[csa]

> It's worth close to zero.

Serious question… have you bought a business before?

It’s what I do.

This business is not worth close to zero, and the stuff that the current owner does (even if he’s some miracle worker, which xooglers aren’t guaranteed to be) can be handled any number of ways that cost less than $236k by some buyer. This may not mean you or the person that I replied to, but you two most likely aren’t a part (and certainly not a significant part) of the market of buyers for businesses like this.

I can’t tell if you’re circle jerking the owner, xooglers, or the (limiting) engineering way of thinking about businesses.

[danielmarkbruce]

Yes. Lots of them.

Who is the buyer? The logical buyer of this hardware business doing $1m per year and can backfill all the things this guy does at some low enough number that this business generates cash. And then, enough cash that it's worthwhile to go through diligence and paper up a deal and take on the risk that there isn't skeletons in the closet.

[csa]

> Who is the buyer?

Realistically, the best buyer would be someone who has deep connections in a market that the current owner hasn’t penetrated that could 5x the volume almost instantly.

They would hem and haw about whatever small multiple the seller is asking for, and then laugh all the way to the bank after close.

I’ve seen this happen many, many times.

> And then, enough cash that it's worthwhile to go through diligence and paper up a deal and take on the risk that there isn't skeletons in the closet

For a business of this relatively small size, an agency would likely be used, and they would do all of this scutwork, and their fee is paid by the seller. Which agency or agencies have you used (if any)?

[danielmarkbruce]

> Realistically, the best buyer would be someone who has deep connections in a market that the current owner hasn’t penetrated that could 5x the volume almost instantly.

This is a nice theory. And it could be true, and it does happen, but it's more than likely not.

You must be using better M&A brokerages/bankers than I ever have. None of them do actual diligence, they are selling the business...They are actively making the business look different to what it is. They certainly don't take on any risk (they are not a party to the agreement in any way) and they certainly don't obviate the need to use and pay a lawyer (and most small deals are each person pays their own costs).

With respect, are you actually buying businesses? Or just doing contracted technical DD? It feels like you are missing a good chunk of the picture here. The default take on the value of this business by a lot of folks buying businesses is going to be "close to zero". I mean, to be fair, I have not ever bought a hardware business so I'm a little out of my depth here... but.. not miles out.

[csa]

> This is a nice theory. It could be true, it's likely not.

I’ve done it / do it with taking products and services to certain East Asian markets. And sometimes scaled quickly at much more than 5x of the original revenue.

> You must be using better M&A brokerages/bankers than I ever have.

FEI is one such broker, and know people on both sides of transactions done through them that are happy. I haven’t used them personally, but that’s one example.

They definitely do due diligence.

> With respect, are you actually buying businesses? Or just doing contracted technical DD? It feels like you are missing a good chunk of the picture here.

Funny, I was about to ask/say the same thing.

Yes, I buy businesses. No, I don’t do technical DD contract or otherwise (frankly, I’m not tech savvy enough to do that on my own — I can sniff out some bad code, but I let the pros do what they do).

I/we are on HN reply delay to prevent “flame wars”, even though I don’t think we are flaming. As such, I will stop here.

If you are what you actually say you are, I wish you luck and all the success in the world. That said, I stand by everything I have said above.

[danielmarkbruce]

I did almost say ~ "it's possible we just see very different deals and it colors the perspective".

I never deal with asia. Maybe everything I'm saying is off base given it's hardware and asia is a thing in that realm.

[wilkystyle]

I'd just like to say that I very much appreciated reading both of your responses, and commend you both for firmly but politely and reasonably disagreeing.

[windowshopping]

You should write something about what you do too. Buying businesses sounds interesting, can you expand on this?

[Aurornis]

> (even if he’s some miracle worker, which xooglers aren’t guaranteed to be)

> I can’t tell if you’re circle jerking the owner, xooglers, or the (limiting) engineering way of thinking about businesses.

I don't know why you're being so unnecessarily demeaning about ex-Google people or trying to downplay the accomplishments of the person who wrote the blog post. There's no need to call it "circle jerking" if someone acknowledges that the founder of a successful business has accomplished a lot, well above and beyond what an average engineer can pull off.

[csa]

> I don't know why you're being so unnecessarily demeaning about ex-Google people or trying to downplay the accomplishments of the person who wrote the blog post.

