The SMB Deal Hunter Podcast

Join me as I interview successful acquisition entrepreneur Mitchell Sorkin. Mitchell left the startup world after bootstrapping his business Stack Influence to $1M. He then got into acquisition entrepreneurship by buying ATM routes. Mitchell first bought 3 ATMs in Oct. '21 and now owns 800+ ATMs. _______________________________ 👉 Sign Up For Free to the SMB Deal Hunter Newsletter: https://join.sm...

Here's a number that should make you uncomfortable. 98% of the time, when a CPA digs into a business's financials, the real EBITDA comes back different from what the seller claimed. And we're not talking about rounding errors. The real EBITDA is a different number entirely. Sometimes it's 5% off. Sometimes it's 50% off. And in about a third of cases, the deal dies right there. That number comes fr...

You'd think a CPA with six years at a Big Four firm and four years in investment banking would catch every red flag in a small business acquisition, right?  Wrong.  Rushi missed three big ones on his first deal.  He overpaid on the franchise. He didn’t realize 25% of the franchise’s global locations were packed into his backyard.  And the business had to close for four months a year, which sounds...

Join me as I interview successful acquisition entrepreneur Steve Keller. We discuss how Steve went from being a cameraman with zero business background to buying and selling two crime scene cleanup businesses. _______________________________ 👉 Sign Up For Free to the SMB Deal Hunter Newsletter: https://join.smbdealhunter.xyz 🤝 Work With Me to Help You Buy a Business: https://pro.smbdealhunter.xy...

Join me as I interview serial acquisition entrepreneur Ujwal Velagapudi. Ujwal left his corporate career working in supply chain management to buy small businesses. His experience spans a variety of industries, from buying a local sports bar and gym (among others) to now focusing on amusement vending machines. _______________________________ 👉 Sign Up For Free to the SMB Deal Hunter Newsletter: h...

Join me as I interview Gretchen Roberts, an entrepreneur who acquired Red Bike Advisors, a remote-first accounting, tax, and advisory firm based in Wilmington, NC. What makes Gretchen’s story unique? She’s not a CPA and doesn’t come from an accounting background. Before buying the firm, she worked in marketing at a major public tech company. Now, she owns and operates a professional services busin...

This week, I sat down with Savannah Rush , Managing Partner at Funded Ventures. Savannah went from McKinsey consultant to owner-operator of Midway Electric in Columbia, Missouri.  She and her partner Brian Wolf ( who I interviewed previously ) have closed two home services deals and are laser focused on building a long-term holding company. She's not aiming to flip or exit. Her goal is to build a...

Michael and his partner, Ashish, only buy businesses that are $5M+ in EBITDA (way above the SBA limit). He aims to buy a new one every year.  And the last two he bought, were completely off market.  To that point, 90% of his sourcing is off-market. No BizBuySell. No broker bidding wars. Just relationships built over time at conferences, through colleagues, and by doing a lot of outreach.  But we’l...

You've probably done this… You found a listing you liked. You sent the NDA. Maybe you even fired off a quick note about your background and the things you’d like to learn. Then... nothing. A week later, the deal’s under LOI. No call back, no response to your request.  Here's what you didn't see: That listing probably got 65 inquiries in the first few days. Of those, 10 of them came in prepared. Th...

This week's episode starts with a horror story. Joe and Colin from Circle City Capital Group bought their first business together in 2018.  After meeting on Craigslist (yes, seriously) They bought an overnight delivery route business specializing in auto parts. They started with 5 routes and put in less than $100k to acquire the business. But on their first night as owners…two drivers didn't show...

What would you pay for a failing street sweeping business that was: Making $200k / Year in revenue (down from $1.1M)  Barely breaking even on profit  With trucks breaking down constantly Underpaid drivers (constant turnover)  Brandon Dixon paid $0 down. 100% seller financed with a 60-month term.  He jumped head first into the turnaround with no experience and turned it into a $96K/month business i...

Join me as I interview Brian Wolfe, a lawyer, small business investor, and PE and search fund professor. Brian founded Funded Ventures, which partners with builders to buy and build small businesses. Their first platform which was formed to acquire SaaS companies in the martech space successfully exited to Alpine Investors after 3 completed acquisitions in 20 months. ______________________________...

