🧐What I Learned Last Week
Week ending Friday August 26, 2022
What I Learned Last Week curates the most interesting content relating to business acquisitions, operations, entrepreneurship, finance, and more. WILLW is a publication of The Business Inquirer.
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Hello Friends!
This issue of What I Learned Last Week is brought to you by DueDilio.
DueDilio is a leading online marketplace focused on M&A due diligence.
We connect business buyers, sellers, intermediaries, and private investors with pre-vetted due diligence service providers.
Our large and growing network of verified independent professionals, boutique and mid-size firms, and subject-matter experts specialize in finance, technology, legal, commercial, and other key areas of business diligence.
Submit your project. Review qualified proposals. Hire service provider.
📰 Articles
Harvard Business Services is one of the largest registered agents for forming a Delaware entity (I’ve used them). In a new blog post, they discuss operating multiple businesses (LLCs) under one holding company LLC.
As it stands today, the battle tested, proven practice of creating individual LLCs that are formed for every variant of a business is traditionally still the most highly recommended strategy by tax professionals, attorneys and business consultants all over the world.
This means that for every sector of the business, for each product line, for every service provided, for each piece of real estate held, clients will often consider creating separate, traditional LLCs. Doing so ensures that the assets, debts, and liabilities of each LLC are completely disconnected and shielded from one another in the event of any possible litigation.
Creating a Delaware LLC as a Holding Company
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Guesswork Investing writes about the importance of having a community around you while you’re searching for an acquisition. This can come in the form of a mastermind, group calls, online community, etc.
Most successful searchers I’ve met have had a stable of 4-8 thought partners – other searchers, operators, investors, etc. These people serve as a sounding board as your search meanders through different industry theses, location focuses, and more.
More importantly, this group also helps you get off the mat when the search is particularly shitty.
Big Deal Small Business: Community Support in Search
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Justin Burris & Tim Ludwig of Majority Search share the benefits of combining virtual assistants with no-code tools to streamline SMB operations.
Imagine taking some of your most routine and manual processes and removing their daily burden from you and your current staff. Now imagine automating most of that and achieving higher accuracy and, often, better functionality with less duplication and better insights from the data that you are processing. Add in a talented, hard working, detail-oriented, and reliable assistant (that works when you sleep or during your same daylight hours) to handle other tasks, maintain and augment the systems you’ve built, and add capacity that fits solidly within most SMB’s budgets. What used to take dozens of hours per week and frustrate your staff now is done effortlessly and with a dramatic impact on your efficiency, productivity, and cost structure. That’s the opportunity available to SMBs who utilize a remote, offshore workforce and no code/low code tools.
🧵 Twitter
Good insight on e-commerce valuations…
Lessons learned…
Good thread on business valuation…
Yes, you’ll need a business plan and projections…
On building a proprietary deal sourcing process…
Relevant for business buying as well as investing…
🤔 Thoughts, Events, Other
Conferences
There are several ETA conferences coming up over the next few months. Below are a few of the popular ones.
Southeast Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Conference
Sept 9 to Sept 10; UVA-Darden-Charlottesville, VA, USA
This conference is designed to educate, encourage and equip current and recent MBA students and mid-career professionals in the Southeast US to pursue the acquisition and operation of a small or mid-sized business. The event will bring together business students, search fund entrepreneurs, search fund investors, faculty, and other professionals in the entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) community to explore this rapidly growing market.
5th Annual International Search Fund Conference
Oct 13 - Oct 14; Barcelona, Spain
The conference will be an opportunity for search-CEOs, active searchers, new searchers, and search fund investors from around the world to meet and discuss issues of mutual interest.
Chicago Booth Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Conference
Oct 26; Chicago, IL, USA
The Booth-Kellogg ETA Conference is an annual event that brings together search fund entrepreneurs, investors, MBA students, faculty, and other participants in the ETA ecosystem to meet one another and share insights into this rapidly-growing area. Please check back frequently as we will have frequent updates to our panelists, sponsors as well as networking opportunities.
HBS 8th Annual Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Conference
Oct 30; Boston, MA, USA
Educate the HBS community about Entrepreneurship through Acquisition, and provide potential searchers with the network and resources needed to succeed.
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Top M&A Entrepreneurs
I recommend checking out Jon Stoddard’s “Top M&A Entrepreneurs” podcast. Some notable recent guests include Nate Ginsburg who purchased Centurica and Andrew Gazdecki who’s the founder/CEO of MicroAcquire.
We talk to the "Top M&A Entrepreneurs" active today to ask them about their process, where and how they source their deals, their journey, what they had to overcome, obstacles, Industries they work in, how they analyze deals, valuations, and pricing, negotiating the deal, due diligence, transition planning and closing. Our guests have acquired over 500 businesses and over $53 Billion in Value!
Welcome to the "TOP M&A ENTREPRENEURS" Podcast
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RV Storage
WSJ profiles Gary Wojtaszek and his latest venture, RecNation. After selling his data-center company for $15B earlier this year, he saw an opportunity in buying up RV storage facilities.
“It’s not a really well-run, professionally managed industry,” Mr. Wojtaszek said. “It’s just mom-and-pop operators.”
Real-Estate Entrepreneur Bets RV Storage Is the Next Big Thing
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DFY Deal Service
Tiny Acquisition is launching a done-for-you deal origination product offering. They help buyers find and acquire an online business within the $50k to $1M range.
How it will work
1. A 1-on-1 zoom meeting diving deep into what type of acquisition you are looking for.
2. Our team searches business databases to find on/off market deals using industry metrics and the criteria you give to base our findings off of.
3. We send you a comprehensive report of businesses we found that match your criteria.
4. You choose from amongst the awesome business-buying opportunities we’ve found for you.
Fill out this Typeform if interested.
🛠 Tools & Resources
I want to share some tools & resources that I have found helpful. Please note that some of these may contain affiliate links. This means that I may receive compensation if you sign-up and use them.
Cerebro Capital - Cerebro has a network of 1,500+ lenders who can provide debt financing for your acquisition, refi, etc. $500k minimum.
X5 Deals - Proprietary deal sourcing. They do the outreach and send you relevant, actionable deals directly into your inbox.
Curators - Proprietary deal sourcing. You need targets that fit your investment criteria, and Curators delivers week after week - we even update your personalized database on a daily basis with new information on best-fit targets.
BizNexus - Proprietary deal flow, deal aggregator, and exit prep. Local Boston company and I consider the founder (Adam Ray) a friend.
PrivSource - Deal aggregator for lower and middle-market listings.
The Website Flip - a newsletter that sends content sites for sale to your email inbox. They send deals each Wednesday and Friday.
Kumo - Find every deal in one complete platform. Spend less time sourcing deals and more time closing them. Kumo aggregates 180K+ business listings into one easy-to-use platform.
ProjectionHub - Access to 50+ CPA-developed financial projection templates. 25% discount using code “duedilio” at checkout.
Logology - Best automated logo & brand identity tool I’ve come across.
DeepBench - Access a cutting-edge expert network. $200 discount.
OpenPhone - The best VoIP phone solution that I have found. I use this for DueDilio. You get a $20 credit if you sign-up.
Eloquens - Knowledge marketplace. I’ve purchased a few templates from them.
Deal Flow Scout - Peer-to-peer deal flow exchange. Free, open, transparent.
Deal Sourcing Guide - A directory I put together of online marketplaces, brokers, DFY deal flow, and more.
That’s all for this issue of What I Learned Last Week!
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