For SMB Newcomers - Welcome!

At year-end, people reflect on their careers and decide they're looking for something else.

For the #smb #acquisitions space this means new people considering #eta. Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing info for newcomers. Here are 5 things to get started:

1) You don't need an PE or business background to succeed in small business - you will need hard work, determination, focus, and the ability to learn. Between our industry's key literature (DM me for recommendations) and the info shared freely here, you can figure out the rest.

2) The numbers you've seen about retiring baby boomers are true - there are a lot of small businesses that will close or change hands in the next 15 years: more than 50% of all small businesses are owned by people over the age of 55 = 14M+ businesses. We need more buyers.

3) There are a lot of extremely high-quality businesses for sale that simply aren't big enough for certain kinds of buyers, but could be perfect for you - remember HoldCoConf posted data a few months ago: many holdcos are starting off with small, under $500K EBITDA businesses

4) Many of the buyers I talk to are trying to optimize for a degree of professional satisfaction and independence - you don't need to build a 10-acquisition empire overnight. Owning and operating one or two SMBs provides responsibility, ownership, and financial upside.

5) Buying a business comes with a degree of risk, but so do most things worth doing. The important thing is to mitigate this risk thoughtfully - work with quality experts, conduct thorough diligence, and ask lots of questions.

Welcome to the small business acquisitions world. This is a great place and we're here to help. You can do it!