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How The Owner of This Home Inspection Business Broke Through a $1M Ceiling and Grew 40% YoY START HERE “I Built My Business to a Certain Level. And It Just Wouldn’t Go Past It.” Ian Mayer had a degree in finance. Years in stable jobs. A steady income. A house. A family. The kind of setup that’s supposed to signal “security.” Then his company relocated. No relocation package. A pay cut if he followed. An unspoken reality that he wasn’t really invited. Ian had a wife, two kids, and a mortgage. Starting over in another state wasn’t an option. That moment forced a hard conclusion. “Even if I found another job, the same thing could happen again. So I decided I had to become an owner and be self-employed.” That decision pushed him into ownership with nothing lined up. No safety net. Just a belief that controlling his income was safer over the long term. What followed was a grind that included: 5 years running a one-man home inspection business Zero vacations early on, with income tied entirely to his labor A “ best year ever ” that still left his bank account nearly empty Hitting the same ceiling 4 years in a row , stuck just under $1M in revenue Finally hiring, building a team, and scaling past the $1M ceiling This is the story of: Why he got stuck How he broke through And how he changed his life Here’s what you’ll get out of today’s newsletter: Let’s dive in... Why This Business Made Sense to Him Ian grew up in San Francisco in the 70s and 80s, raised by a single mom who believed in the classic blueprint: school → college → job → stability. He followed it, mostly. He went to college, dropped out, then came back and finished a business degree in finance. He thought the degree would be his ticket. It wasn’t really. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to chase music. He

Ian's home inspection business was stuck at $1M. How he broke through the revenue ceiling and grew 40% year over year with better systems and hires.

This may be the fastest way we’ve ever improved our business. 44% of hours worked in the US today are now “automatable” with AI, per McKinsey. Another 13% are automatable via robots. With TODAY’S tech. Tech that’s currently the worst it’ll ever be. Think about that. We certainly are. But we’re trying to DO something about it, too. And below, we want to help you do the same. Okay, Here’s How to Reinvent Your Business With AI (And Have Fun Doing It) IDEA #1: Find Your CAO Everyone’s either excited about AI or thinks it’ll steal their job. We used to be on the fence. Then we hired a guy just to integrate AI into everything we do. To be our Chief Automation Officer / Head of AI Transformation / Supreme Leader of Tech-Enabled Productivity. Whatever you want to call it, that’s him. Our guy doesn’t really care about titles. His job? Find every unfair advantage AI gives us... and leverage the hell out of it Build cool, useful AI tools across our business Evangelize AI across our team He’s so great... we now have a whole team of AI-first employees. Whether you’re already a business owner or if you’re coming to Main Street Millionaire Live to learn how to buy a legacy business, this is something you need to be thinking about. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s someone who already works for you. Or maybe it’s someone you need to hire. But it’s a role someone needs to play, and you’ll likely fall behind without it. That’s the biggest opportunity billionaire Mark Cuban sees for young people right now. Not “AI.” Helping small businesses use AI. Lower middle market businesses often... Aren’t big enough to justify custom enterprise solutions or consulting Are manually process-heavy, with lots of “drag and click” work Have some budget to spend, but little to no AI expertise to spend it on They

This may be the fastest way we’ve ever improved our business.

How He Bought a 30-Year-Old Concrete Business, Unlocked Growth, and Reduced His Day-to-Day Role START HERE “The business was running. But everything was in their heads. There weren’t systems. There wasn’t documentation.” Today, we’re diving into an impressive 6-figure concrete business acquisition and growth story. 1 really cool thing: The owner, Erik, has scaled the business while working a full-time job, and managed to cut his active involvement down to about 5 hours a week. In 2023, Erik Swift went from learning the basics of acquisitions to buying a concrete restoration, repair, and replacement business that had been largely unchanged since the 1990s. There was no polished transition plan, no modern infrastructure, and no growth playbook waiting on the other side. Just a real business, a small team, and a lot of decisions to make once the deal closed. Impressively, Erik didn’t quit his W-2 job as a general contractor to do this. He stepped into an owner-operator role and spent time deep in the day-to-day: Replacing the former owners by taking over 100% of estimating and bookkeeping Cutting the service offering by roughly 50% to focus on higher-value work Raising prices by approximately 40% , driving up service quality and margins Rebuilding all core processes and SOPs from scratch Hiring, losing, and replacing day-to-day leadership Reducing active owner involvement to roughly ~ 5 hours per week This is the story of how he got there, and what the process can teach anyone trying to buy or build a business in 2026. Here’s what you’ll get out of today’s newsletter: Now let’s dive in... REMINDER Why a “Legacy Business” Is Often Hard to Take Over Erik’s career has revolved around project management, construction operations, and software, comprising a major part of his

