Taylor Wallace was over tech. He acquired a small business and with it a renewed sense of impact (and opportunity). 

Topics in Taylor's interview:

• Tech burnout
• Working in tech vs. running a small business
• Buying indy vs. franchise
• Injecting tech-industry best practices & ambition into small business
• How do friends in tech respond to his foray into doggy daycares?
• Going from digital nomad to brick-and-mortar business owner in Tampa
• Increasing doggy daycare capacity 2x
• Will more than 2x revenue by next year
• What he paid (roughly) for 1st and 2nd acquisitions
• Growth strategy
• Buying small vs. buying big
• Doggy daycare business - should you do it?

Links & how to reach Taylor:

• Paws 'n' Rec
• Baton
• @taywall
• 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

Episode 100! To celebrate, 5 early guests come back to share how things are going at their acquisitions, 1 year later. 

• 2:48 - Chris Edwards acquired a flooring business
• 18:15 - Philippe Vanderhoydonck, a B2B media business in the pets industry
• 35:49 - Cassi Niekamp, a fencing business
• 1:02:12 - Andrew Pierno is buying multiple small SaaS businesses
• 1:25:54 - Mike Botkin bought a small landscaping business and has quickly parlayed that into becoming a player in the landscaping industry

Links to guests' previous episodes:

• Chris Edwards - How to Survive Acquiring a $3.5m Flooring Business.
• Philippe Vanderhoydonck - How to Acquire Your First Business in 3 Months
• Cassi Niekamp - Buying a $1.2m Fencing Business & Earning Trust Quickly
• Andrew Pierno - How to Build a Portfolio of Micro SaaS Businesses
• Mike Botkin, first ep - How to Buy a Landscaping Biz & Boost Profits Quick
• Mike Botkin, second ep - How to Buy Landscaping Businesses

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:

• YouTube channel (easy access to all interviews)
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Andrew Harbin first bought an awning business, then bought a fencing franchise to keep his crew working through summer. 

Topics in Andrew's interview:

• Should you buy a seasonal business?
• Buying a second business to offset seasonality of first business
• Twitter thread that opened his eyes to building wealth by buying  a business
• Buying a business that is for sale by owner
• Revenue + SDE of the awning business he acquired
• Growth he's achieved in first years of ownership
• How the awning business works (revenue sources, staffing, org chart)
• Buying a $300-400k SDE business
• Why hiring temps for seasonal businesses is unappealing
• Fencing business: buying vs. starting from scratch vs. starting a franchise
• Pros/cons of franchises
• Big Jerry's fencing franchise
• Tips for entrepreneurs considering buying a fencing business
• Nature of stress in SMB vs. corporate
• Loneliness of being a small business owner

Links & how to reach Andrew:

• Twitter thread that turned Andrew on to buying a business
• Venango Awning
• Big Jerry's Fencing
• @ADHarbin

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:

• YouTube channel (easy access to all past + future interviews)
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

James Temple & his mother acquired a struggling Mathnasium franchise in 2009. Today, they do $7m across 19 locations. 

Topics in James' interview:

• Buying vs. starting a franchise location
• Is rolling up easier in a franchise system?
• Turning around underperforming franchise locations
• How to assess the risk of a franchise system
• 3 criticisms of franchises that MBA student always have
• Numbers behind his first acquisition
• Growing to 19 franchise locations in 13 years
• How a 19-unit franchise business is structured & operated
• Evaluating franchise opportunities from a risk-adjusted perspective
• Revenue range of Mathnasium franchises
• Mathnasium fees
• What exactly do you get from a franchisor for the franchise fee?
• Passion and purpose — is it necessary?
• Franchise consultants (and how they are incentivized)
• How to start investigating opportunities if you're interested in a particular franchise

Links & how to reach James:

• Mathnasium
• FDD Exchange
• 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:

• YouTube channel (easy access to all past + future interviews)
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Sumana Sanjeeva got into ecommerce by chance. 3 years later, she's acquired 4 ecom businesses & sold one for over $5m. 

Topics from Sumana's interview:

• Brick & mortar vs ecommerce businesses
• Best type of ecommerce to buy for a first-timer
• Buying an ecommerce business knowing very little about it
• Learning quickly how to sell on Amazon
• Finding an ecommerce business on BizBuySell
• Terms of her deal
• One decision that made the business thrive during COVID
• Selling to aggregators
• Talking to 14 of them
• Terms of her sale
• Cash flow issues with a growing ecommerce business
• Her 3 new ecommerce acquisitions
• Focusing exclusively on FBA
• Running in-person learning center franchises

How to reach Sumana:

• LinkedIn
• sanjeevasumana AT gmail

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:

• YouTube channel (easy access to all past + future interviews)
• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Toni Kononova bought a ghostwriting business for $500k to experiment with buy-then-build while limiting her downside. 

