I have a wide-ranging self-taught skill set as well that I've developed over the last 14 years of running my own businesses. I'll share what I'm doing from a high level as it might not be the most common path.
I've been acquiring small but promising businesses that don't have the right team in place to move them forward. I bootstrap them on my own and replace my roles as the business can afford staff. Once enough roles are replaced, I'm able to start looking for the next business. I'm on my fourth business now. Sold the first two, the third is a productized service netting seven figures, and I just acquired the fourth, which is a SaaS business that I believe has great potential.
Currently, I'm formalizing this method and will build a team that can execute it much more quickly than me alone. I'll be shooting for a new business every 12-18 months to build a portfolio. We'll have a group of partners and a small staff that will be focused on getting these acquisitions straightened out and growing, then we'll install a team to run them full-time and we'll go on to the next one.
So just taking what I've been doing for years and everything I've learned from it and scaling it up to reduce the timeframe from acquisition to growth and then operation of the business.
If OP or anyone else who identifies themself in a similar manner wants to chat, email is in my profile. I'm actively looking for people like us to work with.
I support this approach. I learned a lot about online marketing and selling physical products by purchasing a struggling online shop. There's even dedicated web pages like flippa.com or empireflippers.com
This is basically me and my skillset and trajectory but UK based. Its something i'd love to do with others. I noticed you're in Seattle so not in the same country or i'd get in touch to talk.
If anyone like this is in the UK and wants to get in touch, email in profile.
This business of buying and selling businesses, I have heard a bit about it here and there but i don't even know where to start looking for people who are either selling or who are buying. I'd love to look into it as I think I would quite enjoy it. Any resources you could point to?
Buying online businesses wasn't even on my radar at the start, but I stumbled onto the first one via a blog that I followed. They posted that they were going to sell their online business and to drop them an email if interested.
I read that and immediately thought, well that's for me, so I sent them an email. I had zero clue what I was doing at that point.
The last business I acquired was though a broker; FE International. They have some interesting SaaS listings from time to time. QuietLight is another broker I watch listings from, but they are more in the ecomm, FBA, etc. space though. Less pure software. There are other brokers as well such as Empire Flippers.
There are some marketplaces like Flippa, Sideprojectors, Transferslot, etc.
You can also find a business you are interested in and call them up and see if they might be interested in selling. I almost bought a business this way last year after seeing it on Indie Hackers and reaching out to the owner. We couldn't get together on price though. I was happy to overpay since the business wasn't on the market and I believed in the future potential, but the owner's expectation was just way too out there so I couldn't justify it.
Isn't this a lemon market? Owner's expectations always are too good, or not? It is their "baby" and they are biased to think it's better than it is. A seller could hire someone to run the thing for them, so why sell unless the person needs money or is hiding something? Maybe I am too pessimistic.
That's facinating. Do you tend to buy the entity of the business, or would the original owner keep a small stake? And do you get any professional help with the accountancy and legal aspects of the original purchase?
Thus far my acquisitions have all been asset sales where I've started a new LLC, which has purchased the assets we define in the purchase agreement. I've not done any deals where the original owner keeps a stake, but I would consider an arrangement like that if asked for. Nobody has asked yet though.
I did the first three solo and on the last one I had a couple of conversations with my attorney during the process. I wanted the attorney to be fully involved on the last one because the purchase price was higher than the previous acquisitions (high six figures), but the timing just didn't work out. I wanted to close quicker than he could handle so I just went ahead.
Asset purchases aren't that complicated since you aren't brining on liabilities. Still, I'm sure it is advisable to have professionals help with due diligence, contract negotiation, etc.
i see you removed your email from profile good move. I rarely sign up to respond to someone but I think you may have been blessed to find the very unique niche that just may fit exactly my skillset.
I get companies and ideas off the ground, once it gets corporate level, i lose interest. Makes me feel I'm not cut out for that corporate lifetsyle... SO I wonder like you what can work.
Latest business venture since trying this method - service provider company, we hire various experts. Then internally we create campaigns out of pocket and as the calls come in we direct them to various industry.
We should most definitely speak. I have several projects that fit our unqiue abilities.
For 38 years I said i'm never going to achieve because I cannot stay in the same position once it becomes routine.... This is a brilliant approach! how can we be in contact? mrtorah AT gmail email me when you have a chance id like to see what you have going, we have a bit of financing and targeting some higher ticket niches right now.
Same here, can't find your email. I am also a 'jack of all trades' and I'm ready to wrap up my third business and find something new. I'd love to talk to you, maybe do something together, maybe just trade our stories.
I was in college at the time, so student loans kept me afloat. I was definitely not using that money correctly, but I believed I was using it wisely.
The first acquisition was funded by a loan from my parents for $44K. That was a large sum for them, but they believed they would see it again and they have always wanted to help my siblings and I in any way possible. It turned out to be one of their better investments as I did return that money and a percent of profits for years.
After the first one I was able to continue self funding.
That's partly because most people will have baggage to attend to that a college student living off student loans would not, and will lack the safety net that parents who can loan you $44k represent. There's not much here to convince that his performance is any better than the average among people in his position.
