Define your acquisition mandate
Write down the business models you understand, the maximum capital you can risk, the minimum operating history you want, the owner workload you can absorb and the return profile you need. Include disqualifiers such as customer concentration, platform dependence or regulatory exposure.
A mandate prevents attractive storytelling from changing your standards after you see a listing.
Source businesses without lowering your standards
Use marketplaces, brokers and direct outreach as sourcing channels. A broad marketplace can reveal more possibilities, while a curated broker can reduce screening volume. Neither model changes the need to verify the underlying business.
Use the live marketplace to compare real listings against the criteria in this guide.
Screen before deep diligence
Check revenue trend, profit quality, traffic or customer concentration, owner dependence, growth drivers and the reason for sale. Ask whether the business still works if one acquisition channel, supplier or major customer disappears.
Verify the evidence
Reconcile claimed revenue and expenses against source systems, bank or payment statements, analytics and operating records. Look for one-time revenue, omitted expenses, aggressive add-backs and metrics that are technically true but economically misleading.
Negotiate structure as well as price
Price is only one term. Consider working capital, inventory, holdbacks, transition support, seller financing, earnouts and what happens if a representation proves false. Get appropriate professional review before binding commitments.
Plan transfer before closing
List every domain, code repository, hosting account, vendor relationship, analytics property, payment account, customer record, content asset and credential that must move. Confirm which third-party accounts can legally and technically transfer.