Fair comment, and I thought about changing it. I didn’t for reasons listed below:

- The comment was mainly directed at xooglers, specifically the mindset some folks have towards them. Googlers and xooglers were something to behold in the “don’t be evil” days. That reputation has decreased substantially since, imho (I’m guessing directly or indirectly due to structural changes in the org). This is not to say that there aren’t some super impressive googlers and xooglers (there are), but the hit rate is much lower than it once was. If the op had just said “a smart engineer”, I wouldn’t have commented on it — I imagine the dude is plenty smart, although I doubt that it makes his efforts difficult to replace (see below).

- In general, I try to take the air out of reputation virtue signals that I think may not be warranted. Google, googlers, and xooglers are now in this category. Other groups in this category are groups like Harvard grads, Stanford grads, MBAs, PhDs, name brand consulting firms, name brand IB firms, etc. Note that I am a member of several groups that sometimes send these virtue signals (I try my best not to), so I’m dog fooding my own criticism every day.

- I don’t know the engineer who owns the business, but I find it unlikely that he does things that both must be done and must be done at a (relatively high) labor price that the owner could command in the market. I expect neither are true. The “circle jerk” comment was a reference to me thinking that the person I was replying to was putting far too much weight on something that has (imho) much less impact on the profitability and ultimately the price of the business. I’m OK disagreeing on this point — different strokes for different folks, and that’s why the market price talks.

[windowshopping]

You should write something about what you do too. Buying businesses sounds interesting, can you expand on this?

[danielmarkbruce]

There are lots of books written about buying businesses. I'll give some insight - it's like turning over stones. You turn over a lot before you find anything.

[csa]

> I'll give some insight - it's like turning over stones. You turn over a lot before you find anything.

Priceless and totally agree.

The deal flow can be streamlined somewhat, but you’re still turning over a lot of stones.

[csa]

> You should write something about what you do too.

I think most of what one needs to know is already out there. The key is being adaptable to the current environment and being aware of one’s value add (skill set, network, etc.).

The problem with writing specifics about what I do is that it invites competitors and/or haters (e.g., review bombers or DDoSers). Some parts of my businesses have enough moat such that I don’t care, but other parts definitely do not. It’s not something I want to spend additional brain cycles on.

> Buying businesses sounds interesting, can you expand on this?

It’s largely not. It’s financially comfortable, and it’s nice being your own boss / leading your own team if that’s what you’re into (I am), but I’ve done more interesting work while working for “The Man”. A lot of what I do is just streamline a system that was inefficiently run/managed.

What I do is very similar to what Andrew Wilkinson of TinyCo has done, except I am about 10 years back on his timeline, and I’m not sure I will end up going public. I recommend looking for interviews and podcasts with Andrew — I have found them to be super interesting.

In relatively vague terms, I started a web dev agency, and then used that cash flow to start buying businesses that generate additional cash flow. Rinse and repeat. This is exactly what Andrew did. Note that I didn’t learn about Andrew until last year, so I was happy to see someone taking a similar path and scaling to a holding co worth over half a billion.

Some things that I think folks don’t do well when buying and/or valuing businesses (both buyers and sellers):

- Keep an active deal flow pipeline, ideally one that is not widely tapped. This usually entails talking to people… lots of people. For example, finding solid businesses on FEI is possible, but they will be very competitively priced, and it will be prudent to have some sort of pocket growth “hack” in mind if you want to make it pay off handsomely. On the other hand, targeting some “mom and pops” that have little or no idea about SEO and SEM can present some soft deals.

- Figure out ways that one party can scale that others can’t. This is the type of “growth hack” that I mentioned above. I know one guy who has one main move. He looks for businesses in which he already buys some of their inputs at a huge volume discount that smaller businesses can’t access (supplements are an example of this… I don’t recommend getting into supplements unless you are already eyeballs deep in that world). Another example is having access to markets or distribution that the businesses you are targeting to buy don’t have. One area I target (when relevant) that many others don’t is East Asian markets. Another area I target is just increasing prices (usually via segmentation). So many businesses charge way less than the market will bear.

- Learn how to negotiate, including how to say no. Many people just lay down and leave a ton of money on the table. You don’t have to be an asshole about it, but it’s prudent to be aware of what the value is for both the buyer and the seller, and it’s not uncommon for the buyer to have significant upside potential.

- As someone else said, you’re basically turning over a lot of rocks. There are a lot of people trying to bamboozle you, and there are a lot of solid businesses that don’t really offer a growth opportunity that you can efficiently maximize. When you find something that fits, it’s often a no-brainer.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I will be happy to answer.

I will add as a caveat that I can only give you perspective from my limited experiences — there are myriad ways to buy and sell businesses profitably, and my path is only one of them.

