Patrick Dichter returns to update us on a productive first year as CEO of a bookkeeping business he bought in late 2021. 

Topics in Patrick's interview:

• How Patrick acquired a bookkeeping business without an accounting background
• Three factors that led to 60% revenue increase in year one
• Why there’s a shortage of accountants and how that affects his business
• What makes tax prep difficult to offshore 
• Which kind of firms to “stay the f*** away” from 
• Why rollups don’t work in accounting
• How he turns tax prep clients into year-round clients
• Acquisition vs organic growth
• The one thing he wishes he’d done differently
• Why he advocates buying small

Links & how to reach Patrick:

• First episode with Patrick: ‍Shut Out by Industry Brokers, an Entrepreneur Finds a Way
• First episode with Chris Williams: ‍Stay Open to the Many Flavors of Search
• Second episode with Chris Williams: ‍1 Year Later as Buyer of a $1m EBITDA Business
• Appletree Business Services
• Patrick's Twitter
• Patrick's LinkedIn

Get complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Learn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:

• The Acquisition Lab

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Multiple perspectives today as Chelsea Wood of the Acquisition Lab moderates a panel with 3 women who bought businesses. 

Topics from the panel:

• Cassie Niekamp bought the first company she looked at: a 40-year old fencing company
• How she dealt with a $200k valuation gap
• What went well with the transition and what didn’t go well
• Anne Ristic left a 30-year career in law to buy a business
• How her collaborative leadership style has served her
• Why it’s okay if you don’t have all the skills you need
• Morli Desai purchased an e-commerce skincare business
• Her difficulty getting sellers to talk to her
• How joining Acquisition Lab made all the difference in her search
• Advice from all the guests about successful acquisition

References and how to contact the panelists:

• Cassi Niekamp - LinkedIn
• Cassi's business, Bowden Fence Company
• Morli Desai - LinkedIn
• Morli's business, Amaira Natural Skincare
• Anne Ristic - LinkedIn
• Anne's business, AES
• Chelsea Wood - LinkedIn
• Acquisition Lab
• 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
• Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel

Register for a live gathering of SMB, Micro-PE, and ETA owners, operators and investors:

• SMBash

Overhaul your website with ongoing support & unlimited edits, all for a flat monthly fee:

• Eversite

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Jacob Lee signed up for 10 locations in the Scenthound franchise after deciding it was a better opportunity than search. 

Topics in Jacob's interview:

• Why starting franchise locations makes more sense than buying a business
• Return on equity in franchising vs. search
• Getting over pride when choosing to franchise
• How Jacob selected Scenthound from 4,000 franchise options
• Other franchises Jacob considered
• How to analyze a franchise opportunity (especially a young one)
• All about Scenthound - concept, numbers, fees
• Franchising compounds
• How to build 10 units over 4 years (plus the 2 key hires that make it possible)
• Using SBA loans in franchising

References & how to reach Jacob:

• Jacob's Twitter thread cited in the interview
• Scenthound
• Brent Beshore
• Tommy's Express Car Wash
• The Joint Chiropractic
• LinkedIn
• @jacoblee295
• j lee AT scenthound dot com

Get complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Register for a live gathering of SMB, Micro-PE, and ETA owners, operators and investors:

• SMBash

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Jules Brenner searched for 2.5 years before buying a manufacturer with great tailwinds and a path to $100m in revenue. 

Topics in Jules' interview:

• Jules's background in mechanical engineering & California startups
• Starting out with Searchfunder.com
• The difficulty of searching during COVID
• The 4 tiers of manufacturing companies
• What type of manufacturing business to buy
• His deal with an architectural lighting manufacturer that fell through
• Sam Rosati's role as an advisor
• What Jules was doing wrong in his search
• The real purpose of a broker
• How sellers always gets what they want
• Acquiring and growing American Sheet Metal

Resources and how to reach Jules:

• LinkedIn
• Email: [email protected]
• Industrial Succession
• American Sheet Metal

Learn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:

• The Acquisition Lab

Overhaul your website with ongoing support & unlimited edits, all for a flat monthly fee:

• Eversite

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Sarah Romer bought a large but tired hair salon in Austin for $80k. Her first year as owner was the hardest of her life. (This is a rebroadcast from November 2021.)

Themes from Sarah's interview:

• The formula for estimating the value of a salon or beauty business
• What to do when sellers overestimate the worth of their company
• Where to cut costs after you’ve made an acquisition 
• Underestimating the importance of company culture
• The stress of owning and managing a retail business
• The process of exiting a business you’ve acquired

Reach Sarah at:

• Sarah dot Romer at gmail dot com

Register for a live gathering of SMB, Micro-PE, and ETA owners, operators and investors:

• SMBash

Overhaul your website with ongoing support & unlimited edits, all for a flat monthly fee:

• Eversite

Original episode page & show notes at AcquiringMinds.co:

• How to Buy a Salon as an Industry Outsider (and Survive)

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Twitter-famous Wolf of Franchises on why & how you should buy existing franchise businesses, including lots of examples. 

