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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hi everyone coming back as Iâve seen a potential opportunity. relatively close to where we live there is a tennis school. whatâs interesting is the tennis school does not have any infrastructure because it uses the tennis courts of an actual school and itâs students are school students (think after school lessons). whatâs interesting is I met the owner of the tennis school and he is ready to retire and he explained me a little of the business. the tennis instructors are freelancers, lessons are primarily after school, no lessons on the weekend but the courts are available and 99% of the âcustomersâ are students at the school. he pays an annual fee to the school. itâs hard court so maintenance is really low. and the courts are covered in the winter so it could be year-round
risks:
- the school may not rent the courts to the tennis school
opportunities:
- more students (outside the school) ex: after 7pm (there is artificial lighting)
- court usage on weekends to students and anyone in the area
- all year lessons (or renting the courts) even during the school holidays
Iâve had no discussions on price or anything like that. still in the âconceptâ phase
tell me why this is a bad idea and I should abandon it?
If I look at this - it seems the cornered resource here is the School court because it also means the school students take lessons there.
School students would always like to take lessons there and hence if you someone else takes over the court, your customers are lost.
Otherwise to run the same business - you need the court as well as new clients. Without the specific court - the business value would go down to zero
I think if you are fairly certain of regular interest from school students then to take over the business you need some sort of agreement from school. This can secure your access to this key resource
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The current tennis school has been running with the current owner for 15+ years. Indeed the critical resource are the courts so perhaps there is a multi year agreement. I need to find out.
It might be one of those Swiss handshake agreements based on previous relationships. Definitely this is something to dig into
Any other things I should consider? Next step would be to look at the finances. I assume all the tennis coaches are freelancers and there shouldnât be any other employees. The risk seems low (depending on valuation)
I donât quite understand what exactly you need to buy here.. it seems you just need to take over the rental contract and build relationships with coaches
Is is really a business buyout or just continuation of what the other person was doing ?
In other words - what is there to buy? There is no asset or IP. Is it about the right to run the process of renting court and taking commission from freelancers?
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You are right. However there is also the brand and the established relationship with the school. I also see further opportunities to grow the business like I said earlier without much effort. Reason I was asking is it seems like a good relatively low effort high yield âpassiveâ investment option.
Thanks for taking the time to share your observations
Okay. Then there is some sort of business (maybe like a services business)
Good luck
If profits are good. Why not
Maybe you can figure out if you could have lessons on the weekend or if its prohibited (law, policy of the school, neighbours..)
The book, or the business that publishes the book? 