Shelton: Keeping founders at 20% equity de-risks acquisitions and accelerates learning
Gary Shelton · He Knew Nothing About the Industry and Still Hit $70M a Year · Oct 3, 2025 · at 19:44
Serial entrepreneur Gary Shelton outlines his deal structure playbook for business acquisitions on We Live to Build.
0:00 / 0:22exact quote · 22.9s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I'll get used, I'll buy 80% of the business, not 100. Used to keep 20. And so, for during this transition period, they're really involved in helping me grow this business. That takes a lot of the risk out for me, and it reduces my learning curve because I'm right there growing it with the founder, with the CEO.”
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 Gary Shelton
Shelton Bought $8M Firm With $5K Down, Scaling to $20M
“It was an electrical engineering firm doing eight million a year in electrical engineering contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. And I bought it with only 5000 of my own money and took it to twenty million in one year.”
Shelton: Businesses fail to cross $1M without autonomous operational systems
“Most mine-powered businesses that aren't successful, that don't get beyond one million, much coveted one million revenue mark, they're not operating with systems. They're not operating in a way that, hey, if I'm not here, I'm the founder, this is my great idea…”
Shelton targets asset-heavy acquisitions over software for borrowing leverage
“I'm looking for an asset heavy business, a business that has assets that gives me something to leverage, as opposed to, for example, a software business that doesn't have.”
Shelton: Target acquisition sellers are retiring Baby Boomers who slowed down
“I tend to buy from baby boomer age, men or women, they're older, they're looking to retire. They haven't been very aggressive with their business lately.”