Topics in Toni's interview:

• What to love about a ghostwriting & editing business
• The business of self-publishing
• What is "vanity press"?
• Why a terrible website can be OK
• Getting close on a small B2B SaaS business
• Lowering her SDE criteria
• Numbers & terms of her acquisition
• De-risking an acquisition
• Buying a business while having a full-time job
• Why keeping her full-time job helped get the loan
• Running the acquisition as a side hustle
• Employee turnover & sales decline during transition
• The popularity of search among Silicon Valley workers
• Search in Russia

Links & how to get in touch with Toni:

• Write My Wrongs
• toni AT writemywrongs DOT co

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:

• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Frustrated searchers: this episode is for you. Jesse Sunquist shares 4 lessons from a year of hunting for a business. 

Topics in Jesse's interview:

• What he learned going from part-time to full-time searching
• Why brokers prefer working with full-time searchers
• "Spouse-funded" searcher
• How TRULY difficult it is to get your first deal done
• Embrace change when it comes to your search criteria
• How personal each searcher's journey is
• The perils of comparing your search to others'
• The temptation to buy (very) small
• Opening your mind to acquiring a franchise
• Isolation & loneliness during search and how to counteract it
• The importance of just getting started
• Over-investing in your tech stack, website, LLC formation, etc. is procrastination

How to reach Jesse and other links:

• Original post on Searchfunder: Reflections after 1 year of searching full time
• @jsunquist on Twitter
• LinkedIn
• jesse AT mtsophia DOT capital
• Jesse's search website, Mt Sophia Capital

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:

• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

When most people would be considering retirement, Anne Ristic started a new chapter of her career by buying a business. 

Topics in Anne's interview:

• Deciding to buy a business at age 60
• How Ruth Bader Ginsburg inspired her to buy a business
• How she budgeted her target acquisition size
• Raising money from banks for an acquisition in Canada
• Canadian banks' familiarity with search
• About AES, the business she bought
• Growth potential for PEO in Canada
• How much industry research she did
• How she envisions growing AES
• Meeting the managers during the transaction process
• Nuances to search in Canada
• communEtA, the student-run investment group 
• Being a woman when buying a business

Reach Anne at:

• anne AT agencyemployment DOT ca
• 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:

• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

Links:

• Agency Employment Services (AES)
• communEtA

How Doug Johns overcame his reservations about being a franchisee to acquire a dream business with $1.8m EBITDA. 

Topics in Doug's interview:

• Buying a franchise vs. independent business
• Opening your mind to a franchise
• The many (overlooked) benefits to being a franchisee
• Calling yourself "independent investor" instead of "searcher"
• Running a search like a B2B sales process
• The appeal of a deal with few addbacks
• Why home service businesses are so appealing as acquisitions
• Loving, rather than running from, managing people
• Why the top home service businesses have more sophisticated funnels than the Fortune 500
• ServiceTitan
• Where the opportunity is when the business you buy is already well-run and mature
• Owning a plumbing company without knowing anything about plumbing
• The numbers of Doug's deal
• The exact multiple is way less important than you think
• Using ROBS to buy the business
• Why high growth can make a business harder to finance
• Understanding debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) thresholds
• Doug's tip for choosing an SBA lender
• The $500k value of Doug's appeal to the seller
• Going to meet a seller face to face

Reach Doug at:

• doug DOT johns AT couffley DOT com
• 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:

• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter

A primer on lead gen businesses from Jaime Arias, who bought a 14-year-old biz that generates online leads for dentists. 

Topics in Jaime's interview:

• Choosing self-funded over a traditional search fund
• Buying tiny sites on Flippa
• The opportunity with "old" internet businesses
• 3 types of sellers on Flippa
• Using BuiltWith to generate proprietary outreach list
• About Patients4you
• Lowering acquisition targets from $750k - $1m cash flow to $200k - $400k
• "Rank & Rent" model for local lead gen
• What are you really buying with a lead gen business?
• Lead brokers
• SEO vs. PPC for lead gen
• Isn't Google Ads too competitive already for local lead gen?
• Getting comfortable with Google algorithm risk
• Why Patients4you is an agency more than a lead gen website
• Deal terms
• Using BizBuySell for digital businesses
• Centurica
• How he's growing Patients4you
• Slow feedback loop of local lead gen businesses

Reach Jaime at:

• jaimearias.com
• 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:

• Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn
• Follow Will on Twitter