How He Bought a 30-Year-Old Concrete Business, Unlocked Growth, and Reduced His Day-to-Day Role

3 psychological tools for crushing your goals ‍ We’ve watched thousands of smart people try to buy a business. If you do it right, it usually goes something like this... ‍ ‍ But many people don’t do it right. Usually, they lose momentum and get stuck right after the first big drop-off. ‍ ‍ That’s because, like most things, there’s a huge gap between people who talk about buying a business and people who actually do what’s necessary. ‍ ‍ One of the biggest lies people tend to tell themselves repeatedly is: “I’m going to do this... I just need to learn a little bit more .” ‍ ‍ “I just need to know more,” they usually say. “Then I’ll make a move...” Um... no. You will learn 10x more by doing than by thinking about doing. The people who actually make progress want to learn more, too, by the way. They just do it by taking action. More than that, they use practical systems that essentially bully them into taking action. See, when it comes to buying a business, the process can take time. You’re buying a business, after all. There are a lot of factors, decisions, and risks involved. It takes time to find the right business for you and structure the right deal. For Contrarian Academy member Jesus Wong, it took 6 months of focused search. ‍ ‍ Sometimes, it takes longer. For Alex Ramon, it was 18 months before he closed on the acquisition of a custom branding and merchandising company. ‍ ‍ That 1 move turned his existing business’s biggest expense into a new profit lever. “The owner had been running it for 23 years, was in his 70s, and was ready to retire,” Alex told us. “The employees had been there for over a decade. It was a perfect fit.” Other times, a deal can also happen relatively quickly. Take this person, who attended Main Street Millionaire Live : ‍ ‍ Really cool stuff

3 psychological tools for crushing your goals

In 2020, Peter Thiel sent an email that aged like a fine wine. He was applying basic incentive math: If... you load a generation with student debt. If... housing becomes structurally unaffordable for them. If... it gets too difficult for them to accumulate assets. Then... you shouldn’t be shocked when they turn against capitalism. If you don’t own anything, you can’t benefit from an economy that’s designed to increase asset values. Now Fast Forward to Today. As in, Literally Today... Last night, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York City, the financial capital of the world. Young voters backed him overwhelmingly. His platform promises include rent price freezes, free childcare, and free public busing, paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The immediate reaction from critics has been understandable: claims that young people are entitled, economically illiterate, or infected with socialism through TikTok. Whether or not that’s true, capitalism depends on participation. Without it, the system loses its defenders. If you want the next generation to be pro-business , you have to make it easier for them to do business . That means creating real on-ramps to ownership, not just telling people to “trust the process.” Right now, trust is thin. And everywhere you look, there are few reasons for it to thicken... For Example, Look 3,000 Miles West Right now, California is staring down the barrel of a consequential tax debate. A coalition wants to put a ballot measure before voters that would impose a significant tax on the net worth of Californians with more than $1 billion in assets. If passed, it could raise billions of dollars. However, this is not a corporate tax on profits or receipts. This is a wealth tax on unrealized

Peter Thiel predicted it: a generation locked out of assets turns against capitalism. Inside America's economic participation crisis, and the fix.

