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Every year, hundreds of thousands of people decide they want to become entrepreneurs. They quit their jobs, sketch out a business plan, and pour their savings into a startup. They believe they are building something from nothing. They believe the risk is the price of admission. They believe that if they just work hard enough, they will beat the odds.
**Author:** Walker Deibel
**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes
**What You'll Learn:**
- Why buying an existing business dramatically outperforms starting from scratch - How to acquire a profitable company with as little as $65,000 down - The exact framework for finding, evaluating, and closing on a business - How to transition from buyer to CEO in your first 90 days - Why a $10 trillion wave of retiring business owners creates unprecedented opportunity
**Who This Book Is For:**
Aspiring entrepreneurs who want to own a business but don't want to gamble years of their life on an unproven startup idea. Corporate professionals seeking an exit path. Anyone who has considered buying a business but didn't know where to start. Investors looking for an alternative to traditional asset classes.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people decide they want to become entrepreneurs. They quit their jobs, sketch out a business plan, and pour their savings into a startup. They believe they are building something from nothing. They believe the risk is the price of admission. They believe that if they just work hard enough, they will beat the odds. Most of them are wrong. The statistics are brutal. Roughly nine out of ten startups fail. Even venture-backed companies, with millions in funding and teams of elite advisors, fail three out of four times. The mythology of the startup founder has become so deeply embedded in our culture that we rarely stop to question whether this is the only path to business ownership. We celebrate the survivors and quietly bury the rest. Walker Deibel lived this reality firsthand. His startup, ViewPoint, had everything an investor could ask for. A former Microsoft director as CEO. Fortune 500 investors. A top-ten accelerator pedigree. Beta trials inside major corporations. By every external measure, ViewPoint looked like a winner. It still died. Then Deibel tried something different. Instead of building from scratch, he bought an existing print management company. He put down a low six-figure down payment, secured a bank loan for the rest, and became CEO on day one. Within eleven months, he had doubled the company's marketable value. The following year, he merged in a second acquired company, boosting revenue twenty percent and adding five hundred customers. All of it funded by existing cash flow, not outside capital. This is acquisition entrepreneurship. It is the practice of buying an existing, profitable business and then applying entrepreneurial drive to grow its value. It combines the margin of safety of proven cash flow with the upside potential of entrepreneurial ambition. It is not a consolation prize for people who couldn't hack it as startup founders. It is, in many cases, a smarter path to the same…
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Get the complete summary in the appBuying an existing business has a ninety-eight percent success rate. Starting a business has a ten percent success rate.
You can buy a business generating over two hundred thousand dollars in annual cash flow with as little as sixty-five tho
A ten trillion dollar wave of retiring boomer businesses is creating unprecedented opportunity for buyers.
Complete the Three As assessment before you start searching: Attitude, Aptitude, Action.
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"Buy Then Build" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around business, entrepreneurship, finance, especially themes like buying an existing business has a ninety-eight percent success rate. starting a business has a ten percent success rate; you can buy a business generating over two hundred thousand dollars in annual cash flow with as little as sixty-five tho. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Walker Deibel is an entrepreneur and author who has gained recognition for his work on acquisition entrepreneurship. He has personal experience in buying and building businesses, having acquired multiple companies throughout his career. Deibel's expertise lies in helping aspiring entrepreneurs understand the process of purchasing existing businesses as an alternative to starting from scratch. His approach emphasizes the potential for success and reduced risk compared to traditional startups. Dei…
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