Look for businesses with at least five of these traits: 1. Recurring need: Customers need the service monthly, quarterly, annually, or whenever something predictable happens. 2. Pain of switching: Changing vendors creates hassle, risk, downtime, compliance headaches, or retraining. 3. Fragmented competition: The market has many small operators and few dominant national brands. 4. Local reputation matters: Customers trust known operators, referrals, and responsiveness. 5. Operationally boring, financially useful: The work may be unsexy, but customers consistently pay for it. 6. Low customer concentration: No single client should control the future of the business. 7. Seller is underprofessionalized: The owner built something real but has not fully systematized sales, scheduling, hiring, pricing, follow-up, or reporting. 8. Clear path to improvement: You can see specific upgrades: better pricing, better follow-up, better route density, better software, better recruiting, better marketing, better financial tracking. 9. Manageable licensing or technical requirements: You understand what licenses, certifications, insurance, and key employees are required before making an offer. 10. Deal structure protects you: Seller financing, transition support, earnouts, holdbacks, and training reduce the risk of overpaying. ===================================== Better categories for new-ish buyers to study: These are worth investigating, not blindly buying: 1. Compliance-driven local services: Fire safety inspections, hood cleaning, grease trap cleaning, backflow testing, elevator inspection support, stormwater compliance, medical waste pickup, pest control, pool compliance, safety inspections. 2. Essential B2B services: Commercial refrigeration, facility maintenance, janitorial for HOAs or commercial properties, route-based cleaning, document shredding, uniforms, mats, filters, water treatment. 3. Sticky professional services: Bookkeeping, payroll support, tax practices, commercial insurance agencies, niche compliance consulting, outsourced admin services. 4. Route-based recurring services: Septic, waste hauling, portable toilets, vending, linen, coffee service, water delivery, filters, pest control. 5. Specialized trades with maintenance contracts: HVAC service, fire suppression, garage doors, elevators, commercial plumbing, electrical maintenance, refrigeration.

I naturally lean toward sprints. Momentum feels good. Fast action. Visible progress. That’s where I’m most comfortable. The frustrating part about buying a business is that the process behaves more like a marathon. Finding the right deal usually takes longer than you think. So does becoming the kind of buyer that sellers and brokers actually want to work with. Something I wish I’d understood earlier: the answer wasn’t rushing to make an offer before I was ready. The shift happened when I started treating the search itself as part of the work. One idea that changed how I approach acquisitions: radical incrementalism. Commit to 30–40 conversations with brokers and sellers before making major decisions. Review dozens of businesses before forming rigid opinions about what you want. In the beginning, the goal isn’t necessarily to find the deal. It’s to calibrate your judgment. Every conversation sharpens pattern recognition. And every business teaches you something the previous one didn’t. Most buyers stop searching too early. Or they fall in love with the second business they see because they haven’t seen enough yet. There’s a Latin phrase I keep coming back to: festina lente. “Make haste slowly.” Move with urgency in your outreach. Build conviction with patience. Part of that also means preparing mentally for what the search actually looks like: • Set a conversation target before setting a closing target • Start reaching out before you feel fully ready • Build a pipeline wide enough that no single deal feels like your only option The road is long either way. Worth learning how to walk it with intention... and even learn how to enjoy the process. This is the best way to do it.

Everyone, we have a lot of videos that will get posted this month. Looking forward to growing together via acquisitions, partnerships, and more!

The Biz Buying Lab is for entrepreneurs who are ready to step into ownership. Buying a business isn’t just a financial move. It changes how you see yourself and how you lead. THE CORE IDEA Most entrepreneurs are taught one path. Start from scratch. Grind. Hope it works. But there’s another way. You can buy a business that already has customers, cash flow, and history, and grow from there. Not as a shortcut (though it can feel like a shortcut in many ways). It's simply a smarter starting line. I thought you had to have tons of money to do it. But that's not true. ===================== Think about the difference between renting and owning a home. When you rent, you stay flexible. You don’t plan too far ahead. You fix what’s urgent, not what’s important. When you buy, everything changes. You think long-term. You care about the foundation. You invest differently because now it’s yours. Buying a business works the same way. Starting ideas is like renting. Owning a business is like buying your first home. Biz Buying Lab is for people ready to make that shift, by finding the business that fits them.