> However, if 95% of businesses fail within their first 5 years, was that the best risk/reward tradeoff? What if I could just buy something already successful?

> However, if 95% of businesses fail within their first 5 years, was that the best risk/reward tradeoff? What if I could just buy something already successful? I started researching buying internet businesses because they could be run from any location. I was shocked when I found out they average 30% returns every year across the industry. > I made four investments in 2019 and will double that in 2020. As a person who has been running an online business for the past 7 years, I couldn't disagree more. Business is always about doing something better than your competition. Small business isn't about having more capital, or a better PR team. It's purely about efficiently aligning your own strengths with the market demands. Being able to understand the market and its changes, knowing how to sell to your niche audience, being able to successfully execute many things at once, since you niche size very much limits what can be hired out. When you sell a small business to a random "investor", all of this is lost. Sure, you will still have the market share for a couple of years, but unless you already know how to run that kind of business, you will lose to the competitors very quickly. It's like buying a trunk of a tree. You'll get the lumber, but it won't grow anymore. There's also a question on why would the founder want to sell a successful business that gives a 30% return. They could very well remortgage their house, or scale down and take a part-time job to survive the rough times. If they didn't, perhaps it's because they understand something about the market the the buyer doesn't.