Why Buying a Business Beats Building One with Walker Deibel, Acquisition Lab

When I first got into entrepreneurship, I thought starting from scratch was the only way. I built my agency from the ground up, but after learning from people like Walker Deibel, I see that business acquisition often makes way more sense. Imagine taking over a business that already has customers, revenue, and operations. You can scale faster without all the initial growing pains—it’s a smarter, quicker way to grow compared to starting fresh every time.

About Walker Deibel

Walker Deibel is an outstanding entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience buying and scaling businesses, having successfully acquired 7 companies and co-founded several startups along the way. He’s the author of the best-seller Buy Then Build, a must-read for anyone looking to grow through business acquisition. As an M&A advisor with Quiet Light, Walker helps online businesses navigate their exits. Through his program, Acquisition Lab, he shares his personal journey and practical strategies to teach entrepreneurs why buying an existing company can be the smartest path to growth—and how to do it right.

Key Insights:

• Focus on recurring revenue models. When buying a business, prioritize those with recurring revenue, like subscription models. This gives you a reliable income stream and makes the business more stable, allowing you to plan and scale with greater confidence.
• Look for underperforming businesses. Find companies that aren’t doing well because of bad management or outdated systems. After buying them, improve operations, marketing, or customer service to increase profits and grow the business.
• Combine resources. If you buy multiple businesses, find ways for them to share resources, like employees or marketing efforts. This saves money and helps all the businesses grow more efficiently.
• Plan for the future sale. From the start, think about how to make the business more valuable when you want to sell it. Improve profits and streamline operations so you can sell it at a higher price later.
• Modernize traditional businesses. Find older businesses that could benefit from modern updates like better online marketing or e-commerce. You can increase their value by bringing them up to date.

Walker's best advice for entrepreneurs:

"If you can bridge the old economy and the new economy, that's actually the very unique opportunity that we have in our lifetime."

Connect with Walker Deibel:

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• Buy Then Build
• Acquisition Lab

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