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Bingo... a stable business you enjoy pursued for sustainable reasons. I'd add a slight financial component to the list of reasons (hiding in my basement for $50

Bingo... a stable business you enjoy pursued for sustainable reasons. I'd add a slight financial component to the list of reasons (hiding in my basement for $50K/year isn't appealing) but that seems consistent with the strategy I recommended. A second benefit: many established small businesses can be bought for under 5 X EBITDA ($10 MM - $100 MM sales) which usually can be levered up 3:1 using an SBA loan. You could also generate similar returns by funding the right types of organic growth projects. If chosen prudently, there's a lot of upside in those numbers.... (with some risk, naturally) So while they may do it for the lifestyle, the underlying investment dynamics of the niche are very attractive...

adventured 7y ago
One of my favorite small business examples is a friend that quit working for an insurance agency and bought one of his own (typical car & property insurance agency) for 1x sales. In service segments like insurance or accounting, it's often easy to find businesses to buy at 1x sales. The former owner was retiring and ready to be done with it. Simple small business concept. He instantly replaced his former income, bought himself a job. The purchase paid for itself in a few years. Since the purchase he has organically - with very little advertising effort, mostly through good customer attention - increased the size of the business 4x or so. The year by year growth goals are very modest, and over time the persistent gains obviously add up (snowball down the hill). The same effort he would have been putting in for his former employer, will make him a multi-millionaire instead, with quite modest risk. He doesn't regard himself as an entrepreneur, he thinks of being an entrepreneur as those that take very outsized risk (the media propaganda version everyone gets fed). He's wrong though, he's an excellent example of an entrepreneur. The best entrepreneurs are usually those that understand the task is to eliminate the risk in the equation, not to actually take or pursue risk. Risk is what threatens the business, eliminating the risk is what ensures prosperity (or at least gives you the best shot at it). In my observation, small business operators are often frequently quite good at spotting and quickly eliminating risk in their businesses, they're very close to the metal so to speak, very exposed to the nerves of the operation.

adventured 7y ago

One of my favorite small business examples is a friend that quit working for an insurance agency and bought one of his own (typical car & property insurance agency) for 1x sales. In service segments like insurance or accounting, it's often easy to find businesses to buy at 1x sales. The former owner was retiring and ready to be done with it. Simple small business concept. He instantly replaced his former income, bought himself a job. The purchase paid for itself in a few years. Since the purchase he has organically - with very little advertising effort, mostly through good customer attention - increased the size of the business 4x or so. The year by year growth goals are very modest, and over time the persistent gains obviously add up (snowball down the hill). The same effort he would have been putting in for his former employer, will make him a multi-millionaire instead, with quite modest risk. He doesn't regard himself as an entrepreneur, he thinks of being an entrepreneur as those that take very outsized risk (the media propaganda version everyone gets fed). He's wrong though, he's an excellent example of an entrepreneur. The best entrepreneurs are usually those that understand the task is to eliminate the risk in the equation, not to actually take or pursue risk. Risk is what threatens the business, eliminating the risk is what ensures prosperity (or at least gives you the best shot at it). In my observation, small business operators are often frequently quite good at spotting and quickly eliminating risk in their businesses, they're very close to the metal so to speak, very exposed to the nerves of the operation.