Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - How Business Brokers Make Money: Spread vs Commission Model Explained

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

In this episode the hosts break down a wildly unconventional Shopify-focused business brokerage using a “spread-based” commission model, debating whether it’s a scalable innovation or just an overpriced job disguised as a business.Business Listing – https://mailchi.mp/websiteclosers/new-deal-alert-ma-digital-business-brokerage-shopify-ecommerce-store-sales-65-repeat-purchase-rate-100-organic-strong-community-reputation-gmfgmhkz201?e=42dc999128Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.Looking to build a professional website in minutes? Try Wix: https://wix.pxf.io/c/6898629/3115214/25616?trafcat=templateHubSpot is the backbone for how businesses scale without chaos. Try them out here: https://go.try-hubspot.com/OeG9VrSubscribe for more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@AcquisitionsAnonymousPodcast?sub_confirmation=1Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.acquanon.com/newsletter💰 Sponsored by:Quiet Light Brokerage specializes in helping entrepreneurs buy and sell businesses with experienced operators as brokers. They offer a free valuation clarity call to help owners understand what their business is worth and how to increase its value before selling. Learn more at https://quietlight.com/CapitalPad is a private equity co-investment group for lower middle market deals. Accredited investors invest in searcher and independent sponsor transactions on a deal-by-deal basis, with minimums starting at $25K. Acquisition entrepreneurs with a deal under LOI can raise equity through CapitalPad's single-SPV structure, closing with one partner and one wire. Raise capital or invest at https://capitalpad.comThis week on Acquisitions Anonymous, the hosts tackle one of the most meta deals they’ve ever reviewed: a business brokerage that specializes in selling Shopify and e-commerce businesses. The company claims over 230 completed deals, a 92–94% close rate, and an unusual monetization strategy where they earn a percentage of the “spread” above a seller’s expected valuation instead of charging traditional commissions. The asking price? A hefty $14.5 million.Key Highlights:- Shopify-focused brokerage claims 230+ completed deals and 85 closings in the last year alone- Unique “spread-based” pricing model replaces traditional broker commissions- Hosts discover inconsistencies between stated revenue, EBITDA, and transaction math- Debate over whether the business is scalable infrastructure or simply “buying a job”- Asking price of $14.5M sparks major skepticism from the panelSubscribe to  weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking hereDo you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show!Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations.For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Today's deal was crazy. Myself, Michael Ridley, Heather and Bill, went through a deal that was very meta. It was a business brokerage. In other words, a brokerage of businesses on a podcast talking about businesses for sale.

This was one of the wildest deals we've looked at and perhaps one of the most unique business models I've ever seen after nearly 500 of these episodes. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the episode. We had a ton of fun making it, and as usual,

great work by my co-hosts. Here's the episode. We'll set. Acquisitions Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% years anymore. And thumbs downing on just the plus inventory line. This episode of Acquisitions Anonymous is brought to you by Quiet Light brokerage.

And I'm sitting here to tell you I have both sold businesses with Quiet Light and bought businesses from Quiet Light. And in my opinion, they are extremely high quality people, very, very rigorous. and they're really straight shooters. One of the things that differentiates Quietlight is every single broker at Quietlight has been an operator. They have been an operator of an active business and they have sold it.

Many of them have also bought businesses. So they really understand what it means to be in the seller's seat and how important that is to you. And they also really understand what it means to be in the buyer's seat. So they don't BS you, but they really do know how buyers think.

All of the transactions I did with Quietlight, in fact, one of them, they took over a sale process that another broker had not been able to get done, and they got it done for me inside of 90 days. So I've had very positive personal experiences with QuietLight, and I do recommend them wholeheartedly to a lot of people, and now their sponsor of the podcast. So one thing you can get for free is if you head over to QuietLight.com, they will do a valuation clarity call with you, which is not a sales call. They're not pushy people. They'll just kind of tell you, hey, here's what your business is

probably worth, and here are a few things you could do to make it worth more. And hey, maybe don't sell it right now, do these things, come back to us in six months, and you'll get a much better multiple. So if you're thinking about selling your business or you're thinking about buying a business, especially in the e-commerce space where they're very, very strong. I've been doing this for over a decade. Go check out Quietlight brokerage over at Quietlight.com. Oh my God. Heather, we have these moments in the pre-show. But I look at everybody and I have to start yelling at everybody. Like, why are we now recording this? So Bill was about tells a story.

