You Don’t Have To Believe In Miracles To Acquire Your First Business
Acquisition Aces - Issue #13 - Read Time - 3.5 minutes
You Don’t Have To Believe In Miracles To Acquire Your First Business
As winter is about to officially kick off in the next couple of days, December 21st this year, it makes me think about hockey. The “Miracle on Ice” to be exact. On February 22, 1980, a ragtag bunch of college kids defeated what was basically a professional Russian squad. The story has been told, retold, told again, and even made into a movie (which was very good). I’m bringing the game up for a very obscure reason that you might not know about.
Al Michaels, who uttered the iconic line “Do you believe in miracles?” (which might very well be the most famous line ever uttered in sports), was the only ABC announcer available who had ever called a hockey game. In fact, he had only ever called one hockey game ever before that fateful night. In hindsight, you would think that would have resulted in a less-than-stellar call at the end. Obviously, it did not work out that way. You can never predict what is going to happen, but when you have the right people in place, you don’t need miracles. The right team fixes everything (and answers a lot of questions).
“Build Or Buy?” Is Not The Question
In entrepreneurial circles, some people like to debate “Build or Buy?”. This refers to which approach you should take when you want to be an entrepreneur. The build side says that you should go the founder’s route. The buy side says you should acquire an existing business and scale from there.
You obviously know which way I fall on this question. If you buy an existing business, with a 5-year proven track record, the stats say you will have a 90% success rate (I go deeper on this concept in my previous newsletter Boring Businesses Are The Ultimate Time Hack (Only Two Skills To Master).
The right question is not if you should build. The right question is “Who should I build my team around so I can then go buy a business.” If you have never put a team together this may be intimidating, especially since you may also be learning how to acquire a business as well. Don’t worry, it is possible to put a team together quickly that can put you in a great position. Check out this quick thread for some ideas:
