162: Walker Deibel — Buying a Company and Then Building It

Should you buy or build your company? It’s a question we hear a lot in the world of entrepreneurship and scaling up. Today’s show focuses on how you can use buying and then building as an acquisition growth strategy.

Walker Deibel is the co-founder of three startups and has also acquired seven companies, and exited two of them successfully. He is the author of Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game and will be providing some insight as to how you should approach acquisitions.

Walker Deibel believes entrepreneurship is a condition rather than a job or position. Most of the time entrepreneurs simply can’t keep a job because of the way they are wired. After his first startup failed, Walker decided to make the rounds and raise capital for 18 months on another business idea. It was there where he decided it was better for him to buy a business than to build one from scratch.

After lots of research, Walker decided to make a weird decision and purchase a book publishing company in 2008, a time where books were turning digital. It was a declining industry. But Walker saw something unique happening — self-publishing was going to explode, and it did! His business decision was a success.

The industry doesn’t necessarily matter when it comes to the company you’re buying. The point is you’re buying an already existing infrastructure of a company that you can then expand upon and build out from there. It could go into a completely different industry if you like if the basics and foundation are already there.

Interview Links:

Buythenbuild.thinkific.com

Walker on LinkedIn

Resources:

Scaling Up Workshop: Interested in attending one of our workshops? We have a few $100 discounts for our loyal podcast listeners!Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshop: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops.

Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.)

Bill on YouTube