[ilamont]

What is your take on ecommerce businesses that generate most revenue from a single platform, e.g. Amazon or Shein or TikTok?

It seems like a lot of concentrated risk, and scaling is a challenge, considering the number of Amazon roll-ups that were on fire 2020-2021 and are now on the ropes (See "Amazon aggregators fall on tough times", https://www.axios.com/2023/09/05/amazon-aggregators-tough-ti...)

[csa]

> What is your take on ecommerce businesses that generate most revenue from a single platform, e.g. Amazon or Shein or TikTok?

It’s not something I do due to the “concentrated risk” you mentioned. Scaling can be done, sometimes quite easily and effectively (e.g., Amazon ads can be quite efficient at scaling).

In general, I try to avoid or minimize exposure to capricious single points of failure, especially in sales/marketing, production, and/or distribution. I consider most large tech companies to fall into the capricious category unless I have someone on the inside who can make things right for me. This access to insiders is not as robust as I would like, but I’m working on it.

All that said, I know plenty of quite successful business owners who have gone all in on a single platform like Amazon or YT.

Regarding the roll ups, i think many of the businesses were bought at unreasonably high values. The linked article refers to this.

Covid changed many markets, in some ways permanent, and in other ways temporary. I was passing a lot on what I considered unreasonable prices for certain businesses. I could have played hot potato, but there was no reason to do so.

[elbear]

I have a feeling a lot of the lessons you learned could also apply to developers who want to be better at freelancing (my case). But I don't know if there is a way to pass down that knowledge while you also get something out of it.

For what is worth, I appreciated your comments in this thread.

[_xk9i]

For freelancers who want to improve (it was my case years ago), the best book is "The Secrets of Consulting", by Gerald Weinberg.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/566213.The_Secrets_of_Co...

[elbear]

Thank you for making me aware of this author. I see he has several books on topics I find valuable.

[borlanco]

I am glad I was able to help you.

If you like "The Secrets of Consulting", the next one for you should be "Exploring requirements: quality before design", by Gause & Weinberg. What an eye opener it was for me!

[windowshopping]

Idk, optimizing inefficient systems sounds a lot more interesting to me than working for the man, as you put it. Thanks for writing this out. It seems very difficult to get into. I'll reread this a couple times.

[csa]

> Idk, optimizing inefficient systems sounds a lot more interesting to me

Yeah, I guess I’m being somewhat disingenuous. I like optimizing systems, but I’m aware that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

You learn that very quickly at cocktail parties when people ask you what you do, ask for more than the headline answer, and then have their eyes glaze over when you get into the details.

> than working for the man, as you put it.

As a nerd/geek, and I fall into that category, working in a good skunk works type of place is pretty damn fun. It usually doesn’t pay well compared to most tech jobs, it’s often not that prestigious, but damn… it can sometimes tickle the brain like no other.

One potentially bad part of it is that most skunk works are funded in some way by the DoD, so some folks may object to that.

> Thanks for writing this out.

My pleasure.

> It seems very difficult to get into.

Hmm… my first instinct is to say that it’s not, but I might be short-selling my skills, network, and (frankly) privilege if I say that.

I think it’s open to far larger group than is actively trying to participate in it.

I think the main keys are:

- Understand fundamentals of business. I have been around this my whole life, so it came quite naturally to me. That said, it’s learnable, and a lot of things fall into the common sense or empathy categories.

- Be good at contracting and hiring/firing. There are a lot of bozos in the workforce, but there are also plenty of hidden gems.

- Be good at marketing/sales. Although it’s possible, I think it’s tough to hide behind a screen and also scale.

- Talk to your customers. PG beats this drum, and there’s a good reason. Note customers here are customers of any business you own as well as business you want to buy or entities you want to sell a business to.

- Start small, but do things that scale. People think you need a lot of money to start doing this. You don’t. If you do really well, you don’t have to ask around much before relatively large sums of money start finding you. I currently prefer to self-fund, but I’m thinking about transitioning to some sort of dividend growth entity — I think that they will be en vogue in certain circles over the next 10 years or so.

[windowshopping]

It seems like you enjoy talking about this - is there an email I could reach you at to have a longer conversation at some point down the line? I'm really interested in just about everything pertaining to your experience. If you'd rather not post yours, you could email me directly at [redacted].

[borlanco]

Quite difficult to be like you. In any case, much obliged to you, sir!

[neilfrndes]

I read the book 'Built to Sell'[0] recently. It's written for founders, but gives you insight into how buyers think and what they are looking for.

[0] https://builttosell.com/