All right. Before I got a really mad that we were recording. Bill, over to you. All right. So I've got a great story. So a longtime listeners of the pod may know that I have a soft spot in my heart for dumpster rental businesses. They were one of the first businesses I ever inquired on and got very close to acquiring way back when I was a little wee business buyer. So I've always thought they're cool businesses. And there's one for sale in Charlotte. So I inquired on it. And I'm up on the phone with the broker. I'm speaking with the broker for, you know, a while. About halfway through the call, I asked him a question, and he goes, wait, are you Bill Dallessandro from Acquisitions Anonymous? Are you the bill? And I was like, yeah, that's me. And he goes, oh my gosh, I love your podcast.

I listen to like every single one. Like you guys do so great. I'm like such a big fan. And I was like, you know, thanks. That's so great. And he goes, he immediately flips. And he's like, do you have any feedback on my teaser? Like, you guys are always like, you're ripping apart of these teasers from I would love any feedback you have on my teaser. How could I make it better? Like, you know, can my sim be any better? So I, you know, I chatted with the guy for a while. And he was like a huge fan.

So we are influencing the business brokers of America on this podcast. Wow. Yeah. Our reputation will see it to us. Wow. Heather, what's the most famous place you've been recognized because of your acquisition? Well, just conference. But I did.

I just asked. someone, hey, is this seat taken? And they turned around and I didn't know the person. They said, Heather. And I didn't know them. So I was like, yeah, but they just recognized my voice. So that was kind of cool. I got recognized at Chili's the other day. No, I'm just kidding. No, right. All right. So I did find a deal that's very meta since we're talking about business brokers. It is a business brokerage itself. Yes. I love this. So let me, Let me pitch this to you guys. How meta is?

Did they hire a business broker to sell their business brokerage? It is website closers.com. Oh, okay. All right, it's an M&A digital business brokerage, Shopify, e-commerce store sale, 65 repeat purchase rate, 100% organic, strong community reputation, and they've closed 230 deals. Wow, okay. The asking price. Are you sitting down, Bill? Yes, you are.

I am. I can see on camera. The asking price is $14.5 million. Okay. I hope it's profitable. Which could be cheap. I did have somebody I talked to you the other day who was interested in selling their business. And they won't tell us much about it. We're familiar with it. But the guy goes, it's $3.1 million. It's like, okay, that's a very precise number. And he's like, what do you think? I was like, well, it could be really expensive or really cheap or really fair. I don't know. So let's dig it. $14.5 million for this digital business brokerage.

$14.5 million. 8.6 million in sales. Earnings is $2.4 million. Website closers trademarked presents an M&A business brokerage specializing the acquisition and sale of Shopify-based e-commerce businesses, operating within a clearly defined niche that has enabled rapid scale, strong deal velocity, and exceptional close rates. The company has developed a reputation for executing transactions with speed and precision, driven by a highly curated pipeline of sellers and engaged capital-ready buyer network.

By focusing exclusively on cash-flowing e-commerce businesses, the brokerage has deep domain knowledge and expertise, allowing it to consistently match qualified buyers with high-quality opportunities while maintaining a disciplined approach to mandate selection. It operates under a performance-driven monetization structure that captures value through the spread between seller expectations and final transaction. price, eliminating reliance on retainers listing fee or traditional commission models. This approach creates full alignment with transaction outcomes while reinforcing a culture centered entirely on closing viable deals.

This is getting really interesting. Yeah. Tell me more, Michael. Wait, wait, all right, so pause, pause, pause. So this brokerage does not take success fees. They somehow, to ask you, seller, what you think your business is worth, and then they're like, if we can get more than that, you give us half or something?

