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We live in an age where founding an online business has never been simpler. Through the internet and AI, you can do more things and reach more people than ever before. And yet, many aspiring founders fail or burn out, never realizing their goals. Why? Perhaps because building a business isn’t for everyone.
Entrepreneurship through acquisition can be a much faster route. An existing business already has customers, tech, staff, income and product-market fit. Making money from those assets is easier than creating them, allowing you to skip those early months or years of experimentation to get off the ground.
Yes, some might bristle at sacrificing learnings for day-one profits, but acquiring a company instead of building one opens doors for those who might otherwise have burned out. Better yet, there’s a business for every type of entrepreneur and budget. The barrier to entry is only as high as your available capital.
Instead of a multiyear grind, acquire a business that’s already making money and has the talent you need to succeed. Focus on growth, not survival. Trade capital for time-to-market, the late-night hustle for instant income and learn as you go. Interested? See if entrepreneurship through acquisition is for you below.
Related: Want to Start a Business? Consider Buying One Instead — Here’s Why.
Stairs or elevator?
Finding a market for a new product or service costs time and money. Before you can even consider scaling your business, you must test whether people want what you’re offering. Between building the product or service, marketing it and gathering feedback, momentum can take months or years to build.
Now imagine skipping that early testing phase and knowing your product or service is in high demand and you could conquer a share of the market the moment your company launches. Time saved is time you can invest in growing the company, delivering more of what the market wants to multiply your income.
Acquiring a company with growing revenue and cash flow switches the focus from experimentation to scaling proven strategies. As a result, there’s less financial risk, less budget wasted on failed marketing campaigns and less pressure to find customers. Instead, you know exactly where to spend your money.
Such knowledge comes only from building a successful business or acquiring one where the harsh lessons have already been learned. It’s the career equivalent of taking the stairs or the elevator. Which you prefer depends on you, but one is faster, easier and offers potentially bigger rewards sooner.
A polished product
Many people can’t code or don’t want to learn. That’s okay. When you acquire a company, you acquire a ready-made or “turnkey” suite of technology, infrastructure and processes, often run by those who built them and may stay on after acquisition. You’re then free to focus on what you do best.
That’s not to say acquiring a tech company means you won’t ever need engineering expertise. But you can go a long way with ready-built, functioning, bug-free technology before hiring developers. All the prototypes have been made, tested and iterated upon. You simply choose what to develop next.
The company roadmap is a font of new growth ideas. New features, especially those customers consistently demand, help increase value perception and justify price increases. By acquiring a company, you won’t need costly experiments to test the market — your customers will tell you what they want.
Related: 5 Important Factors Novice Entrepreneurs Must Consider Before Buying a Business
Ready-made teams
When you build a business from nothing, usually you’ll have to hire people more skilled than you to perform various business functions. Maybe less fun roles in human resources, engineering or sales, for example. Finding the right people for these jobs is a long, complex process. Hiring mistakes are stressful, costly and require you to repeat the process (with the same risk of hiring the wrong people).
A business acquisition, however, can include its talented teams and leaders. You can then ignore the cost of sourcing talent and time spent on interviews, aptitude tests and onboarding. So long as you know how to lead (or are open to learning or hiring someone who does), acquiring a high-performing team to complement your skills will maximize your return on investment in a shorter time while reducing risk.
Follow your passions
There’s a reason startups fail at rates as high as 90% or more. Sometimes it’s being in the wrong time and place. Others fall behind competitors or throw money at problems instead of solving them. But the psychological toll of building a business from nothing can also grind down a founder’s resilience.
Building a business from nothing means wearing every hat — sales, marketing, operations, HR, finance and more. Does your entrepreneurial passion span these departments? Does closing the books every month excite you as much as creating a viral marketing campaign? Slogging away on things you’re not passionate about can ruin the entrepreneurial experience.
The joy of acquiring a business is choosing the one you want to run and shaping your day-to-day. Love marketing? Acquire a company that’s never run an ad. Enjoy leadership? Acquire a company with a strong but rudderless team. You’ve got thousands of businesses to choose from, so you needn’t sacrifice your passions for revenue. Pick the right business, and you’ll always love what you do.
It’s time travel — for your career
Acquiring a business can shave years off your career, pushing you to think bigger. Why make countless mistakes before hitting upon your one idea that takes off? How long might that trial and error period last? Can you afford to sacrifice years of your career to learn how to build a profitable business from scratch?
You can acquire a profitable company for as little as $50,000. Will it be eye-watering revenue? Probably not, but it’s a reasonable starting point. And the upside potential is massive. The acquisition is just the start of your journey. The next rung on the ladder is an exit. Do well and you get the payoff for your hard work, potentially life-changing money and the freedom to pursue another acquisition.
Some might say the grind is a rite of passage, that you learn more through failure than success. But acquiring a business doesn’t guarantee success. It just increases your chances. If you can raise the capital, acquiring a business often works out better because the mistakes have already been made. The founder figured out what worked and now you can capitalize on that by giving them an exit opportunity.
Related: What You Need to Know to Buy the Right Business and Acquire Your Empire
Is acquiring a business for everyone?
Building a business isn’t for everyone, and neither is acquiring one. Some people are better suited to doing things solo and in their own way. There’s always the chance that cultures clash once you take over the reins. That said, acquiring a company to become a full-time entrepreneur is the fastest road you can take, accelerating returns and freeing you to focus on growth rather than survival.
Our advice? Start small. Acquire a company whose biggest weakness is your biggest strength and see how far you can take it. Rinse and repeat until you’ve learned how to earn profits consistently across a portfolio of startups. Maybe then you can start something completely new where the only “grinding” you’ll do is to the beans of your morning coffee. Everything else will be meaningful work and a happier life.
