Interesting conversation.
Have any of you explored this further? Either meeting or developing your own ideas?
You also have to be good at the business. Iâve seen people buy businesses only to run them into the ground. A lot of small business tick over through hard work. I see some buyers come in seeing it as a passive money making machine and mess it up badly.
Also to add, most people Iâve worked with in employment have close to zero business sense / common sense and would never be able to run a business. Heck a fair few couldnât even do their jobs properly.
Some of these jobs are just unattractive and so get swallowed up by bigger concerns who build up national franchises instead. Think of butchers being swallowed up by supermarkets (when the kids donât want to deal with a job handling smelly meats). Or funeral parlours (very lucrative and get swallowed up into national chains who can get economies of scale and better processes). Or smaller things like kebab shops and the like which have unsociable and long working hours.
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I own a small business (mostly subscription based IT solutions and a bit of specialised hardware). Iâve kept it running for 13 years now.
I am thinking of selling it every now and then.
If anyone is interested in having an informal chat and determine what it would be worth, DM me. Also if you have a thesis and need a case, do contact me.
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Is this a software youâve built or you are reselling someoneâs software?
Reselling, we customize the configuration.
Hey, sent you a message, would be interested to find out more!
I want to add some information that I gathered with some people in Switzerland and Portugal (might be interesting for someone).
I spoke with an investor in Switzerland which over 9 years bought 4 businesses and owns 50% of 3 more.
The typical funding structure for buying in Switzerland that he is using is:
- 10% Own Equity
- 20% Seller Financing
- 70% Bank Financing
He focuses on businesses where their isnât a succession in place, industry agnostic and in his area of residency. You NEED to speak german, preferably swiss german.
For Portugal, the model is similar but the seller financing is more fluid, you can go all the way to 50% so you can almost fully finance the business acquisition through bank loans, especially when you already have a banker which knows your background and you are buying a stable business which generates cashflows. You NEED to speak portuguese and have some contacts in banks/local market you are targeting.
I am really interested in this topic and I am actively looking at businesses in both countries. If someone is interested as well or has some personal experience it would be great to chat.
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I bought a company and lost all my investment. The banks over valued the company and the truth is despite being fluent in French and an avid business entrepreneur in France, the Swiss just do not do business the same way. There are alot of subtleties in the management and I have learnt some hard lessons. Happy to share more my experiences. I agree there is great potential from babyboomers who will close their companies, but you will need to work as a partnership rather than walking in to just buy it up, clients suppliers and partners of the company work with a person they know and trust. That is what is difficult to perpetrate.
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Yep, I donât have that kind of experience but I really believe that in Switzerland depends on the contacts that you have rather than the skills, anyone correct me if I am wrong.
Hi Legacy, could you share a bit more about your experience?
What kind of business was it, size, etc?
What were your lessons from this and what were your takeaways?
Thank you!
I havenât, but my confidence level is 99.999% that it is just spam (1st post, generic generated text, link).
Typical bot behaviour of posting first without link and then editing to add link afterwards.
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