Why Buying a Business is Smarter Than Starting One
Instead of asking, “What should I build?,” Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition asks a simpler and far more practical question: “What already works, and how can I make it work better?”
Instead of asking, “What should I build?,” Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition asks a simpler and far more practical question: “What already works, and how can I make it work better?”
Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) can expose you to legal liability and/or being injured by others’ unlawful acts. Here are the traps to avoid.
Editor's Pick
Disciplined Entrepreneurship
By nature entrepreneurship tends to be a chaotic process of trying, failing, inventing and reinventing. Disciplined Entrepreneurship provides a useful structure that reduces this chaos, by providing 24 steps to track and progress through the entrepreneurship process. The steps are not simply sequential. Rather, entrepreneurs will go backwards and forwards within the steps as new challenges and obstacles arise. Nonetheless, the 24-step framework works as a useful road map to ensure key activities are not overlooked and the process is well managed.
Bill Aulet, Wiley, 2013
Focus on actual metrics and operations -- not future potential -- and buy a cash flow that you can improve.
In ETA, the best deals align price and uncertainty through smart structure—not optimism. Structure is how risk—and money—actually moves between buyer and seller.
A seasoned entrepreneur and executive sheds light on a particular pathway to growing a venture – one in which acquisitions and private equity play a central role.
Buying a business offers a lower-risk path to entrepreneurship, an easier route to scale, and a timely opportunity as many baby boomers look to sell. But success ultimately depends on understanding and integrating into the company’s existing culture.
Book Smarts or Street Smarts?
The former owner’s relationships with employees, suppliers, and customers can be a tough act to follow -- and affect value creation long after the deal closes.
Financial statements are the start, not the truth. Here's what else to scrutinize: how work actually flows, who really runs the place, what breaks most often, and whether cash flow is durable once the owner’s buffer disappears.
Family business mergers enjoy greater harmony and better financial performance than mergers involving non-family firms.
Supported by the Richard M Schulze Family Foundation