That is, among college students without the baggage of full adulthood (debt, personal responsibilities, the mental and physical degradation that starts as early as your mid-twenties, and the risk aversion that comes with these things), and with the support of at least moderately wealthy parents and the affordances they bring: yes, there's not much here to show above-average performance. This individual received exceptional advantages which he certainly capitalized on, but there's no indication that he did so above the level of an average replacement.
We owe it to ourselves to be realistic about prospects.
There's literally millions of college students in that position every year. Its absolutely not common for most of them to start _a_ successful business, let a lone several. I've worked at companies who had far more money, more connections, and more advantages, that ended up with less. OP's an outlier irrespective of their advantages.
> the mental and physical degradation that starts as early as your mid-twenties
Degrading in your twenties (in any meaningful sense) is _highly_ atypical.
Out of the ~20 million college students, the number that come from families with $40k in liquid assets is probably not plural-millions-with-an-s, and is probably considerably less than a million. With the field of competition winnowed thusly, and again considering the myriad unearned advantages such a background generally entails, this person's success is probably far more common than you're wagering. All you're proving is that people in his class are far less deserving than we'd thought.
>Degrading in your twenties (in any meaningful sense) is _highly_ atypical.
Nah. One's twenties are a common period for mental illness to develop, as well as the period when heretofore silent congenital defects become apparent. It is also generally the first time when injuries become much less likely to fully heal, and when they may become lifelong encumberances.
Someone who hasn't experienced some form of degradation by 30 - worsening eyesight, a sports injury, onset of depression, even balding - is someone who is privileged indeed.
Why? Means little. You can put a $44k deal together, even if you're a college student with no connections. It takes vision, some hustle, and an action plan. You might not think you can, but I sure know many can (including you and others reading this).
Most sellers are open to creative deals. No money down, seller financing (this applies to real estate and software).
Keep looking for excuses, you'll find them. I mean that in a firmly supportive way.
I'm not suggesting every deal can find a team. If it was already cashflowing and has assets, it is much easier to put a deal together. Software startups, conversely, often have neither and compete in a non-local market.
Raising money from friends and family is certainly a common path to entrepreneurship, but it is far from the only.
My original point was that acquisition entrepreneurship could be an option for someone with a broad skillset like the OP. How I funded the first one doesn't really impact that as everyone will have a different path and I simply took the one that was available to me at the time.
If an existing path can't be found then it will have to be made. That could mean working and saving for a while, starting a side project with the goal of it becoming a profitable business, partnering with a friend and earning equity through sweat, etc.
People are really upset with this comment because they think you're implying OP didn't do any work or that OP doesn't deserve it.
It doesn't much matter to me whether OP has "earned" their position of power, only that they had an enormous boost early in their career.
Just because $44k seems like pocket change to some people on this forum doesn't mean it's still an incredible amount of money that offers a fair amount of power on its own.
OP just explained what they did. Not to gloat but to explain their situation. What does it matter to you that they got help doing it?
I have 44k to invest if I really believed in something and I come from very modest means with no family help. If the stars align, it's a possibility. That's all you should take from their comment.
Because it answers a different type of question: What you would do if you wouldn't have to work for a living, for the next six months.
While interesting, most of us can't relate to this situation.
Having half a year worth of "fun money" to spend bootstrapping a business idea, or investng in one, is skipping the first step.
It's like one of these "draw the rest of the fucking owl" jokes:
I get $88K by working fulltime for $X months. Getting $44K _for free_ and then also having an entire fulltime of availability to work on a project is quite a gamechanger.
How can you spend $44K on a project and live off of it at the same time, in the latter case where someone handed you the money?
And if you are saving $44K per year, why can't you work for two years and then take one year off, having both $44K to live on and $44K to spend on a project?
And finally, didn't this start with a $44K loan, not a gift?
If you have some hustle anyone can raise that type of money.
When I worked retail in college, a coworker was able to get $150k together to lease a 737 and crew for a couple of trips. He was then able to leverage his girlfriend’s boss (travel agent) to get some trips to Aruba and some other island. He netted enough to pay for his tuition, which was the goal.
I did not expect the response I received to this post. I received 100+ emails in a few hours and had to remove my contact info as I was only expecting a few people to reach out. I wasn't intending to create a major distraction from my work for myself.
I've been acquiring small but promising businesses that don't have the right team in place to move them forward. I bootstrap them on my own and replace my roles as the business can afford staff. Once enough roles are replaced, I'm able to start looking for the next business. I'm on my fourth business now. Sold the first two, the third is a productized service netting seven figures, and I just acquired the fourth, which is a SaaS business that I believe has great potential.
Currently, I'm formalizing this method and will build a team that can execute it much more quickly than me alone. I'll be shooting for a new business every 12-18 months to build a portfolio. We'll have a group of partners and a small staff that will be focused on getting these acquisitions straightened out and growing, then we'll install a team to run them full-time and we'll go on to the next one.
So just taking what I've been doing for years and everything I've learned from it and scaling it up to reduce the timeframe from acquisition to growth and then operation of the business.
If OP or anyone else who identifies themself in a similar manner wants to chat, email is in my profile. I'm actively looking for people like us to work with.