virtually no structured programs to help people buy businesses.

Fast forward five years, and now it feels like there’s a new one every month.

Some are solid. Some are… Well, let’s just say I see a lot of things online that make me shake my head.

I want to be really clear here – I’m not here to trash anyone. But I do think it’s important to understand what makes the Lab different, and why I built it the way I did.

So, let’s talk about it.

My name is Walker Deibel. I’m the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Buy Then Build and the creator of Acquisition Lab. Over the last decade, I’ve bought 10 companies outright. I’ve been in the game. I’ve lived it.

And after years of doing this, I’ve seen a lot – what works, what doesn’t, and most importantly, what no one tells you.

These are the seven things the gurus don’t want you to know when it comes to buying a business.

 

1. They Make Money Off Courses – Not Deals

Secret number one: The real business of most acquisition “gurus” isn’t buying companies – it’s selling you stuff.

Their business isn’t running deals or managing companies – it’s monetizing you with courses, coaching, and whatever else they can package up.

Look, I’m not saying education isn’t valuable. But if you’re taking advice from someone whose entire revenue stream is selling a program (rather than actually buying and operating businesses), you have to ask yourself: are they teaching you how to buy businesses, or are they teaching you how to buy their course?

For me personally, my money comes from being in deals. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever made more in a single month from Acquisition Lab than I have in my businesses. If it ever happened, it was rare.

And that’s why 70% of applicants to the Acquisition Lab don’t get in. 

Not because we want to be difficult, but because we know what it actually takes to buy and run a company. Our model is based on elite universities – we focus on actual closers, not just maximizing enrollment.

Meanwhile, with other programs, if you have a credit card, you’re in. That’s their economic engine. It’s a completely different game.

 

2. Buying a Business is Not Passive

Secondly, I hate to break it to you, but buying a business isn’t passive. It’s not a “no money down” situation. And it’s rarely scalable.

 

Source: X | Larry Kim

 

If you’re scrolling through Twitter, consuming holdco porn, and thinking you can jump straight from never having bought a business to running a portfolio of companies… Let’s be real about the probabilities.

It happens. Just like some people win the lottery. Or how some get struck by lightning.

But that’s not a strategy.

Neither is doing a roll-up if you’ve never owned a business before.

If you haven’t bought a business yet, the first step is simple: buy just one.

Owning a holding company isn’t about collecting 12 different businesses – it’s about capital allocation. That’s an entirely different game. And with all due respect, you probably don’t have the track record yet to execute that well. That’s not me trying to kill your dream. It’s me trying to help you win in the long run.

I don’t say that from my high horse, either.

My first seven figures came from buying small businesses. But my biggest mistake was buying too many, too fast, without the right infrastructure.

Listen, if I wanted you to buy my course, I’d tell you business acquisition is passive. I’d tell you it’s no money down. I’d tell you it’s infinitely scalable.

But that’s simply not the case. It’s not like real estate. Every single business is unique. Every single one comes with operational complexity and risk.

 

3. Business Acquisition is a Full-Contact Sport

One of my biggest pet peeves? When someone says, “Yeah, man, this business is kicking off a million dollars a year.”

Listen – nothing just kicks off a million dollars a year.

 

Source: Instagram | Leland Baptist

 

Behind the scenes, someone is pulling levers, working 24/7, grinding to make it happen. A business isn’t a magic ATM. It takes work. There are countless intangible assets that drive success – relationships, operational know-how, industry timing – and they don’t just sit there producing cash on autopilot.

A business can be great for three years and then completely fall apart.

It can struggle for three years and then explode in value.

It’s volatile. Way more volatile than real estate.

I know this firsthand. I owned a manufacturing company in 2008, and it was not easy laying off 10–15% of my team and making gut-wrenching decisions just to keep the lights on.

We all know real estate took a hit in 2008, but businesses got rocked, too. Then when you start layering on the obligations of personally guaranteed debt, employees who rely on you for their paycheck, and the operational complexity of multiple businesses, it can make a bad situation even worse.

Business ownership is a full-contact sport. You have to get in the Coliseum and fight for every win. That’s the game.

As someone who helps people buy business, ultimately what I sell is hard work and risk. That’s how I’ve achieved my own success, so I’d simply be misguiding people if I led them to believe this was easy.

