Business: Build vs Buy

This is a popular question that I am receiving lately: You started your first business from scratch; why buy your second business?

Answer: Easier.....?

Anyone who owns a business, runs a business, etc., knows that nothing about business is easy (but it's a TON of fun!). There are plenty of peaks and valleys, especially at the beginning of any new venture.

I've started plenty of businesses during my corporate America days as ventures on the side. Building computers, supporting networks, IT consulting - but none of them were intriguing enough to take me out of my corporate comfort zone.

That was until I got laid off from a job, in 2012, where I was working as Director of Telecommunications. Unfortunately it was Q4 and finding another full-timer was proving difficult as the holidays were slowing down my job search. That's when I decided I would try to take my side gig, SoBuzzMe, full time. This was a technology consulting business that made money on a time & materials basis supporting customers with day-to-day tech support. Business was good for a while, but the demand for my services was too variable. Some weeks were slammed while other weeks were super slow. Companies, at that time, weren't paying for technology support on a monthly, recurring, basis which made the income fluctuate greatly. I was a little to early for what would become the managed service provider game! No problem though, I was able to find another corporate job - this time in telecom. What I learned in telecom set the stage for future businesses!

Fast forward to 2018 when I started Maven IT. At this time managed services were starting to take a foothold and it appeared to be a good time to jump in. Not satisfied with my current telecom role, I banked some runway cash and quit my full timer. This was definitely one of the scariest moves I've made personally, but it was also the most rewarding! I took an SBA loan, negotiated some office space at one of my side hustle customers and started getting the word out at the local chamber of commerce. Everything had to be done from scratch - website, billing system, technology stack, hardware selection, prospecting - you name it!

As I started to make sales, a recurring theme of questions came through - If you're the only person in the company, what happens when I need support and you're in a meeting? Where is the marketing material for your services? What if I need help at 1am? One-by-one I was able to mitigate the questions, but I knew that a single major incident could cause a big issue for me. I then started brining interns onboard to assist with the day-to-day work. They gained work experience and I was able to get some low cost help in the door!

After about the first year the business theory was proved out and it was absolutely viable. Now it was time to scale out sales so I could focus on scaling the operations. I was fortunate to cross paths with Charlie at this time. He and I worked together at one of my previous telecom positions, but had left that company to start a telecom agency. We were doing some decent business together with Maven IT's managed services and his telcom offerings. There was a logical fit for the meshing of our services and the complimentary skills sets between us - he in sales and marketing and I in operations. We also had a crossing of skills sets in the finance and accounting areas. Roll it all together and the bases were well covered.

At this point, Charlie grew sales at Maven IT while I managed the operations. Over the years the volatility of the business became less and less as our roots grew deeper. At this point my heightened state of worry became less as well. Anyone who has started a business or has been part of a start up knows the day-to-day and week-to-week fight to stay alive. Where's the next customer coming from, can we purchase this equipment AND make payroll, etc. It is a ton of fun, but the stress levels are high! As we grew over time, the business matured, and the smoothing effect was realized.

I'd like to contrast my experience with building a business from scratch with my next business venture, Maven Commercial Cleaning, which I acquired. Stating a basic fact, startups fail at a high rate. We all know this. But businesses that have been on the map for 5+ years stand a much higher rate of survival. This notion intrigued me. At this point in early 2025, we even had business influencers who were talking specifically about business acquisition in a more favorable light than starting a business from scratch (thank you Codie Sanchez, among others!). This was an eye opening concept for me as I had never even considered it! As I started to think through the idea of business acquisition, it just all made perfect sense to me.

Imagine, you have a machine that is already built and that is moving forward in some capacity. But now I get to come in and tweak a few levers, make some business changes, etc., to make the machine go faster. There isn't the hyper focus of trying to live another day - the business has already made it way past that stage. Now it's about gaining efficiencies, bringing in the correct people, creating the ideal culture, and scaling the sales in a smarter fashion. I was able to easily see that ecosystem and bought in to the notion.

So how did I get there and actually make my first acquisition? Well, I knew all about the trials and tribulations of a technology and cybersecurity focused sale. Just about all companies need technology support and security in some form or fashion. But conveying the importance combined with the cost can be a challenge - especially if the business owner doesn't value it and doesn't want to understand it. Bottom line, it takes a significant amount of work to make a technology based sale. I knew that I wanted something simpler, but still widely needed. I looked at car washes, accounting firms, and cleaning businesses among others. I decided to shy away from home cleaning, as it was a business to consumer model and I was more comfortable with a business to business model. As well, I definitely wanted to stay in a service based business. This is when I ran across a business broker.

Initially I wasn't keen on using a business broker as they tend to have a negative connotation. I was at a joint chamber of commerce event where three chambers joined forces for one large event. As I was talking with people representing different businesses, I ran across a business broker. We began talking and I shared the scope of my ideal acquisition. He took my card and over the next couple of months began sending me business briefs for companies that were for sale. He ended up sending me the brief on a commercial cleaning business that was in business for 10+ years and where the owner was looking to retire. For me, that was a great scenario. Also, the business wasn't too small, but also wasn't too large, at about 25 customers total. Again, this was within my desired scope. I engaged and we began the pre-due diligence.

The broker sent me over three years of financials and some background on the company. After reviewing the numbers and determining that they were interesting enough to proceed, the broker set up a phone call with the owner and myself. I was able to ask my preliminary questions and confirm that he was retiring, had renewing contracts with the customer base, had a long term staff, etc. After we were both comfortable, we negotiated a purchase price based on the initial financials that I was provided. This, in turn, kicked off a gated purchase agreement. The PA basically had a numbered sequence of events that had to occur. If one specific event didn't occur or meet its intended outcome, I had the option to walk away. Contrast this method with a traditional letter of intent. With an LOI, you may walk away if the due diligence doesn't pan out as expected. If it does go as expected, you then need to draft and agree to a purchase agreement. The gated PA path eliminates the step of agreeing to a LOI and then to a PA, making the process faster and more efficient. I really liked this idea.

At the end of the day, the due diligence worked out and all of the gates specified in the PA were hit. This is the condensed version of the story as there were many peaks and valleys along with plenty of fatigue. But were were able to cross the finish line and I was able to acquire the commercial cleaning business! The entire process took around three months.

Now that I'm the proud owner of a commercial cleaning business, the fun begins! It started with moving the existing employees over to my payroll system. Then I introduced a scheduling, time keeping and workflow app. These changes were too much for some employees and they decided to leave. Then I had to hire new people and move around existing people to fill the vacant cleaning jobs. Everything settled over the first few months, which then enabled me to focus on the sales machine so we could begin scaling.

When you contrast the acquisition with the build from scratch approach, the acquisition is the winner in my book! I had a cash flowing business from day one in which I could set budgets for operational and sales goals. This was a major change from the start up path where I was fighting to make payroll in the early days. The "fight to stay alive" mentality versus the "adjust the levers to achieve operational and sales efficiencies" are two totally different camps! Both are rewarding in their own ways, but I found that acquisition was less stressful. Note I didn't say "stress free," but definitely less stressful! At the end of the day, this was my experience at a very high level. There are so many rabbit holes we can, and will, go down as this documentation of my journey progresses. As mentioned, I am interested in helping others achieve their goals. If you can learn something from my experiences, that makes me super happy! Please feel free to ask questions and comment. I'm here for the long term! Thank you for reading my first post!