Unsung 002 - Buying a small business

Afternoon all,

As ever thank you for being part of the journey. Currently in Denmark with the EUVC team (Partner of Unsung given their large Venture Capital community). No surprises that Scandinavia is seeing the same small business succession opportunity as the UK and US and therefore the same acquisition opportunities. Albeit here, local banks play a key role in providing loans for potential small business buyers given they are very driven by the community impact of a small business being successfully transitioned to new ownership.

What’s next for Unsung?

Season 1 of the Podcast is now complete. Season 2 kicks off 9th July with a pure focus on small business buying stories. Guests will be sharing their journeys having bought small businesses purely without their own money and with zero sector experience in the main. Hopefully that will provide some further inspiration for the growing Unsung community.

August 14th Bootcamp - How to buy a small business:

I’ve organised a first Bootcamp in-person in London to arm individuals (limiting it to 12) with the end to end process for buying a small business themselves. Will give people all templates, explore each stage from finding small businesses, legal & financial process, through to completing an acquisition. I’ll also introduce the attendees to all my advisors/enablers (mailing houses, data providers, solicitors and finance brokers) so that people walk away with a map, exact steps, reference materials.

I’ll be running the first one for free so will only have to charge in the region of £200-£250 per person to cover venue hire, guest speaker travel & accom costs etc). Also to represent the fact it will be slightly rough around the edges being the first one!

Two spaces remaining.

I’ll be running a further Bootcamp later in the year so feel free to add yourself to the wait list and i’ll keep you up to date directly if you so wish.

✅ 👉🏼 Email me here with Subject BOOTCAMP:

The repeat conversations and patterns with individuals exploring this journey from their corporate/ professional careers are illuminating.

Overcomplicating the Thesis and paralysing oneself:

Being something of a generalist I cover Search Funds (looking for perfect, larger companies at €2Million net profit and above and raising equity through to buying grittier, smaller businesses directly oneself.

The Search Fund or ex MBA, ex Private Equity, M&A Banking approach can cause conflation of approach with buying a smaller business (£200k to £900k net profit). This is causing two main problems:

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People focusing on buying a small business directly without raising equity, sub €900k net profit paralyse themselves trying to think of a thesis or strategy. For example hunting for critical services that are recession proof or thinking about transformational AI strategies given current times. Buy and Build expectations for example. If your aim is to receive a high income and build wealth then it’s actually very simple…just buy a profitable small business that’s been around for 5-10 years+ and continue to run it, solving occasional problems. You’ll do very well. If you want to make more money or spread your bets…then buy more businesses afterwards.

Clearly you might want to apply some very simple filters on companies first ie just target B2B companies as opposed to direct to consumer if that’s your preference based on your career to date. If you want to not use your own capital or raise equity then target sectors with assets (vehicles or machinery - like manufacturing or haulage).

Get data & letters/emails out immediately, in small batches and begin the iterative learning process. Don’t paralyse yourself. You don’t know what you don’t know and there will be gems and nuggets (as well as lots of skeletons!) hiding in the rough.

The main advice I have is get speaking to small business owners straight away; we don’t know what you don’t know. Similar to the Billy Morley story with his awesome film set storage business, he hadn’t considered such a sector prior to his search. ‘There be gems out there’! So i do see value in a wider sector approach and seeing what you find.

If you wish to make multiple millions then sure check out a Buy and Build strategy however be warned this is higher risk, stress and time.

As a counterpoint, if you are raising equity from others or putting in your own money in then the risk and return profile/needs changes. You will want a thesis in part for investors and in part to meet the return assumptions you plan.

In case you missed them here are all the real stories of people in my network, who have acquired a business including some of the practical steps both in

Episode 1: Peppa has scaled 2 multi billion dollar companies as sales leader, she says her playbook on how to get the most out of a sales team and who to hire for any small business: Here

Episode 2: Chris M&A Lawyer breaking down the steps of how to buy and sharing what he’s seeing with small businesses needing a succession plan/ new owners: Here

Episode 3: Why Electricians are a Trillion euro opportunity: Videesha co-founded Altitude VC, a European fund SOLELY focus on small business tech. She shares some examples and what they’re seeing as a small business opportunity: Here

NEW - Episode 4: A small construction & fire safety company using basic AI & Vibe coding (with no IT team !!) to drive impact, save team time and cost in week. Imagine the impact you could bring as an owner to a similar small business: Here

NEW - Episode 5: Driving new leads and sales in a small businesses. Mo immigrated from Kenya, took a job cold calling in the UK building industry and created 600+ new customer meetings and now closing £2.5Mn+ new revenue. Imagine adding someone like Mo to your small business: Here

The dinners are in introduction to Why to buy a small business with speakers talking about the different approaches from Search Funds to buying directly.

It’s also a chance to meet other people on the journey with you.

We had our second cosy dinner with 35 guests of which 3 were speakers:

➡️ Co-Founder Orca (UK’s 1st and largest fund of search funds)
➡️ Viktoria (AI Roll Ups), leading the way in using AI and Agentic Coding to drive deep personalisation in sales outreach and finding small businesses.
➡️ Kal, who acquired a £1.5Mn EBITDA manufacturer without any of his own money

✅ 👉🏼August Dinner - London: If you’d like to join the next dinner in August please email me with the Subject line London Dinner

✅ 👉🏼August Dinner - Copenhagen: We’re hosting with DLA Piper a Dinner for 25 women at Tech BBQ in Copenhagen. If interested please email me with the Subject line Tech BBQ Dinner

Friday 14th August London

….we have our first in person Bootcamp for 12 people.

I’ll teach end to end how to buy a small business without one’s own money covering:

-How to find small businesses
-How to contact them
Through to…
-Speaking to Sellers
-Financial information and Legal
-How to Finance them
-Completing the Deal

All templates and paperwork you need and i’ll be bringing my advisors and some specialists to talk in details and de-mystify parts.

Two spaces remaining.

I will be running this as a non-profit. I may need to ask in the region of £200-£250 per person to cover venue costs and guest speakers’ travel & accomodation costs.

I will be running future Bootcamps on both how to buy a small business and separately what to do in the first 100 days from the point of completion.

✅ 👉🏼 If interested in this or future events please email me with Subject line Bootcamp

Please note people: I would enjoy speaking briefly with anyone prior to confirming a place unless they’ve attended a dinner. Just so i’m comforting it’s the right event for them 🤓