Every entrepreneur I know has said the same thing:

“If I had known how hard this was, I wouldn’t have done it. But now that I’ve done it and I know I can, I would never go back.”

Entrepreneurship is the most engaged way to live. Once you get it, once you’re out of the matrix, there’s no returning to the old way of thinking.

 

4. The Value is in the Community, Not the Guru

It’s not about the guru selling you the thing. Not even me. It’s the community.

At Acquisition Lab, it’s not the Walker show. I have 14 advisors on staff, and my co-founder, Chelsea Wood, is an industrial-organizational psychologist who spent five years doing post-merger integration.

We’ve developed buyer profiles and frameworks that actually help people execute. We run our intensive in cohorts, meaning the first month is all about getting you up to speed. Then you become a member of the Lab.

Why? Because we don’t want people slowing down high-level discussions with basic questions when others are actively working deals. Instead, we provide daily advisory calls, dedicated Slack advisors, and structured support to move you toward your goal.

 

Source: Reaching for the Stars by Russ Alan Prince, John J. Bowen Jr. and JT McCormick

 

And we don’t charge some ongoing monthly retainer. As a member you get lifetime access for a one-time fee, which is less than two months of what you’d pay a buy-side advisor.

Additionally, we’re the first do-it-with-you buy-side advisory service in existence. Although other programs might sell the idea of buying a business, we actually get you to your goal, and we do this by vetting our members.

By filtering who joins the Lab, we elevate the conversation. Everyone goes through the intensive – learning the tools, language, and strategy – to ensure the room is full of people who can execute.

Part of the filtering process is how much someone has to put down on a business. if you don’t have money, don’t have experience, and think you’re going to pull off a deal three standard deviations outside of how the private market actually works… this isn’t the right room for you.

You want to get from Miami to LA, but you don’t have money for a plane ticket, don’t have a bike, and don’t even have shoes?

You might still make it. But I’m not the guy to help you do it. The odds are just too low. That’s why we set the bar where we do, and that’s why we experience the overwhelmingly high success rate that we do.

 

5. Our Curriculum Was Built By Experts, Not Marketers

These days, it feels like every other week there’s a new “expert” selling an acquisition course. And look, if you can market well enough, you’ll find buyers. But there’s a difference between knowing how to sell an idea and actually living it.

Most of these programs? They’re built by marketers, not operators.

 

Source: PJM Consulting

 

After I wrote Buy Then Build, I had already spent a decade in the trenches – buying businesses, personally guaranteeing millions in debt, and making real decisions with real consequences. I wasn’t just repackaging someone else’s playbook; I wrote the playbook.

Then, I spent four and a half years writing the book, interviewing 30+ acquisition entrepreneurs, and breaking down what actually works. I saw the gaps in the space, and I quickly realized people needed frameworks – not hype.

They needed:

✅ Real talk – the things no one tells you.
✅ The right tools – to actually execute.
✅ Small insights – that make or break a deal.

To that end, I didn’t just throw together a course. I hired real experts:

A curriculum designer who builds accredited university programs and the placement officer from the Olin School of Business, who helps MBAs land corporate jobs.

Together, we built the most structured, vetted program in the space.

And I didn’t stop there.

I taught the Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition curriculum at Olin for two semesters before refining and adapting it for self-funded searchers.

That’s why the Lab is different. We built the Harvard, or the Y Combinator, for real acquisition entrepreneurs. Not for people who want to play business.

Our members aren’t searching for an “easy” button – they’re serious operators who have spent 10, 15, 20 years building someone else’s wealth and are ready to make their own. To that extent, they typically come to the Lab with $100K–$2M in capital, ready to buy a business.

That’s the client base we serve.

And that’s why the Acquisition Lab isn’t just another “buy my course” pitch.

I spent real money, hired the best people in the world, and built a world-class curriculum designed to get people real results.

Most programs teach you how to think about buying a business. We teach you how to actually do it.

 

6. Experience Matters

This is a big one for me.

I’ve been buying businesses for 18 years, in the game the whole time, but nowadays, I see “gurus” pop up saying something along the lines of:

“I looked at buying a business for six months – now I have a program.”

“I bought one company – now I have a program.”

“I’m a business broker who’s never bought anything – so now I have a program.”

Look – if you’re on social media, you can get attention. And once you have attention, a percentage of people will buy something. That’s just how it works.