Is that what it seems like. Heather, is that how you hear this? That is how I read it. It's the difference between what they were expecting and what they get. And they're describing that as not a commission, but I guess it's a different type of commission. Calculated differently. Since inception, the company has completed more than 230 transactions, including over 85 of the most recent year, demonstrating both scalability and consistency and execution. average revenue per transaction of approximately $29,500 supports strong unit economics,

while deal sizes ranging from $25,000 to $500,000 primarily concentrated between the $80,000 and $200,000 amount attract a broad base of buyers targeting assets generating $5,000 to $100,000 in monthly profit. A significant portion of the seller's return for subsequent transactions, reinforcing the strength of the brand and creating a self-sustaining pipeline of repeat business. So these are relatively small, Bill. These are not big. $1,000 revenue. What was the total revenue again?

$8 million? $8.5 million. So wait, how does that math work? They sold $8.6 million, and they said they did 85 deals in the most recent year. So that's eight, they must be doing the total. So $8.6.3.1. I mean, divided by $29,000, and that would be $300 deals.

you know, if you divide the revenue by $29,000, which they said is the average revenue. I'm beginning to see why they hired website closers because things are already getting a little shady. So if they did 8.6 million in sales last year, and they did 85 transactions, that comes out to $100,000 or so per deal of sales. and then I guess the average revenue per transaction is $85 times $29,000. Is that the math you're doing? No, they say the average revenue per transaction is $29,000. So I said they would have to have done $296 transactions to get to $8.6 million in revenue. So that's the math that's not working.

So I think they are, here's where I think this is at. I think they are taking the deal size, which, remember, these guys are charging like a spread between the seller expectation and what it actually solves for. Let's say, Bill, you're right. They're taking half of the spread. And then they're counting that spread as their portion of that spread as revenue. And so if I take 85 deals from the last year and they say here, average revenue per deal is $29,500. if I do $85, $85 deals times 295 per deal, I get $2.4 million, which is what they say their earnings are. Oh, net earnings. Oh, I see. Maybe that's really their revenue. Maybe $2.4 million is what I would call their revenue, and they're grossing up the sales is the number of the sales price of all the businesses.

But they only made gross of $2.4 million. Yeah, that's what it is. So it's really gross revenue of $2.4 million. and there's obviously some costs. So, you know, even if they have a huge margin, you know, it's a margin of 2.4 million. Yeah. So 8.6 million here would be like total enterprise value. That they sold, of businesses that they sold.

Yeah. If we're right, or this is just cuckoo. Well, and it's very cuckoo if 2.4 million is total revenue and they want to sell it for 14.5 million, because that makes no sense at all. Yeah, okay. All right, well, continue. Okay, so they make about 30 grand when they close a deal, and they've got this kind of spread over expectation sharing model. But there's a lot more here, actually, Michael. So tell us more. A seller acquisition is driven entirely through organic channels, including referrals, word of mouth, and a well-established digital presence that generates more than 1,000 inbound submissions annually. The high-volume pipeline enables selective deal intake supporting a best-in-class close rate of approximately 92 to 94%. On the demand side, the company is built a proprietary buyer ecosystem of more than 2,000 active investors,

with weekly deal distributions achieving open rates exceeding 50%. almost as good as our newsletters. We should subscribe, dear listener. This highly engaged audience drives liquidity within the platform with approximately 80% of transactions now completed internally without reliance on third-party marketplaces. Paid search initiatives further enhance buyer acquisition while strengthening long-term control over deal flow and audience ownership.

The brokerage manages the full transaction lifecycle including listing, preparation, buyer qualification, deal structure, and contract execution and transfer coordination. The operating model is highly systematized, enabling rigid transaction times, with many deals closing within 30 days, and some completing even faster due to pre-qualified buyer demand. The current infrastructure supports 35 concurrent listings and has demonstrated the capacity to scale significantly without proportional increases in overhead. Business operates with a lean structure supported by a combination of internal leadership, specialized contractors, and target external resources allowing for efficient execution while maintaining flexibility. they have a strong emphasis post-sale support, blah, blah, good reputation.

Then there's some other stuff here about how to grow the thing. I don't know if there's anything here worth me talking about. The broker added their two cents, highly aligned performance-driven revenue model, proprietary network, scalable systematized platform,

and so on. And the code name for this, Heather. This is my favorite part. I'm so glad you're not missing this. This is the best part of the whole thing. The code name for this, Heather, is named, is named after your weekend at Waffle House

after a party night out is Project Midnight Waffle. Okay. Amazing. Project Midnight Waffle, that's the best. That's maybe the best project name I've ever heard for a deal.

