The new SBA rules are going to make traditional business acquisitions more difficult for some first-time buyers. Higher equity requirements. Independent valuations. More restrictions around investors, ownership structures and personal guarantees. But here’s what I don’t want getting lost: Not having enough liquidity to buy a multimillion-dollar business doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be a great operator. It may just mean you need a different path to business ownership. Consider the math. A $3 million acquisition requiring a 10% equity injection means coming up with $300,000. Then you’re financing roughly $2.7 million. Over a 10-year loan, once interest is included, the total amount paid can easily exceed $4 million. Now consider a franchise with a $300,000 total investment. At a 10% equity injection, that’s $30,000. $300,000 of equity vs. $30,000. Both can lead to the same ultimate outcome: owning, operating and growing a business and building meaningful enterprise value. But one starts with millions of dollars of acquisition debt and buying someone else’s (Supposed) enterprise value. The other gives you an opportunity to build that enterprise value yourself, with substantially less capital and debt at risk — while starting with an established brand, operating system, training and support. For the right person, that’s a potentially much less risky path into business ownership. That’s one of the reasons I think the new SBA rules could cause more searchers to take a serious look at franchising. Maybe you don’t need $300,000 to prove you can be a great operator. Maybe you need the right platform to prove it.