Take Five #033: How ETA will change from a small, niche community into a professional asset class larger than VC, and more
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Take Five #033: How ETA will change from a small, niche community into a professional asset class larger than VC, and more
Five takeaways we loved at Kumo this week
Subscribe to Take Five to get our top 5 quick weekly reads on the world of SMB, M&A, and EtA from the team at Kumo. Kumo aggregates hundreds of thousands of deals into one easy-to-use platform so that you can spend less time sourcing, and more time closing deals.
Before we jump into our Take Five: our beta for Kumo is LIVE! Try it for free now at withkumo.com
What is Kumo?
Kumo is a powerful deal aggregator to help supercharge your deal sourcing.
What can you do with Kumo?
Browse 100,000+ deals from hundreds of brokers and every major marketplace, with 700+ unique deals added daily.
Save time and stop reviewing duplicate deals. Kumo matches identical deals across hundreds of sources so you can view unique business opportunities, even if they’re slightly different across different websites.
Get a daily or weekly summary of deals that match your search criteria
Take Five #033: How ETA will change from a small, niche community into a professional asset class larger than VC, and more
1. How to improve your finance processes from Day 1
2. A breakdown of how one holdco acquired thirty plus companies in 7 years, completely self-funded
3. What NOT to do after buying a business
“A colleague of mine was recounting a recent deal where the business starting declining soon after the buyer took over. This is something she and I have both seen far too many times over the years in owner-operated businesses.
Why does this happen? How can a new owner prevent it? I am not referring to distressed businesses that are already in decline before a sale. Or cases where a new owner is simply in over their heads experience-wise.
I am talking about good, profitable businesses that are sold to seemingly capable buyers that soon turn south.”
From “What Not To Do After You Buy A Business” on Forbes
4. How ETA will change from a small, niche community into a professional asset class, larger than Venture Capital
5. How to best evaluate your SMB service providers (hint: you get what you pay for)
In the beginning, a business is a small team just getting work done and proving themselves to the market. Sell, execute, repeat. But pretty quickly, you start to have needs, from the mundane (like tax prep) to business drivers (like advertising). There are thousands of service vendors ready to “solve your small business problems,” and most of them are awful.
Basic partnership hygiene is always worth keeping in place:
Ask for referrals before agreeing to anything, and actually follow up with them.
Designate a clear point of contact on both ends of the relationship, and also have someone else internally regularly review the information received (personal relationships can sometimes get messy).
Make sure the agreement is reasonable, including maintaining ownership over anything material to the business (e.g. your brand, your customers, your accounts, etc.) and clear language about how to end the relationship if you are not satisfied with the services provided.
Mutually agree on metrics to be tracked upfront and receive regular communication on work performed (not screenshots).
Regularly meet to review the quality of work, discuss relationship status, and appreciate how their business has changed, too (e.g. they may have grown considerably and you’re in an outdated pricing model that automatically means you’re getting lower service without anyone consciously talking about it).
Keep all documentation tied to the partnership.
From “Mistaking Red Flags for Red Carpets: The Trouble with Services for Smaller Businesses” from Permanent Equity
Bonus announcement: we’re partnering with DealBuilder!
Going forward, all business listings on DealBuilder will be available on Kumo.
Our mission at DealBuilder is to build the most transparent and efficient marketplace to buy & sell small businesses. Which is why we are so excited to announce that we have partnered with Kumo!
Kumo (withkumo.com) helps motivated Buyers find businesses for sale from companies globally, all in one place. With over 120,000 deals sourced from thousands of brokers and marketplaces, Kumo is the one-stop-shop for Buyers to streamline their search. Along with some of the biggest buy-sites in the world, all of DealBuilder’s listings will now be presented on Kumo to reach even more interested parties.
DealBuilder is a revolutionary platform to buy and sell small businesses. Leveraging its proprietary technology, buyers and sellers enjoy the control of a self-directed platform, while receiving the full support of a dedicated Deal Manager. Now in partnership with Kumo, listings on the DealBuilder platform will benefit from further exposure to Kumo’s network of qualified buyers.
If you're looking to buy a business, you can try Kumo for free now at withkumo.com.
Loved what you read? Subscribe to Take Five to get our top quick reads every week from the team at Kumo. Kumo aggregates thousands of sources into one easy-to-use platform so that you can spend less time sourcing, and more time closing deals.