Most people thinking about starting a business assume they would build that business, but it's not the only way. There are many businesses that can be bought, sometimes for suprisingly low multiples, and they offer a number of advantages for the budding entrepreneur.

Buying a business is, at one level, buying a book of clients, which are already bought in to the service that the business offers. There's no customer acquisition cost for these clients, and the hard work of marketing has already been taken care of for you. Then there are the assets. In some cases, such as lawn mowing businesses, the assets are sold along with business for little more than the value of the client book -- which is a great deal! Professional grade lawn equipment might cost tens of thousands of dollars, and if you can buy that at a steep discount along with the client book, you get to start in an advantageous position. As Scott argues, many businesses like this are far from optimized, and have poor customer relations processes, poor marketing, and sloppy bookkeeping. Buying a business like this and bringing some consistency and process optimization to it is a clear path to profits. It's not easy work, but it can be much easier than building a business from scratch!

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Mitchell Baldridge

Twitter: @baldridgecpa

https://baldridgecpa.ck.page

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Scott Hambrick

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IG: @ogscotthambrick

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