🧐What I Learned Last Week
Week ending Friday August 19, 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.
Let’s connect: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook Group
Hello Friends!
This issue of What I Learned Last Week is brought to you by Wiser! Newsletter.
Check out Wiser! 👉 Sign up for free here.
📰 Articles
Armanino published a good summary of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It’s a quick read and covers all the main points of the Act.
While the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 may negatively impact the bottom line for some major corporations, it should provide welcome relief to individuals and small business owners.
Summary of Stipulations Included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
— — — — — —
SEO is a topic that should be familiar to most entrepreneurs and business owners. I’m laser-focused on it at DueDilio. Future by a16z published a great guest article providing an overview of AI copywriting, available tools, and how to implement AI as part of your SEO strategy. Highly recommend this article.
While the ways that AI copywriting tools work are many, here are the basic workflows:
Copywriting: Write a prompt for the AI that includes the document title, content brief, and suggested tone.
Blog content writing: Write a content brief for the AI that includes the document title, section headers, and tone. Add an empty line after each header and compose content for each section individually.
Copy editing: Copy and paste text into the AI’s output field. Highlight this text and use the “fix grammar” tool or “rephrase” tool to edit it.
How AI Copywriters Are Changing SEO
— — — — — —
Andy VandenBerg writes about the difficult process of sourcing SMB deals and his process for making the process just a bit easier.
When it comes to looking for deals, the most important step is to understand what you actually want to buy. It’s easy to pull out the size of business you want and the location, but it’s harder to narrow down the criteria of a business you like and even a specific industry. Before starting a direct sourcing approach, it’s important to answer these questions (as well as many more):
Do I want to buy a B2B business or a B2C businesses?
What industry do I like? Why do I like it?
Why am I a good owner for this type of business? What sets me apart?
How would I think about improving a business in this industry over 5-10 years?
— — — — — —
Erik de Stefanis is an investor at Interlace Ventures with a focus on innovative commerce companies. His view is that we’re in the midst of a physical retail renaissance.
Not only are we yearning to reconnect and seeking out IRL experiences, but brands and retailers of all sizes are struggling to stay relevant as competition in every brand category becomes increasingly fierce. With these points taken into consideration, it makes sense that brands and retailers are (re)investing in their physical “IRL” presences.
🧵 Twitter
HoldCos are everywhere…
Corporate Refugees…
Key questions before starting a new project, buying or selling a business, entering a partnership, etc…
How to build a sales team & culture…
Qualitative due diligence questions to ask the business seller…
Know & understand your numbers…
Good thread on how VCs think about TAM…
Good discussion here on how to deal with AR…
🤔 Thoughts, Events, Other
🛠 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!
Help us improve with anonymous feedback. How did you like this issue of the newsletter?
If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, why not share it?
Let’s connect: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook Group
Important Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided for informational & educational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. This newsletter may link to other websites and certain information contained herein has been obtained from third-party sources. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, it has not been independently verified. The Business Inquirer makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. References to any companies, securities, listings, investments, or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Charts and graphs provided within are for informational purposes solely and should not be relied upon when making any business, tax, or investment decisions. Content in this newsletter speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects and/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others.