Buy Then Build Quotes

“third of the variants for success are simple competencies. These include, but are not limited to: Possessing a drive for results and being able to get results from others The ability to make decisions, including unpopular decisions Strategic agility when dealing with ambiguity A certain level of risk tolerance Financial acumen Critical thinking, which is an innate trait Tactical ability Perseverance Self-awareness, which includes the ability to work through your weaknesses and not have blind spots Interpersonal skills The”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Growth-minded people seem to take the attitude, “Anything can be improved upon, and I’m the one to do it.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“high IQ plus the drive to succeed is the essential formula for success.34”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“After identifying when you’re having fixed mindset thoughts, Dweck suggests the next steps are to recognize that you have a choice in how you interpret the challenge, setbacks, or criticism; then “talk back” to the fixed voice with a growth mindset voice. Examples she gives are, “If I don’t try, I automatically fail”; “Others who succeeded before me had passion and put forth effort”; and, “If I don’t take responsibility, I can’t fix it.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Be optimistic around the opportunity but tremendously concerned about the risks involved. This will allow you to see the opportunity as it is. Most tire-kickers spend the entire first meeting identifying why the business is a bad investment rather than identifying the opportunity as a whole. Where are the opportunities and where are the risks of this business? What would need to be true for you to grow this company to double its size? These are the questions you are asking yourself.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Knowing what you’re looking for is half of the search. Actually, it’s more than half. If you know what you’re searching for, you can move forward quickly, with clarity, and you will save months of tire kicking and time wasting. You will be able to behave like a professional buyer, knowing when you like something and why. You will be able to see in short order if it is a real yes, a real no, or something that requires next steps to evaluate whether it is a good fit. This does not mean to be hasty and act with insufficient consideration; rather, it means that you will have more confidence in your search, in talking with brokers and sellers, and in looking at opportunities.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Personal SWOT SWOT, a common business strategy practice, flushes out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a particular business. Applying this common business strategy to yourself will fine-tune your self-understanding. The strengths you identified in the last section can go under your strengths, but what about your weaknesses? Just as important as knowing what you’re good at and what you enjoy is knowing what type of activities you should avoid. What areas, tasks, and even possible industries are off-limits for you? What activities just absolutely do not interest you? What assignments do you drag your feet on? These should be identified so you can concentrate on working within your sweet spot and focus on what you do best. Get it all down on paper: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Once you’ve examined where you thrive and what to avoid, it’s time to build your resume. The exercise of putting it together is an important part of looking inward. Record your relevant work experience and what your role was in each position. Be sure to use action verbs to frame your accomplishments; quantify the specific results you achieved. This helps to emphasize what really stands out in your career, where your interests lie, and where and how you get the best results. It also serves to identify what your role should be moving forward. Do you excel in marketing, sales, process implementation, or accounting? What areas are you comfortable growing into and which ones do you want to hire assistance for. One of the most fatal mistakes an entrepreneur can make is assuming that just because they understand the technical work of the business does not mean they can successfully run a business that does the technical work. As Michael Gerber describes at length in his book The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, staffing, marketing, and cash flow management have nothing to do with baking pies, but everything to do with running and growing a pie business. Spend time reflecting on yourself. The exercise will drive interest in opportunities that may have otherwise not appeared interesting. For the purpose of true self-discovery, ignore your passions and interests for a moment. Simply focus on the activities and functions you are well-equipped to execute. This is about getting in tune with what you’re good at and doing a deep dive into your skillset. At the end of this section, you should have a personal SWOT analysis and a resume written out for your review.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“PERMA Positive psychology is the scientific study of human flourishing. No kidding. Martin Seligman is currently the Director of the Penn Positive Psychology Center and Zellerbach Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. When he was voted President of the American Psychological Association in 1998, he essentially invented and promoted the study of positive psychology. He’s authored numerous books on the subject. Seligman first started studying what became positive psychology while working with one of the biggest insurance companies in the world to help them discover the differences in salespeople who had tremendous success versus those who quickly burned out. The goal was to find a way to make better hires. His research discovered that optimism was the common characteristic among successful salespeople within the agency. In one of his more recent books, Flourish, he reveals the five pillars of well-being, which he identified through the acronym PERMA: Positive emotion Engagement Relationships Meaning Achievement PERMA is a five-pillar list of ingredients, but the recipe for living the best life possible is different for every individual. Some people require a greater meaning in their lives, while others focus on engaging work or nurturing relationships. Achievement means just that—people driven by achievement in their lives in order to truly flourish as individuals.