Moore: Industry sector is irrelevant when buying consistently profitable small businesses
Sarah Moore · How I Bought A Multi-Million Dollar Egg Carton Business For $0 | Sarah Moore Interview · Nov 2, 2023 · at 17:12
Sarah Moore, who acquired eggcartons.com via a debt-financed search fund, explains her framework for evaluating acquisition targets.
0:00 / 0:13exact quote · 13.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And what I found is that the industries were absolutely irrelevant. What matters is that you find a business that is established and has been consistently profitable for a number of years. Everything else, garbage.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Sarah Moore
Moore: Elite graduates going into banking choose corporate enslavement over freedom
“Again, given the pedigree of these people, you would think you would shoot for the moon year. You would want to have this freedom in your life, but you're literally choosing a form of enslavement, in my opinion.”
Moore: Most bankers do not understand deal financing structures
“Most bankers have no idea what they're doing or what they're talking about. Truly, I had to learn this the hard way. They think they can finance a deal. They have no idea how to finance the deal. They have no idea what these structures, what the details are of…”
Moore: Goldman Sachs enforced a 24/7 15-minute response rule
“And he said, at Goldman Sachs, there was a rule of 15 minutes, Meaning, you had to respond to whatever form they reached out to you in within 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Moore: Harvard Business School doesn't teach students how to evaluate small businesses
“And people will say, you have a Harvard MBA, but Harvard is very corporate. They don't teach you how to look at a corporate or commercial window washing business and evaluate their financials to see if you want to buy it. They're looking at very complicated fi…”
Moore: Craigslist produced better sourcing interns than elite student job boards
“I initially used the student job boards, and they were actually the worst. You get these cookie-cutter students who think like everybody else, they were basic. The best interns I found came off Craigslist.”
Moore: Acquired eggcartons.com with zero personal cash using strategic debt financing
“You don't need to put any cash down, and I didn't have to because of the seller's note. So I did a 25% seller's note and a 75% bank note, and the idea there was when shopping around for a bank to do the deal, it was all about, and it took me, you know, twenty-…”