‍ START HERE “I Needed to Take On Something and Grow It. To Call It My Own.” Jesus Wong did everything right. Sixteen years in finance and accounting. Senior roles. Great salary. The kind of corporate resume that signals “made it.” And yet, something felt off. It wasn’t an itch. An itch is just a small scratch. This felt like a yearning. I needed to take on something and grow it. To call it my own.” That feeling eventually pushed him to walk away from corporate life with nothing lined up. No deal. No backup job. No income. Just a belief that ownership would deliver something a paycheck never could. What followed was a year-long grind that included: Reviewing 1,000+ businesses for sale Signing 200+ NDAs Reviewing hundreds of financial statements Submitting multiple offers And ultimately acquiring a $7M-revenue, multi-location manufacturing business in a niche most have probably never thought about before. This is the story of exactly how he got there. And more importantly, what his process can teach anyone trying to buy a business in 2026. Here’s what you’ll get out of today’s newsletter: Now let’s dive in... GETTING STARTED Making The Leap from a Corporate 9-5 When Jesus left his corporate role, he assumed he would start something from scratch. That assumption didn’t last long. “I didn’t realize how hard it is to start something. I spent a bunch of energy and resources on a few ideas and quickly realized starting something would take a long time, and that there was a lot of risk involved because of that.” That risk mattered more because he had no income coming in. So he started asking a different question: instead of building from zero, could he buy something that already worked? That idea led him toward the world of small business acquisitions. He dove in completely

After 16 years in corporate finance, Jesus Wong bought a 7-figure manufacturing business. Inside his acquisition journey and lessons for W-2 escapees.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” ‍ Friends, Christmas has quietly become one of the most sophisticated sales funnels on earth for junk. No longer about God + family, but about your credit card. Sugar. Booze. Boxes of stuff. It’s worth asking, honestly: How much of this makes your life freer, fuller, or actually rewarding 2 months from now? Let’s make Christmas contrarian again. See people you love. Eat. Gift. Be the weirdo who enjoys the celebration, but ALSO uses the season to create, not just consume. Leave it with stronger relationships, better habits, a new skill, a path to wealth, or a clearer sense of purpose. If you want that, we want to help you. Not with resolutions or vague self-improvement. But with 2 concrete moves. Here’s the first, and it’s happening soon: Learn How to Build Ownership at MSM.LIVE Sam Altman once wrote: “Though there are some exceptions,” he added, “almost no one in the history of the Forbes list has gotten there with a salary. You get rich by owning things... ” Okay... but how do you... do that? The truth is, you can learn it. The problem is, “building ownership” isn’t one skill. It’s a broad stack of skills. You need to know how to: Source opportunities that others miss Analyze numbers with rigor Structure financing Negotiate terms Operate once you own Sell down the road (potentially) No matter who you are, this stack is now essential: If you’re in a W-2: Inflation is eating away at your wages while AI is eating away at your role. Negotiating equity, profit-sharing, or ownership stakes is increasingly important. ‍ If you’re looking to buy your 1st business: You need to know how to source, evaluate, finance, and operate deals in a way that fits your time, capital, and risk profile.‍ ‍ If you

The best time to start was 20 years ago; the second best is now. A step-by-step path to business ownership in 2026, from mindset to money.

‍ START HERE From $140K to $1.6M Some of the greatest career paths are rarely straight lines. Dave Ausdemore is a prime example. After college, Dave joined the Army National Guard and later spent about eight years on active duty in the Air Force, focused on preventive medicine. From there, he moved into the civilian side of government, spending 14 years at the Centers for Disease Control. That work took him deep inside laboratories and healthcare facilities across the country, from Alaska to Puerto Rico. “I received a lot of wonderful technical experience, leadership experience, an understanding of how large organizations work, and probably more importantly, how the government procurement system works.” In 2011, Dave retired from government service. “I knew I wanted to work for myself. I knew I wanted to lead that ship, make the decisions, and reap the rewards. I didn’t have much of a plan. I knew I had skill sets that could be valuable, but I didn’t really know where to market them.” ‍ ‍ What came next was still not a straight line into business ownership. Dave took an assignment running a 200-person NGO supporting CDC work during the Ebola crisis. He also began experimenting entrepreneurially. He tried shipping groceries into Liberia. He pursued a fiber optics project tied to a World Bank plan. He spent a month prospecting for diamonds in the Liberian bush. Some efforts stalled. Others came close. All of them forced him to make decisions without complete information and work through the consequences. Eventually, Dave found traction in a narrow, technical niche: delivering certified testing, validation, and compliance solutions for cleanrooms, healthcare, manufacturing, laboratories, and other critical spaces across the built environment. “When I started doing this

From $140K to $1.6M: how Dave Ausdemore quietly scaled a niche certification business to 7 figures after decades in military and government service.

