Places to Find a Small Business to Buy
Your favorite store? Maybe you can buy it.
In a previous post, I talked about how you can buy a small business.
But where do you find one?
It’s not as hard as you think. I will share some easy-to-use online platforms you can try as well as some guerilla techniques to find business owners looking to sell.
Brokered Vs. Proprietary
There are two ways businesses are identified as being for sale.
They openly say they are for sale.
They don’t say it, but the owner will sell for the right deal.
When a business owner decides to sell, they can employ the services of a business broker. Just like you use a real estate agent to sell your house, you use a business broker to sell your business. When a business owner enlists the services of a broker, the broker prepares information on the business and then actively seeks buyers to buy the business.
Let me say that the world of business brokers is the Wild West. Some are EXTREMELY professional and great to work with, and others you wonder how they figured out how to turn on their computer that morning.
Quick story: I once looked at the marketing material for a $500,000 business. The material was fantastic. It was incredibly thorough and well thought-out and answered most of my questions. Then I looked at the material for a business that wanted $4,000,000. It was a single page with seven (yes, seven) numbers that left me with even more questions. All this is to say that the level of broker professionalism can vary WIDELY.
But many businesses still get sold without any middleman. These deals are identified through proprietary means (could be as fancy as a subscription software service or as simple as a cup of coffee with the right person).
The typical advice I hear from people experienced in this space is that for your first business especially, you should spend more time pursuing brokered deals than proprietary ones. Mainly, you can waste a lot of time searching for deals outside of brokers and never find the right one.
Online Listing Sites
If you have ever shopped for a home or just daydreamed about buying a mansion in Hawaii, you have probably been on Zillow at some point. It’s a great place to shop around (whether seriously or for funsies) for a home. Well, you can also find businesses to buy in a similar manner.
Note: The market for business buyers is waaaaaay smaller than the market for home buyers so these sites are not nearly as well-developed as Zillow, but you can still use them effectively.
BizBuySell– BizBuySell is an online brokerage where people list their businesses for sale. These are usually brick-and-mortar businesses, but you may also find some that are entirely online.
BusinessesForSale– Online and offline businesses to be acquired.
Kumo is great because they are an aggregator of many of the business listing sites. They are still new, so not perfect, but really great to use.
Sites for Totally Online Businesses
Shopify Exchange- If you haven’t heard of Shopify, they are the software company that just about everyone uses to run their online store. They have a marketplace on their site where you can look for businesses to buy. Like Flippa, there are a lot of worthless sites. You’ll have to look to find a good one, but be patient and be deliberate.
Flip WP– Many blogs and other great sites are run on WordPress, which powers 70% of the web. You can find all kinds of businesses built on WordPress on Flip WP.
Empire Flippers- Empire Flippers is the gold standard when it comes to buying an online business. They thoroughly vet each business and verify all their numbers. Now with that additional knowledge comes a higher price. I’ve seen businesses on there from $15,000 to in the $3 million+ range. But you can trust that the businesses on there are what they say they are.
Acquire.com– This site is focused mainly on software businesses, but that may be what you are looking for.
AcquireBase– Many of the same types of businesses you would find on Acquire.com can also be found here.
Digital Exits– They can help buy or sell a business up to $10 million/year in revenue.
FE International– Use a professional to buy or sell an online business.
Quiet Light– Buy and sell online businesses.
Now, for some guerilla techniques…
Wait…wrong guerilla.
Use Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Data
I could try and pretend how to do a better job explaining this amazing strategy than former podcast guest Ben Tiggelaar (who bought a healthcare biz at 26 and grew it 8x by 31…find his interview on my podcast HERE) but he spells it out very well in his post which you can find here:
Talk to the Connectors
Think of a social network.
Imagine that this diagram represents the business community for your town. every single dot is a different business owner and maybe someone who wants to sell their business to you.
See those dots that have a lot of lines leading to them? That’s who you want to talk to. That’s way easier than trying to reach out to the dot on the outside.
But who are these powerful connectors?
In this case, the ones you want to talk to are the business service providers. They are primarily the lawyers and accountants of the market. They talk to owners and probably know who is looking to sell or retire before that owner has decided to officially declare the sale of the business.
Make friends with these people. Call them (yes, on the phone) and introduce yourself. Take them out to coffee. That’s how you can find a great deal.
Go crush it.
-Mark
The Veteran Professional
P.S. Interested in learning more about buying a business? This book was a HUGE reason I started down this path. The author, Walker Deibel, has done a ton of deals and breaks this all down in a great format. You can find it on Amazon HERE.