What I Learned Last Week 8.4.23
Curating the best M&A, SMB, and EtA-related content since 2020.
Hello Friends!
In this week’s issue of What I Learned Last Week:
📰 Articles
🧵 Best of Twitter
🤔 Other
🗓️ Events
⚒️ Tools & Resources
💡 How I Can Help
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📰 Articles
Transferable Skills
I spent close to 10 years on the investment team for one of the largest asset managers in the world. With daily cadence I see former colleagues on LinkedIn sharing an update about leaving the investment world and pursuing EtA. One recently bought a toy store in CO, two former colleagues teamed up to acquire a transportation company, and so on. One question I ask myself is how transferable are equity research and portfolio management skills to running an SMB? Big Deal Small Business newsletter answers this question in their latest post.
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Tech Enablement for Home Service
EADS Bridge Holdings interviews the CEO of Allen Roofing & Siding to uncover how technology can supercharge an “old line” business. A great read for anyone looking at a home service business.
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10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing (July 2023)
Not related to SMB or M&A but I want to share this post from the excellent Digital Native newsletter.
🧵 Best of X (Twitter)
Don’t fall for these business broker tricks - as explained by a business broker…
Optimizing pricing is one of the easiest and fastest levers you can pull to grow revenue…
We may be seeing a convergence of buyer and seller perspectives on valuations…
These are the high-level questions everyone should be asking during due diligence…
Great case for exploring the WordPress ecosystem for acquisitions…
Replacement value is an overlooked valuation method. This is particularly true for micro-acquisitions…
There are a lot of great life lessons in this one…
This parody is too good. Reminds me of a certain SMB-buying influencer… 😂
🤔 Other
New Listing Aggregator
I just received an e-mail from SMBee that they’ve launched a Beta version of their SMB listing aggregator. You can sign-up for free here. At first glance, I like the UX/UI. It’s amazing to see the number of aggregators out there. Hopefully, SMBee is able to offer a differentiated product. Excited to follow along their journey.
On a similar topic - there’s one thing that I have not seen in a single aggregator except BizNexus - the ability to filter or sort listings by multiples. Coming from an investing background, this is absolutely baffling to me. For the life of me, I don’t understand why this isn’t the first feature that would be rolled out. Sort listings by price, profit, and multiple - easy as that.
How did you like this issue of the newsletter?
🗓️ Events
Tales From The Search: From Searcher To Operator (Aug 15) - Virtual
Southeast ETA Conference (Sept 8-9) - Durham, NC
HoldCo Conference (Sept 18-20) - Cleveland, Ohio
Austin SMB Meetup (Sept 28) - Austin, TX
The Self-Funded Search Conference (Sept 30 - Oct 1) - Dallas, TX
Main Street Summit (Nov 8-9) - Columbia, MS
Capital Camp (May 21-24) - Columbia, MO
⚒️Tools & Resources
I want to share some tools & resources that I have found helpful. Please note that some of these are paid sponsors 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. They do the outreach and send you relevant, actionable deals directly into your inbox.
Rejigg - Platform that connects searchers/investors directly with owners of off-market software businesses ($500k - $15m revenue) considering exits. All deals are sourced by the Rejigg team, ~5 added per week.
Acquisition Lab - The Premier Accelerator for Buying a Business created by Walker Deibel, Author of Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Start-up Game. They combine world-class education, a vetted community, extensive group coaching, and resources to provide the first do-it-with-you buy-side advisory service.
Search Fund Coalition - community for the Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition ecosystem. Monthly events and meetups for acquisition entrepreneurs.
Deal Sourcing Guide - a comprehensive list of business marketplaces, brokers, deal origination firms, and more.
💡 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
Access or share deal flow with your peers through Deal Flow Scout
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