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” -Peter Drucker We’ve served nearly 15,000 business builders in recent years. Lately, a lot of them are seeing the same thing: Across society, data is pointing toward less focus, less ownership, and more fragility. A growing number of them want to actively push back . Here are 11 powerful ideas they’re taking seriously. 1. Choose Unkind Truths Over Kind Lies This chart explains why so many people, companies, and countries have drifted into quiet failure. If you want 2026 to be different, start here. Here’s the tactical rule those in our Academy and Boardroom programs know is true: If a truth will eventually have to be said, say it at the earliest possible scale. In practice: Give feedback when it’s a sentence, not a termination. Address misalignment when it’s awkward, not explosive. Name the problem while it’s still reversible. This will save you from being a jerk later. As one X user put it : “The reason it’s incredibly hard to break out of a ‘kind lie’ doom loop is because the longer it’s gone on, the more unkindness is needed to get back on track. And the fact that you’re in this situation to begin with probably means your culture will hate that.” Kind lies don’t disappear. They hide until they’re expensive. 2. You May Win More By Being a Tad Cringe Certain mindsets are great for protecting your ego but terrible for producing results. That tradeoff is about to matter more than ever. Arjun Mahadevan, CEO of one of our portfolio companies, Doola , has a phrase he likes to use: “Keep climbing Cringe Mountain.” Another person put it perfectly : “I don’t think you necessarily need to ‘be cringe,’ but you need to try. Somewhere along the line, people figured not caring was cool . Man

11 powerful ideas from 15,000 business builders on ownership, focus, and freedom, plus how to put them to work in your life and business in 2026.

‍ START HERE From Weekend Side Project to Managing 1,100 Doors Jimmy Murray has a funny way of describing his career arc: “I’m a millennial house hacker turned corporate dropout.” Jimmy grew up in a blue-collar household . Union carpenter dad. Nurse mom working nights. “Basically, a single-parent household most of the time,” he told us. “My dad worked seven to three. My mom worked until eleven.” Money was tight. “My dad was an awful cook. It was cereal, hot dogs, beans.” What was consistent was his dad’s advice: “Don’t swing a hammer like me. Go to school.” Jimmy did exactly that. Community college. Ohio State. A finance degree. Then Fidelity, where he stayed for 6 years. On paper, it looked like a great outcome. In reality, it felt hollow. “Everyone’s like, ‘Oh man, Fidelity. That sounds sexy,’” he said. “I was a financial analyst. I was going spreadsheet blind every day.” ‍ “One, I hated it. Two, I got paid pretty well. But three, it set me up for what I do today because I got to experience a lot of things that I liked and didn’t like.” In 2012, while still working full-time, Jimmy bought his first small multifamily property. A few months earlier, his grandfather, a World War II veteran and union plasterer, had asked him from a hospital bed, “Where do you think you’re going to go with the rest of your life?” Real estate felt concrete and timely in the aftermath of the financial crisis. His dad hated the decision. “He told me, ‘That may be the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your life.’” But Jimmy began placing tenants. “My mortgage payment was $1,043 a month. I placed my first tenant at $900. The second at $950. I lived in one unit. I had an inherited tenant at $600.” “I began to think about how to really make this work. At that point, I realized that I didn’t

Jimmy manages 1,100 doors. How finding one bottleneck in his property management business unlocked $900K in new revenue.

“Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome.” -Charlie Munger ‍ We work with more than 2,500 Main Street business builders every day. When a $100 billion acquisition grenade goes off like this, it might seem so big that it’s irrelevant... But it’s not. Big deals and small deals almost always come down to a few specific, fascinating forces . Understand these forces, and every deal starts to make sense. First, What’s Happening? On December 5, Netflix announced an agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) “crown jewels” in a deal valued at $82.7 billion . That includes the Warner Bros. film & TV studios and HBO. The Catch? This is a complex “breakup” play. It requires WBD to spin off its linear networks (CNN, TNT, TBS). Netflix gets the growth assets and legendary IP (Harry Potter, Superman, Game of Thrones, etc.) without the baggage of cable channels in secular decline. Wow! Crazy! So we’re getting a Stranger Things x The Sopranos multiverse? Not so fast. Just three days later, Paramount Global launched a hostile $108 billion bid for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery. The reaction in our company Slack: Sorry, bankers. There are a few remarkable things to note here. Namely, Netflix once tried to sell itself to Blockbuster for just $50 million. Think about that. Here’s the story from Marc Randolph, the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix: “If you are unwilling to disrupt yourself , there will always be someone willing to disrupt your business for you.” Ain’t that the truth. Today, Netflix is worth around $430B, or 859,900% more than what they asked Blockbuster to buy them for in 2000. This story is one of the great investing examples, perhaps of all time, of the value in building something inevitable over a long enough time horizon. It’s also an

Big deals and small deals run on the same forces. The universal science of dealmaking, explained: incentives, leverage, timing, and trust.