I'm going to call it Project Broken Calculator right now. That's a mom joke if I've ever heard one. That's a mom joke. Let's go back to what I think is truly the unique thing here. Oh, they brought in the word spread. I didn't even, I brought it in and they brought it in themselves. The spread-based monetization structure that eliminates reliance on upfront fees while

directly tying revenue to successful deal execution. So this idea that they talked to a seller, the seller says, I want $100,000 for my business. And these guys, Midnight Waffle, which, man, that would be awesome. That was a real name. Midnight Waffle says, well, we'll go try to get you a better deal than that, but we get half, let's say we get half of whatever we go above $100,000, right? And let's say they get $150,000, midnight waffle makes $25,000, because that's the difference between half of the difference between $100 and $150,000. So how do we feel about this model? Like, Bill, first principles wise, like, is this smart?

I mean, they have a business that appears to be profitable. anytime I see one of these, not even a business broker, but like a business that makes his money in a novel or cute way, I immediately go, like there's a reason that industries converge on pricing models,

you know, for a bunch of reasons, and there's a reason that brokers end up with a success fee model. It's either because the customer just insists on it that way and it's really hard to sell otherwise, or, you know,

that's the only way, the broker or the broker or the business can protect itself. There's usually a reason. So I'm curious, sort of how, I'm surprised that they've made this work to a business of some real scale here. I just think the spread model is so dependent on what the seller thinks their business is worth. And definitionally, the whole point of a business broker is that sellers don't really know what their business is worth. So you're coming, you're having, you're kind of anchoring your ability to make money.

on what the seller comes in with. And if you're a seller and you, I mean, you're obviously not stupid, you know this is sort of how it is and you just go, my business is worth a gazillion dollars. And so, like, I just don't know how in practice

you talk them down to a number that works. And then do I want to be a buyer on this marketplace where the only way the broker gets paid is if I pay more than what the... Well, but that's always the case, right? I guess. It's especially the problem here, you know? It's a problem.

depends on who C you're in. It's a problem if you're a buyer, but maybe it's not such a problem to the buyer a little bit. Yeah. So with this, you know, there's this constant problem with,

I mean, does this only work because the type of business they're doing is such a narrow niche? These are e-commerce, Shopify businesses. And so it's e-com only, so they're taking away people with live storefronts.

They're tiny. and there just happens to be a market of consolidators in this space at this point? Is that why this works? I mean, this works. These businesses are relatively small. E-commerce is sexy. There are always people with SBA loans who want to buy businesses with or without SBA loans. I mean, with Thrasio and all the big Amazon aggregators kind of coming out of this market,

you know, there's not the insane bid in this market that they used to be. But this market, heck, I built my business on the existence of this market way before Thrasio was a thing. So there is always a baseline of people who want to buy econ businesses. It's small deals and they're running 85 closings a year. That's seven closings a month. So it is pretty high volume, small ticket. And it seems like they've found a nice niche for how to at least take a small ticket deal and turn it into $29,000. You know, I think that's kind of intriguing.

and it seems like they've done that very successfully. They feel like they're probably too small for SBA loans. You know, most SBA business acquisition lenders, there are tiny SBA loans out there, yes, but most banks don't want to do a business acquisition loan that's, say, below $300,000, because it's just too much work for the amount of loan that they end up getting.

So it almost feels like these are even smaller than that. Would this structure work for Acquire.com? Maybe. our sponsor. I'm just like, man, this is generating a lot of cash. You know, an acquirer is doing small dollar memberships, right? Like, that's a tough way to get to high ARR. But this appears to be the other end of the spectrum,

where these guys are taking $30,000 on 150 enterprise value deals. Like, I don't know. It's a good take rate if that's where it pencils out. I mean, maybe this isn't an innovative. in pricing. But here's the thing. Let's say this, let's talk about sort of transferability of this business. Let's say they do have real innovation in pricing. There is nothing protectable about that. And, you know, now we're doing a podcast about it and they're going to sell this business. And like, if this gets pervasive, right, either the whole industry reprises around this way of pricing or,

And even if that happens then, margins kind of compress probably to about the same Vig that business brokers take now. So I don't think that I wouldn't buy this business on like the long term durable advantage of their different business model because it's pretty easy for any broker to price their services this way. Yeah. So what am I getting when I buy this? Like, Heather, I'm getting a brand name, getting a mailing list. It sounds like they do a fair amount of process work on the deal that they have obviously automated quite a bit, or they wouldn't be able to afford to do, you know, 85 deals a year. However, I am going to say this.

