For the owner curious
Could you actually buy a business? Let's find out.
Find the kind of business that fits you, then see what you could afford. With an SBA loan, the down payment can be as little as ten percent of the total deal cost.
The Business Fit assessment is free, and it's the first of three.
Sound familiar?
An evening of listings can leave you with more tabs than answers.
It happens when you size up businesses before you know what you're looking for. Start with yourself, and every listing becomes easier to judge.
- The ideaYou picture running your own business.
- The searchYou open BizBuySell and start browsing listings.
- The guessworkYou try to size up businesses without knowing what to look for.
- The stallYou lose steam and close the tabs.
Every owner was a first-timer once.
- Learn what ownership asks of you.
- Understand the money and the trade-offs.
- See what fits, and where you'd want support.
Three free assessments
A good business can still be the wrong business for you.
The assessments show you what to look for before you open a single listing.
Free · Start here
Business Fit
Find your kind of work.
- Work you enjoy
- The life you want
- How you like to work with people
Free
Financial Fit
Put your finances in the picture.
- What you could invest
- Income you need to live on
- Cash to keep in reserve
In the works
Owner Readiness
See what you bring, and what would be new to you.
- Skills you can build on
- What different owners need to do
- Gaps to fill with learning or support
Together, they build your Fit Profile.
Business Fit
What would your days actually look like?
Two businesses can earn the same amount and ask for very different days. The Business Fit assessment asks how you like to work and shortlists the three kinds of business that fit you best.
- Who handles sales?
- What happens when someone calls out?
- How often does the owner work late?
Every listing shows the earnings, and almost none show what the owner's days look like.
Financial Fit
"There's no way I could afford to buy a business, right?"
Most people picture paying the whole price up front, which is only one way to buy. Here's what a $500,000 business asks of you three different ways.
Seller financing
The seller lends you part of the price
You pay part of the price at closing, and the seller lets you pay the rest back over a few years.
- Your cash into the deal
- $205,000
- Loan payment each month
- $7,100
- Paid back over
- 5 years
SBA loan
As little as ten percent down
A bank loan partly guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
- Your cash into the deal
- $56,000
- Loan payment each month
- $6,700
- Paid back over
- 10 years
All cash
No loan to repay
You pay the full price and the costs yourself, so there's no loan payment once you own it.
- Your cash into the deal
- $552,000
- Loan payment each month
- None
- Paid back over
- No loan
Rounded, with closing costs and fees included. Payments assume 10% for the SBA loan and 8% for the seller.
See what you can afford
Take Financial FitOwner Readiness In the works
What would you bring to the owner's chair?
Every business leans on its owner for a few things, like selling, hiring or keeping the books. Owner Readiness will show which of those you already do well, which you'd learn, and where you'd want to hire help.
New owners usually find the hardest parts are the ones they've never done. Knowing yours ahead of time lets you pick a business that plays to your strengths, or plan and budget for the help you'd need.
- Marketing and getting customersYou'd learn this
- Operations and making things runYou bring this
- SalesYou'd hire for this
- Finance and booksYou'd learn this
- Systems and technologyYou bring this
- People and hiringYou bring this
Deal Fit
Found a listing you like? See how well it fits you.
Paste the link or upload the listing, and Deal Fit compares it with your Fit Profile. The report explains what fits, what may not, and what to do next.
- See what fits and what you'd trade off
- Find what the listing leaves out
- Get a draft email to the broker
Your first Deal Fit is free once you've taken Business Fit and Financial Fit. After that, a report is $19, or $99 for ten. A sample deal is waiting in your free Deal Locker.
From the sample report
On your side of the table
We have owned businesses.
Now we help you buy one.
Life is too short to keep wondering. We're here to help you find out if owning a business fits you.
Ian Cohen
Ian has founded three businesses and coached more than 200 founders and owners.
Mark Feinberg
Mark has run a $100 million company and several others, and has bought and sold businesses of his own.
The assessments and your first Deal Fit report are free.
A few useful answers
Know what
you are getting.
I want to buy a business. Where do I start?
Start with three things you can answer today: what you want to be doing every day, how much income you need to live on, and how much cash you could put into a purchase. The free Business Fit assessment covers the first one and gives you a shortlist of the kinds of business that fit you. The free Financial Fit assessment covers the other two and figures out the price range worth your time. You do not need a listing in front of you for either one.
How much cash do I need to buy a business?
For a business around $500,000, somewhere between $98,000 and $155,000 in cash on closing day. The spread is the part nobody explains. The SBA minimum is ten percent, and it is ten percent of everything the deal costs rather than ten percent of the price, which is already more than the $50,000 you will be quoted. Ten percent is a floor, not the number, and lenders often ask a first-time buyer for fifteen or twenty. On top of that you need a cushion for your own household while the first months are slow. The Financial Fit assessment figures out your version, and your lender will confirm what your deal actually needs.
Can I keep my job while I look?
Yes. You can read listings, talk to brokers and talk to a lender while you are still employed. It gets real closer in. A lender will ask who runs the business day to day after close, and most businesses this size need somebody in the building. If that person is not you, put their pay in your budget before you make an offer. Ask your lender what they expect early, because their answer decides your last day at work.
Can I trust the earnings figure in a listing?
Treat it as the seller's arithmetic, not as a fact. It starts with the profit on the books, then adds back costs the seller says a new owner would not have. Some of those are fair. A one-time legal bill is not going to happen again. Some are not. A salary for work somebody still has to do is not money you get to keep. Neither is a truck the business actually needs. One request makes most of it visible. Ask for the seller's own list of what was added back, with an amount against each line, and have an accountant check it against the tax returns before you rely on any of it.
What is the difference between the assessments and Deal Fit?
The assessments are about you. The Business Fit assessment asks how you like to work and gives you a shortlist of the three kinds of business that fit. The Financial Fit assessment figures out the price range your cash and your household budget can carry. Owner Readiness is still being built, and it will show what you would bring to the owner's job. Deal Fit is about one listing. You paste the link or upload the listing, and the report compares it with what the assessments found and recommends a next step, such as emailing the broker. Your first Deal Fit report is free once you have taken the Business Fit and Financial Fit assessments.
What can your tools not tell me?
They cannot tell you whether the seller's numbers are true, because nobody has checked them against a tax return. They cannot tell you what the business is really worth, because the price is a negotiation rather than a calculation. They cannot tell you whether the customers stay, because that lives in the contracts and the relationships and no listing shows it. They cannot tell you whether the lease, the licenses or the staff transfer, because those are documents and they come after an offer. And they cannot tell you whether to buy it. That one is yours, and anybody who sells you a number that makes the decision for you is selling you something.