‍ START HERE 1 Strategy With Potential Across Any Industry... There’s a strategy we love called the Satellite Acquisition Model , and it’s how some of the smartest owners escape the trap of linear growth. Ideally, you have one successful, core business. But instead of letting that business stand alone forever, you find complementary businesses to pair with it. Example: A real estate company could strategically acquire: A property management company A social media agency A video production agency A landscaping company A mortgage brokerage Suddenly, the line items that used to be expenses are now positioned to be long-term profit centers. Let's look at how 3 other industries could use this model, and then we’ll show you exactly how 1 member of our community executed this with a 20+ year-old firm. 1. The Laundromat Most people see a laundromat as a simple business: washers, dryers, and quarters. But the biggest thinkers might see a foundation for multiple revenue streams: Acquire the vending machines (soap + snacks). Launch a wash & fold service. Acquire a fleet to offer pickup & delivery. Buy the property and rent out the extra commercial spaces. Sell private-label products (acquire a vendor?) 2. The Coffee Business The Average Order Value (AOV) of a coffee shop is notoriously low. Think about it this way: $5 for a latte = 200 customers just to crack $1,000 in sales for the day. Satellites can help solve the volume problem by increasing the overall basket size and adding new lines: Add a bakery/kitchen/catering (or partner with a local one). Buy the laundromat down the street, so they grab a drink while they wait. Don’t just buy beans; buy the roastery to control the supply chain. (Obviously, easier said than done.) We visited Atlas Coffee Club a while back and loved

The Satellite Acquisition Model: how one owner turned his biggest expense into a cash-flowing asset by pairing acquisitions with his core business.

"The cold and unromantic fact is: a good product with great distribution will almost always beat a great product with poor distribution." -Reid Hoffman ‍ ‍ Our goal at Contrarian Thinking is a great product with great distribution. Last week, we told you about how important it is to build a distribution-first business... Before you need it. Today, we want to show you exactly how we do this in our own business. But first, you need to understand 1 thing... Why is Distribution So Important? As AI lowers the barrier for creating things, it will raise the barrier for selling things. That means the latter will become an increasingly valuable capability. This goes for selling yourself, your brand, jobs you’re hiring for... all of it, not just “products.” Simply put, as we enter an age of creation abundance, it will require more to earn attention. Top investors, builders, and founders are already seeing this play out... As we showed you last week, technologist Balaji Srinivasan even says that startups now need a founding (content) “creator.” That nomenclature may be new, but the business need for people who understand distribution strategy really isn’t... Investor and former HotelTonight CEO Sam Shank recently said: ‍ "Don't start with the product. Start with distribution." Why would he say that so definitively? Because, in 2009, HotelTonight worked backwards to launch a product around a (then) brand new distribution channel: the Apple App Store. “That combo,” Sam says, “a unique distribution edge + a product tailored to it, powered our growth.” Most people flip that. They build something cool, ship it, and then wonder why no one showed up. Of course, any channel will eventually get harder to crack. David Sacks has called this the Law of Distribution Arbitrage . ‍ ‍ “The

A good product with great distribution beats a great product with poor distribution. Exactly how we turn attention into money at Contrarian Thinking.