I still believe that this brokerage gets gross revenue of $2.4 million, and they didn't tell us anything about their cost structure. So I am guessing that their cost structure is very efficient, but they may have people doing those processes, too. But you're getting that, you're getting whether it's a team or, or a digital platform to run the process. And they are saying that 80% of their closings are not dependent on a third-party platform, but that means 20% maybe are coming through a biz buy sell or a choir or something like that.

So they've got their own sales channel for at least 80% of what they do, and they've got some systems in place. I think that's mainly what you're getting. Hi, everyone, it's Bill. And I want to tell you about maybe the most exciting sponsor we've had in a long time on the pod. called Capital Pad, and it is the thing that I wish existed when I started my journey of operating and investing in small businesses. So CapitalPad is a marketplace for acquisition entrepreneurs that is people who want to buy a business and need capital to list their deals

and solicit capital from other people who want to invest in acquisition deals. So if you want to back somebody buying a small business, Capital Pad is a place to do it. And And if you want to buy a business and need capital, you can go on CapitalPad to be introduced to investors. So the really great thing, too, from the investor side is that CapitalPad takes care of all of the details that can get hairy with small business acquisitions. They handle standardized terms, standardized governance, standardized distributions all up front in black and white.

Basically, CapitalPad professionalizes investing in small businesses, and the returns can be really, really good. I'm so stoked that they exist. It's founded by my friend Travis, who is a phenomenal entrepreneur in his own right. So if this sounds like something that's appealing to you, if you want to buy a small business and need capital, or if you want to invest in small businesses, go check out Capitalpad.com and tell them that Acquisitions Anonymous sent you. Let's talk about the general concept of buying a professional services business, which is what this is, right? I mean, when, The person who owns this is probably the lead broker, the broker in charge, right?

And that person is presumably going to go to the beach after they sell you their business, right? That's kind of the point of why they're selling it because they've been selling a bunch of businesses and they want to stop doing that all day every day. So immediately, kind of you have to be a business broker, I would think, because there's no mention in here of like, you know, a team of five brokers or like anything like that. to me, this sort of reads as this is a guy or girl and with some support, but maybe not a lot, because we don't even see a ton of expenses here. If we do have this sort of $2.4 million is listed as EBITDA, but kind of is the revenue.

You know, maybe there's not a lot of expenses. So this is a professional who hustles hard, prices, his services in a way, and clears $2.4 million a year, which is awesome. But I don't know if that's viable. you know, I just don't know if it's transactable. And you need a license. You know, it's not just that you're replacing this person and their hustle, but if you're a business broker, you need to be licensed.

And they didn't mention that, but I think that's probably key here. Not just anybody can do it. All right, stupid question warning. How license do you really have to be to be a business broker and is it really enforced? Good question. I think this is where it's, It's tricky. Like a lot of licensing, I think it depends on the state where the business is located. And if these are all e-commerce, that becomes problematic because they're all virtual, you know. So I don't know. Maybe it doesn't really get enforced in this case because it's not state-located, you know, based. But in some states, you have to have kind of a real estate license. And in other states, you have to have a more specific license. Wait, are you telling me that every business broker that I know that sells businesses all over the country is licensed in 50 states individually?

Yeah, exactly. They're not. They're not. No. No. No. So is this like a nice to have you kind of like, I mean, I know you can't like be an investment banker and like actually do securities transactions, but like there's without a license, but there's got to be a scale here where, you know, you can help somebody sell their business and take a fee and you don't need a license. GERBG. GPD, do you have any idea about this? I just asked about Texas. We are in a non-licensure state for business brokers. In practice, you tend to either need to have a combination of a real estate brokerage license because real estate is so often part of these deals. Then there is also the issue of securities licensure. So if you're advertising securities for sale, there are things where you need to be, you should consider being federally licensed as a broker dealer.

