Articles on Practicing Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
I’ve stood in front of rooms full of M&A advisors explaining the acquisition criteria that traditional search funds use to evaluate businesses. And I’ve watched them laugh. Once you start listing the requirements, it’s easy to understand why. Searchers want predictable earnings, recurring revenue, limited
“Nothing’s wrong… it just feels like I’ve hit a ceiling.” I hear some version of that all the time. It usually comes from someone who’s doing really well on paper. They’ve built a solid career,
One of the most common questions I get from buyers is some version of this: “How quickly can I hire someone to run the business for me?” Or more directly: “How do I become an
There’s a moment in almost every search where the numbers start to feel encouraging. You find a business with a few hundred thousand in SDE. The multiple seems reasonable. The cash flow looks “strong.” On
Great buyers look at CIMs like detectives at a crime scene. Tad dramatic, but stay with me. Every acquisition starts with a CIM, and if you’re early in your search, it’s easy to take it
When people talk about buying a business, they usually talk about opportunity. Growth. Upside. Strategy. I don’t start there. Buying a business isn’t buying potential. It’s buying transferability. Transferability is the ability of the company
A guy once told me about his first morning after buying a company with a seven-figure personal guarantee. Every morning, the management team met in the conference room for a huddle. On day one, he
After nearly two decades in this market, buying companies, brokering transactions, and watching hundreds of searchers move through the process… I can usually tell within five minutes whether a buyer will ever close. It doesn’t
A few years ago, I had a performance coach on the podcast who could step into a cold plunge like it was a board meeting. No theatrics. No psyching himself up. No half-in, half-out hesitation.
Most buyers fixate on interest rates. They assume leverage becomes dangerous when capital feels expensive. They wait for cheaper money. They convince themselves that better conditions are just around the corner. But interest rates are
First-time buyers typically assume business brokers operate the same way real estate agents do – that they’re there to help them make good decisions. Unfortunately, that assumption is where a lot of the frustration starts.
It’s normal to hedge your bets when undertaking something as consequential as buying a business. Most first-time buyers are focused on managing downside and avoiding catastrophic mistakes. But in doing so, many buyers end up
Everybody wants to be a mountain man until it’s time to do mountain man things. Everyone loves the idea of entrepreneurship. Deal making. Independence. Being “in control.” But very few people actually want the environment
I’ve stood in front of rooms full of M&A advisors explaining the acquisition criteria that traditional search funds use to evaluate businesses. And I’ve watched them laugh. Once you start listing the requirements, it’s easy
Codesmith grew from roughly $2.4 million in revenue to more than $18 million. Then ChatGPT arrived. Revenue dropped to roughly $9.6 million, then $5 million as AI hit the software engineering education market that had
In 2016, I bought an e-commerce company with what I thought was a pretty obvious growth opportunity: SEO. There was only one issue. I’d never done SEO. So I started learning. I read about it.
A member of the Acquisition Lab recently found himself looking seriously at a copy-machine business. This was a guy with a technology background. He’d built a startup that went through Y Combinator, had a massive
When we model the sale of a company, we can get incredibly precise. What’s the valuation? How much cash comes off the table? What are the tax consequences? Is there rollover equity? An earnout? How
Redwood trees can grow more than 350 feet tall. How do they get there? They grow up before they grow out. Early in their development, the tree puts its energy toward height. The branching comes
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