Getting started
The Business-Buying Process, Start to Finish: Every Stage, and How Long It Takes
The full process as a timeline: 9 stages from buy box to first 90 days, what happens at each, and how long it really takes (~6-12 months).
11 min read
The DealStratum Blog
Buy your first business
with a fund’s discipline.
Playbooks on sourcing, valuing, financing, and buying small businesses — written for first-time searchers acquiring $1M–$5M companies. No fluff, no jargon for its own sake. Just the moves.
9 categoriesSourcing · Valuation · SBA · Diligence · LOIUpdated weekly
Due diligenceLive
The Due Diligence Checklist for Buying a Business
A real, usable due diligence checklist for buying a business — financial, legal, customer, operations, and owner-transition, with the red flag in each.
Read the playbook8 min read
Latest playbooks
Newest firstValuation
Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE), Explained
What SDE is, the exact formula, why small deals price on it instead of EBITDA, the SDE multiple, and how to spot a fake add-back.
8 min read
Deal sourcing
We Looked at 85,000 Businesses for Sale. About 7 in 10 Won't Tell You What They Earn.
Most business-for-sale listings never disclose cash flow — and it's worst on the smallest deals. What ~85,000 live listings say about price, multiples, and where to actually look.
6 min read
Due diligence
Quality of Earnings: What It Is and When You Actually Need One
A quality of earnings report verifies a seller's real earnings. What it is, how it differs from an audit, what it costs, and when you need one.
8 min read
Business types
Buying a Gym: the Membership Math Nobody Shows You Before You Sign
The honest economics of buying a gym — why recurring revenue is a mirage when churn is high, and the membership math to diligence before you sign.
8 min read
Business types
Buying a Laundromat: the Numbers Behind the "Passive Income" Hype
The honest economics of buying a laundromat — real prices, margins, the capex nobody mentions, and how to spot a trap.
8 min read
Getting started
What Is a HoldCo? The Permanent-Hold Alternative to a Search Fund
A holdco buys and holds small businesses forever — no fund clock, no forced exit. How the "Berkshire for small business" model works and how people build one.
8 min read
Getting started
Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA): the Path, the Math, the Reality
Buying an existing business instead of founding one or climbing the ladder — the four routes through ETA, what the returns really say, and the honest reality.
8 min read
Financing
How to Finance a Business Acquisition: Every Option, Ranked
The full financing stack for buying a small business — SBA 7(a), seller notes, conventional, ROBS, investor equity, mezzanine — ranked by cost and accessibility.
9 min read
Valuation
How to Value a Small Business: the SDE Method, Step by Step
Value a business the way a buyer actually does: calculate SDE from the P&L, pick the multiple (~2.5–2.8x), and adjust for the risk.
9 min read
Deal sourcing
How to Work With a Business Broker (and When to Go Around Them)
What a business broker does, who they really work for, what they cost — and the deals they never bring you.
8 min read
Getting started
What Is a Search Fund? The Complete 2026 Guide
A search fund is how a first-time buyer raises money to find, buy, and run one good small business. The 4 phases, 3 flavors, and real economics.
9 min read
Deal sourcing
How to Find a Business to Buy (Past the Listing Sites)
The four real channels for finding a business to buy — and why the best deals get sold off-market before they ever list.
8 min read
Screening deals
What Is a Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM)?
A CIM is the marketing document a sell-side broker writes to sell a business — not an audited financial. Here is what is really inside one and what to do with it.
8 min read
Making offers
The Letter of Intent Template That Decides Whether You Win or Lose the Deal
The LOI is the moment you have the most power in the entire transaction. Most buyers sign it like a formality and spend the next 90 days bleeding away an advantage they didn't know they had.
9 min read
Financing
How Much Money Do You Actually Need to Buy a Business in 2026?
The honest cash-to-close math after the 2025 SBA rewrite — worked examples at $450K, $1M, and $2M, and why the "10% down" promise now has an asterisk.
9 min read
Financing
SBA Loan Requirements in 2026: The Rules Changed and Most of the Internet Didn't Notice
The June 1, 2025 rewrite reset the down payment, the seller note, the ownership rule, and who can sign the appraisal. Here's what you actually need now.
9 min read
Financing
Seller Financing: The 2025 SBA Rule That Still Trips Up Buyers in 2026
Roughly half of small-business sales include it, it can cover 10-60% of the price — but the June 2025 SBA rulebook quietly broke the part everyone was counting on.
8 min read
Getting started
How to Buy a Business: The Underrated Door Out of the Job You Hate
A step-by-step map for buying an existing business instead of starting one from scratch — what each stage actually costs, and where the real risk lives.
8 min read
Buy vs build
"90% of businesses fail" is a lie. And it's keeping you in a job you hate.
The real numbers on starting vs buying a business — and why the path that sounds scariest might be the safe one.
5 min read
Screening deals
How to Read a CIM: The 6 Numbers to Pull and the 4 Sections to Ignore
A confidential information memorandum is a sales brochure, not a balance sheet. Here are the six numbers a trained buyer pulls in the first ten minutes — and the four sections they skip entirely.
9 min read
Deal sourcing
Where the best small-business deals actually come from
On-market listings are crowded and competitive. The deals worth winning are sourced before they ever hit a marketplace — here is how serious buyers find them.
6 min read
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