But here’s the thing:

We’re bringing a bazooka to this game, while others come with a pocket knife. And yet, somehow they’re teaching the “same” material we are at the Lab.

What Buy Then Build did for business acquisition is what Rich Dad, Poor Dad did for real estate. In both cases:

Step 1: People get excited. They go out and start buying.
Step 2: Some of them shouldn’t have – and they start facing real financial consequences.

Ever met a real estate investor who went bankrupt? Of course.

In the next 24, 36 months, maybe four years, you’re going to start hearing about acquisition entrepreneurs who go bankrupt.

 

 

So be careful.

Understand the real risks. Learn from people who have actually been in the game – not just someone with a newsletter or a social media following.

If you like someone’s course, great. Buy it. Go for it. At the end of the day, I want you to succeed.

Because here’s the reality: Just because owning a business is a requirement for becoming ultra wealthy, that doesn’t mean buying a business will automatically get you there. It just means that every ultra wealthy individual owns a business.

I want you to play it. I just want you to be careful about who you learn from.

 

7. Our Results Speak for Themselves

When I say we want you to succeed and that we’re in it for you, not our pocketbooks, I mean it. The metrics we’ve achieved speak to our program’s success and they’re the ones that drive our company.

 

What do people say after going through the Intensive?

We’ve maintained a 4.7 out of 5-star rating from 850+ people over the past five years.

In that time, we’ve had exactly two refund requests. One didn’t realize the program was virtual and the other was under-qualified to participate (ultimately our mistake, and that’s on me).

 

Closing rate vs. total members

37% of Acquisition Lab members buy a business.

That’s not a guess. That’s an actual number.

And here’s something interesting – another ~10% go on to become business brokers. Why? Because brokers quickly realize that Lab members know more about private capital markets than they do.

But let’s be clear:

This is not some Facebook group where 1% of people actually get it done.

This is not some info-dump course that buries you in content and hopes you feel like you got value.

We vet you, educate you, and surround you with competent buyers.

 

 

As a result, Acquisition Lab is now the single largest group of vetted, armed-with-cash, active buyers in the world.

 

Final Thoughts

When we were starting this, I was talking with Chelsea, my co-founder, and I told her:

“This is gonna be weird.”

Why? Because when you’re creating a new industry, the playbook says:

Step 1: Build something and let people come in.
Step 2: Over time, the elite version emerges.

But that’s not what we did.

We skipped Step 1 and went straight to building the best one from day one.

That’s why the Acquisition Lab exists. We built the elite accelerator for buying small businesses.

If you’re serious about buying a business in the next 1–24 months, apply to the Acquisition Lab. Have a strategy call with Chelsea or my team, and we’ll figure out if we can help you.

And if we can’t? We’ll tell you. Straight up.

We refer people to competing programs all the time if that’s what’s best for them. Recently, we had someone book a strategy call, tell us their plan, and we told them it wouldn’t work. They responded:

“That’s exactly why I applied to you guys. The other two programs I talked to just said, ‘No problem.’ I knew you’d tell me the truth.”

That’s our reputation.

And look – Acquisition Lab will never be a $10 million revenue company. Why? Because to hit that number, I’d have to abandon my values.

I don’t want to bring people into this community if I don’t think they can actually do it.

And for those who go through the Lab and decide not to buy a business? I support that.

If you look behind the curtain, see what it really takes, and decide it’s not for you – great. You just saved yourself from taking on a million dollars in debt on something you weren’t ready for. That’s a good decision.

But for those who do take action?

Our members are acquiring over $100 million worth of businesses every year. With the average deal size being $2M. One deal closes almost every two weeks inside the Lab.

 

 

And listen – at the risk of sounding like I’m taking shots at other programs, this article is just a call to awareness.

Because a lot of people running programs right now are not in it for you. They’re:

• Using their program to create bird dogs for their own investments.
• Extracting fees from buyers at different levels of the capital stack.
• Monetizing personal guarantees in ways that put their students at risk.
• Funnel-feeding buyers into side businesses that line their own pockets.

 

Or worse? They’re just filling their revenue coffers to bankroll some influencer media company.

Take the time to go into this with eyes wide open. 

Good luck. Go buy a business. But not at the expense of making a mistake.

Ready to acquire a business in the next 12 months? The Acquisition Lab is your first stop. Reach out to us today and get on the fast track to becoming an acquisition entrepreneur.