#1 | Here is my plan to buy a small business

So this is it… my first weekly update email to SMBuyer newsletter subscribers.

The first few days after I shared the website and newsletter publicly a number of friends and colleagues signed up which was fun to see, but this weekend we hit a major milestone.

The first few complete strangers subscribed! 🙌

That hits a little different and puts the pressure on to try to provide value each week.

I don’t have any specific newsletter template or framework that I am planning to use, so this may be subject to change, but I think I want to provide 2 updates each week:

1. An update on my own search to buy a small business
2. A tip, tool, resource or learning that I hope can be helpful for others who are looking to buy their own small business

So with that as the plan:

Update on my search to buy a small business

I figured the first step in buying a small business is to try to define what kind of business I am looking to buy. Here is my first pass:

“In 2025 I want to buy a business that serves small businesses, is remote and digital, and can serve customers anywhere in the US or world.”

I think one of the things that has held me back from ever considering buying a small business is that I assumed that it would distract me from building my current business ​ProjectionHub​, and that it would mess up my current working style.

I work from home every day, I have a very flexible schedule, I probably have less than 1 scheduled meeting per day and very few employee issues with our small team.

I like the work-life balance I have and don’t want buying another business to disrupt that.

I also decided that I want the business to be complimentary in some way to ProjectionHub which is why I want the business I buy to serve startups or small businesses as well.

So this narrows down the field quite a bit which I think is a good first step. I came up with a quick list of 10 types of businesses that I could potentially buy that might fit the criteria I have laid out:

1. A business valuation service provider
2. An agency that helps people buy a business with their 401k through a ROBS
3. A niche marketplace to buy an SMB
4. Niche business brokerage
5. Due diligence service provider
6. Marketplace to find service providers
7. Quality of earnings report service provider
8. EB5 Visa business planning service provider
9. Small business loan broker
10. SaaS tool that serves a specific SMB niche

I could use some more ideas for types of businesses to buy, so send some ideas my way!

Next steps are to start thinking about ways to find potential businesses that meet my criteria.

Tools are coming!

My goal with this newsletter is to provide you with tools that can be helpful if you are looking to buy a small business. I am creating tools for my own search process and then going to share those with you. We have several in the works, but not quite ready for prime time yet.

One tool that I am really excited about is our SBA Lender Tool. We took the publicly available SBA loan data and got it into a dashboard format so that you will be able to find the SBA lender who has closed the most SBA loans in your geographic area and your specific industry.

So if you are looking to buy a car wash in Texas, this tool will allow you to sort and find the SBA lender who has made the most car wash acquisition loans in Texas over the past 5 years, all in about 30 seconds.

We are putting some finishing touches on the tool this week, but should be ready next week!

Here is a sneak peak:

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