In episode 672, Rob Walling speaks with Jon Hainstock, M&A advisor at Quiet Light and previously ZoomShift. They discuss Jon’s bootstrapper journey, his exit from ZoomShift, the benefits of buying versus building, and how he helps other founders sell their businesses at Quiet Light. To wrap up, Jon exposes some common pitfalls to avoid when buying businesses.

Topics we cover:

2:17 – Timeline of building and selling ZoomShift
6:07 – Deciding to sell ZoomShift
11:06 – Jumping into a new project immediately after exit
17:16 – Acquiring small assets
19:16 – Picking Quiet Light Brokerage over smaller acquisitions
26:23 – “Broker” vs. “Advisor”
30:26 – What to avoid when buying a business

Links from the Show:

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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