In this week’s episode, we're diving into the world of online business acquisitions with Jacky Chou.  He's built a portfolio of 50+ online businesses over the last 10 years. And today, he runs ~20 revenue-generating assets doing around $200K/month. And he shares all of it publicly online… But here's what makes this episode fascinating: Jackie doesn't sugarcoat the risks and takes us through countl...

This week’s episode with Bill Haig is one of the most impressive absentee owner stories we’ve featured. Bill owns 4 gym locations in Northern Virginia….  But he’s never been inside any of them. That’s a lot of first time business buyers’ dream. A ‘passive business’. But how did he get here?  Bill was an Army officer who bought his first gym with zero fitness experience right after his MBA.  And af...

Your first business acquisition wipes out your life savings. Your brother has to sell his house to cover the debt. You sell a property just to get back to zero. Most people would never touch a business deal again. Nathan Lenahan bought 4 more and built a $13M/year HVAC business. His story involves 5 acquisitions, 1 catastrophic failure, and 4 wins that took him from broke to $13M/year. Here's what...

Devin Fitzgerald acquired 2 declining home healthcare businesses in the Boston area over the last few years and successfully turned them around.  He did it with some of the most creative financing we’ve seen on the show. And he’s already working on acquisition #3 (which is 4x bigger than all of his current businesses combined).  At some points his story is nearly unbelievable. Here are just a few...

I’m very excited to share this week’s interview with Walker Yarbrough.  He started off with long hours in Investment Banking until he looked up at his bosses and he realized he didn’t want their job (at all).  "Even once they'd climbed the ladder, they still just didn't have a lot of control of their own time…They were doing great by a lot of standards, but in the office super late and working on...

I’m very excited to share this week’s interview with Raj Kankaria. It is an absolute roller coaster involving layoffs, divorce, rappers, a quarter life crisis, and Raj buying a $1.3M / year business with 100% seller financing. Here’s a sneak peak: Raj was a former army vet who had gotten a job at Citi Bank as an investment banker. He had just been laid off. He was in the middle of a messy divorce....

Join me as I interview Kofi Acheampong... Kofi’s interview is unique because he actually went through our Pro program and bought a Home Restoration business cash-flowing $715k+ / year in a record 5 months. But this interview goes a lot deeper into… 💡 How Kofi actually launched a software startup that got to #3 on Product Hunt - and how he walked away when his wife got pregnant and he had no healt...

I’m very excited to share this week’s interview with Michael Loftus. Michael really shows you how far you can go with a simple strategy. Here are just a few snippets from his interview… 🔥 He bought his first 3 companies with no banks involved…with upwards of 50% seller financing… 🔥 He’s acquired 7 landscaping businesses over the last five to six years (and talks about what makes them so recessio...

Join me as I interview Andres Martínez... At some points his story is nearly unbelievable. Here are just a few snippets from his interview… 🔥 He bought a $1.3M auto body shop making about $500k in EBITDA with 1% down. Yes, you read that right. $15,000 down for a $1.3M deal. 🔥 He came from Mexico in 2021, with no house for collateral, no real job, and bought his first business at 25. 🔥 He had dr...

Join me as I interview JD Beck, an entrepreneur who is rolling up HVAC and plumbing companies in Colorado. He's made 3 acquisitions to-date, scaling the business from $1.1M to $4.6M in revenue. 👉 Subscribe to the SMB Deal Hunter Newsletter — free weekly deals & insights: https://join.smbdealhunter.xyz 🤝 Work with me and my team 1-on-1 to find, finance, and close your acquisition in 6–12 mont...

Join me as I sit down with Michael Kelker, a former corporate exec who spent 15 years in the aviation manufacturing industry before leaving to buy Timberline Pallet, a custom pallet and crating company in the Quad Cities. With no prior experience in pallets, Michael stepped in as an owner-operator, doubled the business in five years, and grew the team from 15 to 27 employees. Since then, he’s made...

Join me as I sit down with Nathan Gregory, a former talent agent in the entertainment industry who acquired Auto Body News, the leading trade publication in the collision repair industry. Nathan’s journey into entrepreneurship began with flipping raw land and investing in commercial real estate. After building and selling an Amazon-based product business, he spent over a year searching for the rig...

Join me as I sit down with Kaustubh Deo, an entrepreneur rolling up tree care businesses in Seattle, Washington. After a few years in private equity, Kaustubh made the leap into small business acquisitions—starting with his first deal in 2022 using a combination of SBA 7(a) financing, seller financing, and investor capital. Since then, he’s added two more companies to his platform. If you’re curio...