Hello Friends!
In this week’s issue of What I Learned Last Week:
📰 Articles
🧵 Online Highlights
🤔 Other - Search Trends
🗓️ Events
⚒️ Tools & Resources
💡 How I Can Help
This issue of The Business Inquirer is brought to you by:
Connecting Deal Sponsors with Investors
Are you an accredited investor looking to allocate to attractive SMB deals? Get notified of new opportunities.
Have a deal under LOI and need equity capital to close? Post your deal on CapitalPad.
CapitalPad is an investing platform allowing searchers to raise capital for SMB acquisitions, and allowing investors to finally get access to this hard to find asset class.
Get started here: CapitalPad.com
📰 Articles
I summarize, so you capitalize.
BizBuySell Insight Report - 1Q 2025
The BizBuySell Q1 2025 report reveals a relatively stable market for small business sales, with a 9% rise in total transaction value to $2 billion. Deal momentum increased early in the year, driven by optimism over policy shifts. However, new tariff announcements slowed transaction speed and prolonged listing durations. Despite this, demand remains strong for resilient, high-quality businesses.
Key insights include:
Overall deal volume is up: 2,368 businesses were sold in Q1, a 2% increase from Q4 2024.
Monthly fluctuations: January was particularly strong, but deal activity dropped in February (-5%) and March (-2%) due to uncertainty around new tariffs and rising costs.
Manufacturing leads the way: Median sale prices in this sector surged 54%, driven by reshoring and demand for domestic production.
Service stays popular, price softens – Service deals grew 2%, but both median price and revenue slid -5% as buyers flocked to essential services (auto, plumbing, healthcare).
Retail & restaurants struggle – Retail volume -7% and restaurant volume -4%; restaurant median price dropped -11% to $200K amid consumer belt-tightening.
Tariff impact is mixed – Among owners, 37% report cost spikes and 17% supply-chain hits; 57% pass costs to customers, creating both headwinds and arbitrage opportunities.
Deals are taking longer: The median time on market increased to 198 days, up 15% year-over-year.
“Corporate refugees” drive demand – 45% of buyers want to leave a job and 19% are recently unemployed, prioritizing recession-resistant, profitable targets.
— — — — — — — — — — — —
Self-Funded Search vs. Independent Sponsor
The article from DueDilio compares self-funded searchers and independent sponsors as two distinct paths to acquiring a business, each with its own advantages and challenges. Self-funded searchers operate independently, often retaining more equity but shouldering greater responsibility and risk. Independent sponsors, on the other hand, leverage external capital and networks, potentially reducing personal financial exposure but also sharing control and returns.
Key insights include:
Self-Funded Searchers:
Maintain full control over the acquisition process and decision-making.
Bear the entire financial risk, including search costs and deal expenses.
Potentially retain a larger share of equity and profits.
May face limitations in deal size due to personal capital constraints.
Independent Sponsors:
Utilize external investors to fund acquisitions, reducing personal financial burden.
Share equity and decision-making authority with investors.
Can pursue larger deals due to access to greater capital resources.
Must invest time in building relationships with capital providers and managing investor expectations.
Considerations for Choosing a Path:
Personal financial capacity and risk tolerance.
Desire for control versus willingness to collaborate with investors.
Long-term goals regarding ownership, management involvement, and exit strategies.
Ability to source deals and raise capital independently.
The choice between these two paths depends on individual circumstances, including financial resources, risk appetite, and personal goals in business ownership.
🧵 Online Highlights
I scroll, so you don’t have to.
The SBA released new guidance this week. I’ve copied a few posts that provide a good summary…
From M&A attorney 👇
From SBA loan broker 👇
From M&A attorney 👇
The “Ford Maverick” indicator is pointing to a downturn…
Savvy acquirers are stitching together sub-$5M deals to beat pricing and build value from the ground up…
Don’t rush the search—taking more time can lead to a better outcome…
When a seller says “just do marketing to double revenue,” it may often be true — they just weren’t the one to do it, and that’s your upside as the buyer…
Great perspective. How one founder sold to PE, survived the earn-out trap, and reclaimed control to rebuild a better business…
🤔 Other
Search Trends
Every so often, I update this chart using Google Trends data to track online searches for “buy a business” and “sell a business.” The chart shows a clear 5-year upward trend. It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves in the coming months.
🗓️ Events
M&A Launchpad Conference (May 3) - Houston, TX
INSEAD ETA Conference (May 10) - Fontainebleau, FR
Mittelstand Summit 2025 (May 20) - Berlin, Germany
🎵 Listening: “Who We Are“ by Alon 🎵
How did you like this issue of the newsletter?
⚒️Tools & Resources
I want to share some tools & resources that I have found helpful. Please note that some of these are paid sponsors or affiliates of the newsletter.
PrivSource - PrivSource helps you source deals and connect with transaction partners without ever paying a success fee.
X5 Deals - Proprietary deal sourcing for a great price. They do the tedious and time-consuming job of deal sourcing so you can spend more time on DD and closing.
Rejigg - Platform that connects searchers/investors directly with owners of off-market small businesses ($200k - $3M EBITDA) considering exits. All deals are sourced by the Rejigg team. Their team adds 15 to 20 new deals each week.
Kumo - 100,000+ deals sourced from thousands of brokers and marketplaces. Plus, AI-powered listings, robust data & analytics, and more.
BizNexus - Marketplace + off-market origination in one platform. The marketplace averages about 10k active listings & pre-CIM opportunities, and the off-market origination focuses on data & multi-channel.
Secret - Say goodbye to overspending on SaaS. With Secret, you get access to up to $1,000,000+ in savings on the best software to run your search, operate, and scale your business.
Deal Sourcing Guide (2025) - Discover 100+ platforms to supercharge your deal flow and find your perfect acquisition target—from flagship marketplaces to AI-powered deal sourcing tools, all updated for 2025.
💡 How I Can Help
Whenever you’re ready, here are a few ways for us to work together…
Schedule 1:1 consulting on deal sourcing, due diligence, M&A ecosystem, newsletters, entrepreneurship, or anything else you’d like to discuss
Promote your brand to business buyers, investors, SMB owners, and other M&A participants by sponsoring this newsletter
Assemble your M&A deal team with DueDilio
If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, why not share it?