How James Maxwell & his partner found a 22-year-old janitorial biz & successfully installed a GM in a city of 100,000. 

Themes from James' interview:

• Searching in a small market
• Choosing NOT to outsource due diligence
• Janitorial business pros & cons
• Partnered search
• What deal flow looks like in a 100k city
• Hiring a general manager
• Does an MBA help with buying a business?
• Why self-funded over traditional?

Reach James at:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• jmaxwell 814 @ gmail dot com

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

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Register here for the live session with Chelsea Wood of the Acquisition Lab:

• What size of business should you buy?

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Business broker Clint Fiore explains how to most effectively work with brokers to find good businesses to buy. 

Themes from Clint's interview:

• Brokers' pet peeves about acquisition entrepreneurs...
• ...and how to avoid them
• Most important thing you communicate to a broker
• Life cycle of a business for sale
• Searcher branding
• The reality of the "silver tsunami"
• Seller psychology
• The master skill right now for buying businesses

Reach Clint at:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

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

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Register here for the live session with Chelsea Wood of the Acquisition Lab:

• What size of business should you buy?

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Clint's newsletter, Probably a Good Deal
• Texas Business Buyers

Alex Mears draws on years of experience at Carlyle & Blackstone to support and invest in searchers (70 & counting). 

Themes from Alex's interview:

• The most valuable businesses of all
• Attractiveness (or not) of home service businesses
• Seller integrity
• When to require speaking with key employees
• Thesis-driven search
• Search accelerators
• New accelerator The Brydon Group
• Alex's pivot to entrepreneurship: why now?

Reach Alex at:

• alexander dot mears @ brydon dot com
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• The Brydon Group
• Apply to the first cohort here (deadline: June 15th)

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

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Register here for the live session with Chelsea Wood of the Acquisition Lab:

• What size of business should you buy?

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Steve Ressler
• George Dutile
• Alex's session on Searchfunder: Tutorial: Live Modeling an Example Self-Funded Deal & Key Factors Involved
• Alex's session on Searchfunder: Modeling for Traditional Search Deals - Intro to Building Financial Models

Jason Andrews paid $250k to a buy-side advisor to help find & acquire his first business — and would 100% do it again. 

Themes from Jason's interview:

• Paying a premium for a good business
• Working with a buy-side advisor: price, value, what they do
• Speaking to 30 sellers
• Buying a business in your 40s
• Taking a big swing
• Where he invested his time during due diligence
• Whether he was "buying a job"
• The consulting agreement he structured with the previous owners
• Buying big or buying small
• Going from corporate to small business
• Pros & cons of group purchasing organizations (GPOs)

Reach Jason at:

• @Jandrews707
• LinkedIn

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

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Register here for the live session with Chelsea Wood of the Acquisition Lab:

• What size of business should you buy?

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• The DVS Group

Chelsea Wood has worked with 250+ business buyers & identifies 7 challenges that commonly interfere with their success. 

Themes from Chelsea's interview:

• The irrational need to be an expert on every part of your acquisition‍
• Incessant need for more, more, MORE information
• ‍Good ol' imposter syndrome
• ‍You don't brand yourself
• ‍You're too rigid
• ‍You're too loose, get desperate
• You don't put in the effort for deal flow

Reach Chelsea at:

• chelsea at buythenbuild dot com
• LinkedIn

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

• Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund Team

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Apply to the Acquisition Lab
• Buy Then Build Facebook group

How Chris Munn runs his first acquisition, a $800k cleaning business in Tampa, while being based in LA. 

Themes from Chris’s interview:

• Real estate vs. small business acquisition
• The importance of getting reps — modeling deals as practice for the real thing
• Running an acquired business remotely
• Buying a business that’s too small
• Being an African-American man and dealing with “pattern matching” from banks
• How Chris gained 30k followers in six months

Reach Chris at:

• On LinkedIn: Chris Munn
• On Twitter: Chris Munn

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Buy Then Build
• HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business

Ex-cop John Hubbard bought a $5m trailer manufacturing biz from an absentee owner & expects to grow to $12m by 2024. 

Themes from John’s interview:

• Learning how to run a business, hands-on, before acquiring one
• Transferring military skills to business acquisition
• Raising money on Searchfunder.com
• Asking “dumb questions” to learn quickly
• Choosing self-funded over a traditional search fund to achieve the lifestyle he wanted
• Firing half his customers in the first month of ownership
• Why your search shouldn’t ignore manufacturing businesses

Reach John at:

• By email: john at blue cord capital dot com
• On LinkedIn: John Hubbard

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Express Custom Trailers
• Blue Cord Capital
• Sam Rosati on Twitter
• Searchfunder

Digital business buyer Dom Wells shares where he looks for opportunities today in the shifting sands of online business. 

Themes from Dom's interview:

• Affiliate, e-commerce, and SaaS businesses and each one's pros/cons
• Online course and content businesses
• Where Dom sees opportunities in digital acquisition
• How to source deals
• Leading brokerages of digital businesses
• Flippa & MicroAcquire
• How to approach the digital space as an outsider

Connect with Dom:

• Twitter: @DomWellsOnfolio
• LinkedIn: Dominic Wells

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Empire Flippers
• FE International
• QuietLight
• MicroAquire
• Flippa
• Onfolio's S-1

Mike Loftus started his landscaping business from scratch, then began buying others to accelerate growth to $4m/yr. 

Themes from Mike’s interview:

• Growing a landscaping business organically from the ground up
• Acknowledging your weaknesses and handing them off as soon as you can
• The advantages familiarity with technology bring despite a lack of experience
• Finding acquisition opportunities through unconventional methods
• The importance of recurring revenue in landscaping
• The potential exit opportunities for landscaping owners

Connect with Mike:

• Twitter: @signthefronts
• LinkedIn: Michael Loftus

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Connor's Landscape
• Building a Blue Collar Empire: Adrian Pinto on Acquiring Minds
• 7 Years Later: Leaving Wall Street to Buy Small Businesses with Chenmark founders James & Palmer Higgins, on Acquiring Minds
• How to Buy Landscaping Businesses: Mike Botkin's second appearance on Acquiring Minds
• How to Buy a Landscaping Biz & Boost Profits Quick: Mike Botkin's first appearance on Acquiring Minds
• John Wilson on Twitter
• Mills Snell on Twitter

Lively debate between Greg Geronemus & Robert Graham about the 2 most common models searchers use to acquire a business. 

Covered in the debate:

• Quick definitions of each model
• How the economics differ
• Why are traditional search fund terms so fixed?
• CEO vs. Owner
• Accountability, governance, boards, mentoring
• Flexibility & optionality
• Relative risk of both models
• Probability of close
• Probability of success
• Assembling the board as a self-funded searcher
• Is either model preferable for particular industry targets?
• Who is your model not for?

Connect with the debaters on LinkedIn:

• Robert Graham
• Greg Geronemus

Connect with Acquiring Minds:

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

Links & mentions:

• Stanford's 2020 Search Fund Study
• Robert's investment firm SIG
• Greg's investment firm Footbridge Partners