So, yeah, that's what I know. I think it's a gray area, especially in that last part. I think that the business broker groups or trade groups fought that last part pretty hard a couple years ago because it was going to be very difficult. But otherwise, it's usually real estate brokerage license. And you're right. If you're selling businesses in all 50 states, nobody's going around and getting the real estate license, I don't think, in all those states.

I think it's just falling in a gray area. And for these small deals, you're probably, I guess you're probably safe. You know, but there is a gray area there. You'd have to answer. Well, I'd have a question about what licenses I need or don't need. I'm going to assume that, I mean, just no offense to all for our business broker friends.

out there. But based on all the business brokers I've met, the bar cannot be that high to pick up this line. I mean, there's a lot of realtors in the world, too, is my point. Right? Like, like, we should be able to get, like, I should be able to get this license if I want to buy this business. It's not like master plumber. It's going to take you a whole bunch of years to get. Like, you take an online course. Congratulations. The Universal United Church of Business Brokers, you know, online certification, your business broker. I would talk. I did talk to a business burger the other day, who by the way, was shocked when I, you know, I was on the phone with him. I was like, thank you so much for answering my emails. Thank you so much for returning my

phone calls. Thank you so much for being direct. And he was kind of shocked. He was shocked that I was thanking him for doing that because fundamentally I was just thinking him for basically like being a normal professional, you know, like doing what you're supposed to do. And the bar is so low in this, in his industry that he was kind of shocked. I would say that. I was like, bro, you have no idea. So anyway, that's the anecdote about some of the folks in the brokerage space. It's an unprofessional space, which is why there's Alfa.

Right? Yeah. It's, if things ever go wrong, Bill, that's still your future. I've always said my wife. If it really hits the fan, I could be a great business broker overnight. Okay, so this is a business broker listing their business. and they probably get pretty high multiples for these tiny deals. I'm not sure what the multiples would be for these tiny deals.

I don't know, low multiples. I don't know what they're getting. But they're asking six times gross revenue for this business. Yeah, I mean, the valuation, I just can't get my arms around. Yeah, and they're a business broker. So. I mean, even if the $2.4 million is EBITDA, cash flow, whatever, I mean, they're asking six, seven times here.

Right. If that was EBITDA. but I don't believe it is. And I mean, okay, let's say it's like a highly, highly profitable, automated, really good margin, like repeat B2B services business. Like, okay, I can see that. But I have a feeling you're going to pull the cover back on this thing and you're going to see that this person is a key employee and they're about to leave. So like you're basically, he's trying to sell you his career for seven times annual earnings. And guess what?

You're not him. You don't have his talents, his, you know, connections. This is just totally, unless there's something that he's not in this teaser, this feels pretty untransactable to me, almost at any price. Right? I agree. I like how this person's core business is like going around taking, they said they have a thousand applicants per month or whatever to list their businesses,

going around, parsing through those for people that are underpricing their, or a thousand annually. Listening, you know, so there's 750 people a month, 800 people a month that are basically sending him deals. He looks for the 35 of them per month that I think are underpricing their business and they don't understand how much it's worth. He takes it to market at that price and then takes the spread above it. So it's interesting that the meta aspect of this is the whole business is built on

sellers who don't know what their business is worth. and here this guy's doing exactly the opposite by just pricing it in fantasy land. It's like, oh, like, bro, like read the room. It's like, no, I'm going to price this it seven times revenue and see if I can make it happen. And it's like, well, can't blame him for asking. So, but there is something here, right?

I mean, he's got a digital presence. Hopefully it's not just like his name.com. You know, hopefully it's got a brand and like there's a business brokerage here that generates a thousand in-band submissions annually, which is two or three a day of people who want to sell their business, which they screen out a bunch of them. I mean, they're doing a lot of work.