Themes from the conversation with Wolf:

• Pros/cons of acquiring an existing franchise business
• Why buy 1 franchise business (even if SDE is just $100k)
• Opportunity & perils of rolling up franchises
• If you can grow from 1 to 2 locations, magic
• How to assess health of a franchise brand
• Breaking into mature franchises as an acquisition entrepreneur
• 4 mature franchise brands Wolf likes (plus 1 he hates)
• Why to avoid food franchises
• How to gauge risk of new franchise brands
• Avoid these 2 common mistakes made by franchisees

Links & how to reach the Wolf:

• How a $40k Acquisition Led to a Franchise Empire - interview with James Temple, multi-unit Mathnasium owner
• Michael Horowitz (Wingstop multi-unit owner)
• Brian Beers (Midas multi-unit owner)
• Lucas Mitchell (Five Guys multi-unit owner)
• Wisconsin's franchise disclosure document (FDD) search
• @franchisewolf
• WolfOfFranchises.com

Get complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Learn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:

• The Acquisition Lab

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Online course businesses have dazzling margins but a key weakness. Dom Wells explains how to acquire one & make it work. 

Topics from the interview with Dom:

• Opportunity for acquisition entrepreneurs to buy a course business
• What to look for when acquiring a course
• The role a course founder's personal story plays
• How to ease the founder's face out of the brand
• Why faces of successful students of the course are actually more valuable
• How courses can charge so much ($500 and more)
• Buying underperforming Udemy courses
• Importance of marketing funnels to a course business
• Ongoing development costs of a course (vs. SaaS)

Links & how to contact Dom:

• Proofread Anywhere
• More backstory on Proofread Anywhere: How I Built A $200K/Month Business Selling Proofreading Courses
• Udemy
• @DomWellsOnfolio
• LinkedIn
• Onfolio

Register for a live gathering of SMB, Micro-PE, and ETA owners, operators and investors:

• SMBash

Learn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:

• The Acquisition Lab

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

David Page bought a Bay Area wine business in 2010, against the advice of colleagues. 12 years later, it's 5x larger. 

Topics in David's interview:

• Don't avoid "buying a job"... because you ARE buying a job
• Buying a business before "search" was well known
• Buying a circus business (almost)
• Humble, scrappy beginnings after acquiring
• Buying in cash, no loan
• Inevitable surprises you find post-acquisition
• Brutal first 6 months
• The niche of private wine grape growing
• Growing 5x since acquisition
• How to keep employees happy

References & how to reach David:

• FarmersOnly.com
• Post & Trellis
• LinkedIn

Get complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Overhaul your website with ongoing support & unlimited edits, all for a flat monthly fee:

• Eversite

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Chris Williams was a guest in 2021, just after his acquisition. He returns to share how it's going now, 14 months later. 

Topics from Chris's interview:

• System Six's growth in the first 14 months
• What Chris wishes he had done differently during transition
• Hiring challenges and how to hire from within
• How he has learned sales
• Why he likes to serve searcher-acquired businesses
• The first step in being a great workplace
• Traditional vs. self-funded search
• Why revenue growth does not always equal EBITDA growth
• Pricing challenges in the bookkeeping industry
• Does more investors mean more help & guidance?

References & how to reach Chris:

• His first episode on Acquiring Minds: ‍Stay Open to the Many Flavors of Search
• System Six
• LinkedIn, Twitter, [email protected]

Learn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:

• The Acquisition Lab

Register for a live gathering of SMB, Micro-PE, and ETA owners, operators and investors:

• SMBash

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Key findings from SIG's new study on self-funded search: financial outcomes, deal costs & terms, search lengths & more. 

Topics from the interview with SIG:

• What is the self-funded search study & why it matters
• Effect of self-funded search on entrepreneurs' net worths
• Search performance: how many acquisitions saw EBITDA shrink, maintain, or grow 
• How much is too much to pay for legal fees & due diligence
• The pros and cons of a seller note
• Why you don’t need an MBA to acquire a business
• Value of a good relationship with a seller
• How long search takes, on average
• Why acquisition will only get more competitive in the future
• Drawback of a private equity background
• What critics get wrong about self-funded search
• Methodology & shortcomings of the study

Download the study:

• 2023 Self-Funded Search Study

Links, References, and Contacts:

• Self-Funded vs. Traditional Search Fund debate between Robert Graham & Greg Geronemus
• Robert Graham - LinkedIn and Twitter
• Jordan Carter - LinkedIn and Twitter
• Search Investment Group (SIG)
• Stanford Search Fund Study 2022

Overhaul your website with ongoing support & unlimited edits, all for a flat monthly fee:

• Eversite

Get complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

• See past + future interviews on the YouTube channel
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter