The curriculum
How to buy a business
The whole journey from deciding to own something to running it, laid out in twelve chapters. Each one collects the pieces written for that stage of the process.
The decision to buy
Before anything else: is ownership the right move for you? What a first year of ownership actually buys, what comes attached to it, and the full price of a search — income you give up, deals that fall apart, and the patience it takes.
8 articles
Picking your path
The main ways to finance an acquisition you intend to run yourself — and what each one means for how much of the company you keep and how much risk sits on your shoulders.
5 articles
Choosing the target
Why "any business that makes money" is not a strategy. Finding where your own experience gives you an edge, what industry structure allows, and how the numbers set the size of deal you can realistically do.
5 articles
Finding deals
Where acquisitions actually come from — brokers and the crowd that follows them, quiet approaches to owners who were never for sale, the response rates to expect, and how to evaluate what a seller puts in front of you.
5 articles
Understanding the earnings
What the business truly makes and what the asking price truly costs. The different ways profit is measured, which adjustments hold up, the ones that cut the other way, and the distance between a headline price and money out the door.
5 articles
Testing the business
The numbers are agreed — now the question is whether the machine behind them survives the founder leaving, a major customer walking, or a rough year arriving while the debt still needs servicing.
5 articles
Setting the price
A valuation multiple is a return requirement seen from the other side. What the benchmark numbers really rest on, how thin that evidence can be, and which factor actually settles what you end up paying.
5 articles
Building the structure
The price is what gets negotiated. The structure is what makes that price work — and it is where a buyer who can move several terms at once outmaneuvers one who only talks about money.
5 articles
Funding the purchase
The least expensive loan is seldom the one that lets the deal happen, and the term you fight hardest for is rarely the one that constrains you later. What borrowed money really costs.
5 articles
Reaching the signature
The number was settled long ago. What you actually pay comes down to an earnings report, a working capital peg, a schedule of deductions, and whether the seller still wants to walk away.
6 articles
Taking over
The paperwork is signed. What separates a good first five years is a short administrative checklist, the discipline not to change things too early, and one capital decision made the same way every year.
6 articles
The second acquisition
Deal two is not deal one with new names. It gets judged by different standards, financed off a group balance sheet, and limited by how much management you can carry rather than how much money you can raise.
6 articles