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“In 2002, the Journal of Business Venturing published a study that established ten behavioral areas of competence for entrepreneurs that have either a direct or an indirect impact on performance.39 Analytical Innovative Operational Human Strategic Opportunity Relationship Commitment Learning Personal Growth Obviously, not all successful entrepreneurs have all of these traits at the same level, and some may even lack a trait or two completely, but overall, getting the recipe right with these ingredients is what all the empirical evidence suggests is the winner. Essentially, getting a resourceful and driven individual committed to a good opportunity will win every time.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“A common question is, once we have a sense of our strengths and weaknesses, how do we measure the relative strength of the attributes we do have? In a recent interview, Dr. David Weller, founder of Leadership Alliance and a true expert in assessing top talent, told me that about a third of the variants for success are simple competencies. These include, but are not limited to: Possessing a drive for results and being able to get results from others The ability to make decisions, including unpopular decisions Strategic agility when dealing with ambiguity A certain level of risk tolerance Financial acumen Critical thinking, which is an innate trait Tactical ability Perseverance Self-awareness, which includes the ability to work through your weaknesses and not have blind spots Interpersonal skills The last one is worth noting. When you are CEO of a company, you must be able to sell; it’s a requirement. This does not mean that you need to commit your time to being a salesperson—that will depend on the type of opportunity you choose. The ability to grow small companies into big companies will always include the skill of selling, which is a learnable skill, despite the thought that salespeople are either born with this talent or not. Whether you’re selling your services to a prospective customer, selling the vision of your company to the employees, or selling the model to a potential investor, sales skills are a fundamental requirement of growing a business. Having strong interpersonal skills makes it possible to connect people and activities and grow a business.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Above all, strategic thinking, persistence, assertiveness, and being achievement-oriented, optimistic, and thick-skinned are the attributes most shared by successful entrepreneurs.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“The truth is that there is no correlation between having strong organizational skills and a successful CEO. None. In business, ambiguity reigns. Being laser-focused is actually a bad thing. Entrepreneurs need to be able to deal with managing ambiguity and a changing landscape; the best ones do this extremely well. In 2003, I was in business school. My professor asked us to cut a piece of paper into eight pieces, then write the following words, one on each piece: sales, marketing, financial measures, competition, process, suppliers, and incentives. Then he instructed us to mix them up, then randomly remove half and throw them away. “In real life, business looks more like the paper left in your hand—you don’t have all the information when it’s decision time.” It’s an academic exercise, but illustrative of the ambiguity innate to running a business.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“One thing that venture capital firms are getting wrong is that 99.9 percent of all exits occur with companies under $30 million in revenue—and the trend is increasing. The demand for buying this size firm is approaching insatiable—especially in the technology industry. In Basil Peters’ book, Early Exits, he boasts the demand and benefits of smaller exits. Peters highlights that smaller exits between $15 and $30 million are too small for the press to pick up and an excellent way for the entrepreneur and angel investor to make several million dollars at exit.35 Larger companies don’t innovate from scratch anymore; they are just too big. Google, for example, did not even invent Adsense—their enormous pay-per-click management platform—they acquired Adscape for $23 million and built it out from there. Smaller exits, defined as those under $30 million, are where all the action is and exactly where you won’t find VCs. More and more private equity firms have figured this out, but in companies with less than $2 million in earnings, even they begin to be noticeably absent. Smaller exits and smaller acquisitions are the realm of the acquisition entrepreneur—and exactly the area where they can make millions.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“According to the Small Business Administration, default rates of small business loans are currently right about 2 percent. Similarly, according to the Thompson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Delinquency Index (SBDI), the amount of small business loans that go delinquent on the national level has been running under 1.5 percent since 2012.29 This means the $1 million at risk when acquiring a business has about a 2 percent chance of failure. This is a drastically different profile than building from scratch. If you equate not failing with success, then buying a company has an approximate 98 percent success rate.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“When evaluating a potential acquisition, the cash flow the company generates is what sets the sale price of the company. It’s the driver behind the valuation and ultimately what you’re paying for. Anything outside of the company’s ability to generate cash is commonly not worth paying for at all. At its core, what you are buying is an asset that provides cash flow.