Big Deal Small Business: I Bought a Business
March 2, 2022 | Issue #63
I’ve been waiting a long time to write this newsletter. I’ve officially closed on my acquisition of small business!
It’s a residential home services business (still debating how specific I plan to be in the newsletter).
It’s kind of surreal, but I’m a few days in and it’s starting to become more tangible (thanks to QuickBooks and AT&T being absolute nightmares to transition).
In the end, it ended up not being that long of a deal process – 95 days from LOI signing to closing, which is probably right around median. That said, I’ve done several much larger, more time-consuming PE deals; and yet, this SMB deal was by far the most draining, personally taxing, and stressful of my career.
But, the payoff is also far better - I’m finally the majority owner of my own business. I’m pumped to maintain the company’s strong culture, create growth opportunities for employees, and eventually a profitable outcome for me & my investors.
I have to share some appreciation for all the folks in the background who made this acquisition possible:
My investor group, featuring a mix of SMB operators and PE/Finance folks from my prior life. In addition to their money, they have been incredibly generous with their time & insights in terms of handling last minute APA negotiations, helping me plan the ownership transition, and more.
My advisor / lender group, which includes Hollywell Partners for QoE, Oberle Risk for insurance, and Live Oak as the lender (plus a top-notch lawyer of course).
My peer group, which consists of too many people to list here, but they know who they are. They provided invaluable moral support to help me push through the whole deal process.
My family & girlfriend, who helped shoulder the stress alongside me despite me boring them with information about home services operations.
I owe everyone above a huge thank you and probably a bottle or two of scotch.
In addition, thanks to all of you readers for bearing with me through what is essentially an angsty blog about the ups & downs of the search process. I hope it’s been helpful for you in your search, or at least a bit entertaining at times.
I do intend to keep writing this newsletter, but it will be a bit less regular and on more of a tape delay relative to the live events of my business. I want to be respectful of my employees, investors, vendors, and advisors in terms of sharing my stories that intertwine with theirs.
I expect to feature more guest posts to capture the search phase of ETA, while I share stories from my operating phase of ETA.
One last thank you to folks who have completed this SMB Owner-Transition survey. It’s obviously hyper-relevant to me right now, and I read through all the responses before introducing myself to the crews. There are some real pearls of wisdom in there. So, if you haven’t filled it out, please do! We’re excited to aggregate it and share it with the broader community.
As always, you can reach me by hitting reply to this email or DMing me on Twitter.
Thank you,
Guesswork Investing