‍ START HERE How 5 Acquisitions Built a $2.5M, 19-Person Firm Most people think accounting is boring. Kelly Bender thinks that’s perfect. Kelly has been advising small business owners for 15 years, building an accounting firm around serving what she calls “the quiet everyday millionaire next door.” In 2018, she noticed something: “It felt like everybody around us in the accounting space was retiring or dying.” But rather than wait for the ground to shift under her, Kelly saw it as an opportunity. She started buying firms. Some smaller ones. Then bigger ones. Five acquisitions later, she’s built a 19-person , multi-location , $2.5M firm with a path to break $3M soon. But scaling there wasn’t linear. Kelly has hit hurdles in hiring, operations, and dealmaking. This is the story of how she pushed through those hurdles, survived a 6-figure loss, and used 1 key operational shift to hire effectively in one of the hardest labor markets in America. Lots of lessons you can steal below... THE PROBLEM The 10x ROI of Being in the Right Room If you want to know where future fortunes will be made, don’t look at markets; look at rooms. Why? Wealth follows proximity . The closer you are to capital, information, and ambition, the higher your expected return. Presence is an asset. Yield is measured in things like better relationships, asymmetric insight, and time saved. Like any asset, the earlier you invest, the greater your potential to compound. Economists call it agglomeration , the phenomenon where productivity and innovation rise as people and ideas cluster together. By the time Kelly joined our programs, she already had a relatively established firm and a clear operational base, with acquisitions ranging from just $35k to about $750k . Each deal taught her something different

Kelly Bender used 5 acquisitions and better systems to build a $2.5M, 19-person accounting firm serving the quiet everyday millionaire next door.

Everything to focus on now, to win the next year. “There are no Silver Bullets... Only lead bullets.” -Ben Horowitz We work with more than 2,500 business builders every day. Every single one wants to know where to focus their firepower next year. So, here are 7 things we’d focus on if we had to start again. 1. Speed Over Almost Everything Else In 2026, speed is a proxy for organizational health. In a market where AI lowers the barrier to entry, one of the few defensible moats left is speed itself. Competitors will increasingly launch faster than ever and cheaper than ever. The “OODA Loop” (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) must be compressed with everything you do. The risk isn’t that your product is imperfect; it’s whether your product is perfect for customers who moved on 6 months ago. Take this from one of our portfolio CEOs: He’s right. If there’s a muscle the top 1% of builders flex better than anyone else, it’s urgency. Consider Bill Perkins . Mega-wealthy hedge fund dude + high-stakes poker player + the guy behind Die with Zero . Here’s what he told us: “I move faster than everyone else. So by the time most people have an idea, I’ve already taken action, done the thing, made 3 mistakes, and found a better way.” Preach. One way we’ve tried to implement this at Contrarian Thinking is through something called the 24-Hour Rule . If a prototype, solution, or idea cannot be executed in days, we’re likely too heavy for the current environment. You know how corporate America loves to say, “Let’s circle back on that next week”? Yeah, that makes us gag. 2. Selling Before You’re “Ready to Sell” In 2026, you need to stop thinking you need lots of money to move on an idea, a deal, or a business. It’s just no longer true.* *Unless you’re Sam Altman. Say we gave you 30 days to

Everything to focus on now, to win the next year.

Open for 10 critical lessons for any business builder or buyer... ‍ START HERE Around 2020, Zach Bundy and his wife Shannon began the process of acquiring a chiropractic clinic. At first, they muscled their way through and saw solid growth. “We’re like two blue-collar rednecks,” Zach jokes. “We ‘rednecked’ it as high as we could possibly go, to over a million dollars.” But without systems or structure, growth maxed out . The clinic stalled. Revenue slipped. Stress climbed. That’s when they began looking to the Contrarian Academy and Growth Boardroom for insight and guidance. What followed were real improvements across critical metrics. According to Zach: Client Acquisition: Jumped ~70% Retention: Increased from ~80% to ~90% SDE: Increased by roughly 20% Margins: Expanded by ~10% as payroll costs fell Stability: The business returned to positive growth after a period of decline Most importantly, after learning some brutally tough lessons, Zach and Shannon gained the confidence and systems to scale again, this time a better way. This is the story of what happened along the way: the missteps, breakthroughs, critical lessons, and the quantifiable improvements that followed. THE PROBLEM The Hidden Risk of Buying “Too Small” The Bundys entered the chiropractic industry by taking over an existing clinic that had lost key provider talent and staff. They weren’t experts, but they managed to grow it quickly. “We built up to a million-dollar top line, but it slowly started to decline. We knew we weren’t getting enough patients in the door, and what we’d built wasn’t functioning well enough.” At one point, the couple began to explore buying an additional business as a way to expand. Like many buyers, though, they approached their acquisition wanting to “go small” to reduce risk

Open for 10 critical lessons for any business builder or buyer...