Unlock Your Acquisition Advantage: A Guide to Outsmarting the Startup Game with Buy Then Build Strategies

Paul A. Johnson: Author did a nice job of walking through all steps of acquiring a business without fluff and without it feeling at all like a textbook. Very helpful.

United States on Aug 12, 2023

Big Mike: After reading this book I feel more confident and prepared to buy an existing business. Great book and easy to understand. A great read for a first time acquisition investor and an easier read if you own investment real estate. A lot of the concepts can be cross transferred.

United States on Aug 06, 2023

Seth Pesek: This was practical and laid things out easily to incorporate into your business hunt

United States on Jul 27, 2023

J. Crane: I wish I could leave no reading and just leave a note. The book is technically correct if you've been an employee for ten years, have a couple hundred thousand saved up and can get an SBA loan and you want a company doing a mill or two. If you're looking to raise money to buy a more substantial firm and already have your entrepreneurial chops, you can pass on this book.

United States on May 16, 2023

ネシア駐在: 個人での企業買収に興味があり読んで見ました。

筆者の米国における個人での企業買収経験をもとに、個人が会社を買う際のプロセスや資金調達方法を紹介してくれます。

体験に基づく理論と具体例があり、わかりやすいです。英語もシンプルな表現なので、比較的サラサラやめます。

米国の話なので、そのまま日本には持ってこれないとは思いますが、デッドでの資金調達をどうやるのか？各プロセスで何をおさえておくべきか？もろもろまとめてくれてる良書です。

Japan on May 06, 2023

Kyle Van Patter: Informative and easy to understand

Canada on Feb 18, 2023

Raúl Cerón: Acquisition entrepreneurship is the next model to do business, and it requires a combined skill set found in entrepreneurs with a renewed vision. I enjoy this book so much, so that on my 3rd time reading it, I am still learning new approaches!!

Mexico on Sep 27, 2022

Felix: Top book

Germany on Oct 21, 2021

Paul Simister: Can you succeed by buying a business?

As a business advisor and coach, I have no doubt that management skills are transferrable across businesses and different trades and industries. However I usually work with business owners who have plenty of detailed knowledge of their own industry and I think this is vital. There is a balance to bringing in fresh eyes and new business ideas and combining them with deep knowledge of the customers and capabilities involved.

If I had my time again, I like to think I'd buy businesses, improve them and either sell them again or keep them if I found the trade interesting .

Indeed, for many years I described myself as a "frustrated entrepreneur" who was on the lookout for an opportunity but I wanted something where I had a deep passion. I never found anything and an assessment (Kolbe) showed me I was more a business architect than builder. I got my kicks from thinking about a business conceptually. The advisor role suits me because I don't feel a need to take control and make the decisions.

Is buying a business with the intention of building it into something bigger and better right for you?

To quote from the...

United Kingdom on Jul 16, 2020

Michael MicheliniMichael Michelini: As I prepare to go to the Invest Like a Boss podcast meetup here in Chiang Mai on Jan 3, 2018 - I felt I should catch up on some reading about investing and this one was a new one with amazing reviews so I couldn’t help myself.

Buy Then Build is a book about what the author calls a new trend for entrepreneurs - to be Acquisition Entrepreneurs.

To start off the book, he makes the case that something like 90% of startups fail, and those that you say succeed simply become small to medium sized enterprises with nothing special. That the ones who win in the startup game are not the entrepreneurs, but the investors. They get to spread their bets across multiple startups and just need one to win, while the entrepreneur is all in on 1 startup with a 90% chance of failure.

So Walker, the author, says to instead skip past the startup phase and buy an existing business with positive cash flow.

It makes sense - as he shows the numbers of failures in this stage is something like 5% (95% success rate) so the complete inverse of the startup phase.

Plus, it seems cheap! Paying 2 to 4 times of SDE (seller discretionary earnings) for a company that already has...

United States on Jan 01, 2019