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“While considering acquisitions as an investment, keep three fundamentals in mind: return on investment, margin of safety, and upside potential.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“According to Thomas Stanley and William Danko, authors of the best-selling book, The Millionaire Next Door, effectively 100 percent of non-retired millionaires who live in the United States own their own businesses. Out of that group, about 20 percent are professionals running a medical or service business, and the balance are entrepreneurs and small business owners.19”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“The $10 Trillion Tsunami The baby boomer generation owns more businesses than any other generation ever in history. In 2013, they owned 12 million small businesses, which is 43 percent of all small businesses in the country. That same year, they also started to retire at a rate of 9,000 per day. The rate at which boomers are retiring is going to increase significantly over the next eighteen years. By 2021, baby boomers will be retiring at a rate of 11,000 per day. Almost 77 million people, about 20 percent of the US population, are going to retire between 2013 and 2029, and it is estimated that $10 trillion in existing business value will need to change hands.16”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“The Path to Dominating New Industries An existing company with legacy systems and an outdated path to success has just as much need for innovation as a startup does. As a result, those who can recognize and execute this can capitalize on the benefit of an existing platform to build the “new company” they wish to run.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Because companies under about $10 million in revenue tend to sell for lower multiples than middle-market or publicly traded companies, a $65,000 investment, paired with a 90 percent loan backed by the small business administration, could buy a company generating over $1 million in revenue, immediately launching an acquisition entrepreneur into the role of CEO of one of the largest 4 percent of companies in the US. In loose math it would look like this (and to simplify, let’s assume this equation does not include working capital, inventory, closing costs, or real estate): $65,000 invested plus 90 percent SBA loan equals a $650,000 purchase price. A company of that size is commonly acquired around a multiple of three times adjusted earnings.7 Adjusted earnings, therefore, are $216,000 ($650,000 divided by three). Assuming a 15 percent adjusted earnings-to-revenue ratio, this company is generating over $1.4 million in revenue.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Further, many successful small businesses have been operating for decades. This means their model for success was developed a long time ago, and many of these businesses could benefit from the fresh approach and skillset of the next generation of entrepreneurs. There is a lot of opportunity inside small companies that operate on legacy systems, never upgraded to lean business models, or never developed sales teams or effective online marketing.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Simply by buying a company, typically one greater than $1 million in revenue, you can remove so much of the risk inherent to entrepreneurship.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“well north of 99 percent of all startups either fail completely or never really amount to much—either financially or impactfully.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“As Verne Harnish, author of Scaling Up, observes, only 4 percent of all companies in the United States ever exceed $1 million in revenue.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“ambitious entrepreneurs should buy an existing company and use it as a platform to build value, rather than start a business from scratch. There are three primary reasons: Startups have a little flaw: they mostly fail. Existing companies have the established infrastructure that many startups are trying to build in the first place. Acquisition entrepreneurs should match their resources and talent to transitioning businesses to create significant value in a company all their own.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“the words of psychologist Timothy Pychyl: “We experience the strongest positive emotional response when we make progress on our most difficult goals.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Entrepreneurs are notorious for overvaluing their companies. Trust me, this is the number one benefit you have going through a company that is already for sale. The M&A Advisor has already worked with the seller, sometimes for years, to get them mentally prepared in regard to what to expect.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“Mindset: How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential,”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“am looking for a [choose product, distribution, or service] company with [enter the type of growth opportunity], generating [define size by SDE range], with [enter any limiters].”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game

“The baby boomer generation owns more businesses than any other generation ever in history. In 2013, they owned 12 million small businesses, which is 43 percent of all small businesses in the country.13 That same year, they also started to retire at a rate of 9,000 per day. The rate in which boomers are retiring is going to increase significantly over the next eighteen years. By 2021, baby boomers will be retiring at a rate of 11,000 per day. Almost 77 million people, about 20 percent of the US population, are going to retire between 2013 and 2029, and it is estimated that $10 trillion in existing business value14 will need to change hands.”
― Walker Deibel, Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game