You're selling 80 businesses a year. That's a lot of work. You know, that's a lot of work. Now, these are smaller businesses and you probably can systematize a lot of it. But like at the end of the day, this is a deal business, and you are going to have to be a little bit in the middle of this thing, you know, massaging your seller, talking to your buyer. So, like, either it's just him or there's some hustlers around him

that maybe don't do the deal. But there's got to be some value here, right? Like, let's say you're a business broker at another brokerage and you want to go out on your own and kind of step into this system. Can you buy it? Like, is it, let's even just say you can buy it and you step in and you're becoming the broker in charge

and okay, this guy was doing most of the deals before and now you're doing the deals and you know how to do the deals. That's worth something, right? I mean, I don't think it's worth $14 million. And I think there's also like a, buy versus build decision if you're a broker like you just build up your own lead gen is this worth anything like how let's say you're the perfect buyer and you can kind of step into an

operating role and you would also like to make $2.4 million a year brokering businesses and think you could do it how do you structure a deal like what value is there here how much and how do you structure it I mean this is a good business it's a good business stone I don't I'm still with you, Bill. I don't know if it's a good business to buy. I mean, if you look at fundamentally. Like a percentage of revenue, you know? I mean, the moat here is you're trying to create a marketplace, right,

where you have this inflow of deals, and then you have all of the buyers, right? And you start to know who their names are and who does what with the 2000 active investors. But all of those, you know, all of those sellers and all of those buyers, they're more than happy to be on more than one platform. This is not a winner-take-all market, and it feels very much like a normal brokerage.

So to your point, Bill, because of that, it feels like it has to be a, like some sort of like cash-down, strong earn-out type thing, royalty-type scheme to work. But at the same time, this guy's asking $14 million for a business that does $2 million in revenue based on we could tell. That's a pretty far cry from, you know,

a strong-earn-out-type. deal. Yeah, I mean, to me, this is like almost like an apprenticeship type deal where you say, like, I'm going to come in, I'm going to shadow you for three years. You know, in year one, you keep 66% of it or 75% of it. And year two, I keep 50% of it. And year three, I keep 75% of it or something. Or some, and then maybe you pay him at the end of the 30 or some number. There's got to be some phase in where you shadow him, you learn the business, you risk share, you know, and you kind of take over this guy's career. Unless there's a lot here as far as infrastructure employees, etc., that is not in the teaser, in which case, shame on website closer for not including

in the teaser, because that would make this much more transactable. But I don't know. Look, you could just re, I mean, you could, I think you could recreate and go after, you know, go after and rebuild this business for less than a million bucks. Like, I think, maybe even less and compete with this guy. Like, the, 1,000 inbound submissions annually. I'll tell you how the guy's getting them. It's pretty straightforward. 1A is meta ads targeting the specific domains of these e-commerce businesses.

Number two is direct emailing them. It's pretty straightforward. We all know how to do that. You just outbid this guy and be more aggressive on that side. And then you build up your list of active investors by going through all the platforms. They're already looking at Acquire.com and Biz by sell. You'll find them eventually. So that's where I think, back to your point, Bill.

the transferable value here is relatively limited, just because you could compete with us. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's tough. Unless there's something in here that's not apparent in the teaser. And might I also say that business broker teasers in this age of AI, large language models,

are out of control. They are way too long. They are way too stuff with buzzwords. Like, geez, summarize this for me, please, Claude. Website closers loves to be for purpose. They probably were using AI to just mass write these things years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'm fast. So, all right, so zoom out. This business is a little bit weird.

Is a business brokerage a good business? Like, would you guys buy a business brokerage? Like, imagine one. So, like, I'm going to pick on our friends here at Quietlight.

Right? They've got probably 15 brokers. Right. I know the guys that own Quietlyte don't broker businesses anymore, right? It's a real business and that they're not in the middle of it. They've got brokers. I think it's, I think, and I don't know this, but I expect it's structured more like a realty firm, a realtor firm, where, you know, the brokers split their commission with the house essentially and get to use the house's distribution list and infrastructure and all that stuff. Is this a business, would you guys buy a well-structured business brokerage like that or you want nothing to do with it?

Probably not. I think this is the kind of business that it's like selling any other professional services from. You have younger partners and older partners and the younger partners eventually buy out the older partners. And it's more of a succession plan than an actual sale to a third party. That's what I think would fit better for an M&A brokerage. What about, I mean, I'll make a case for it. I mean, businesses are always going to transact, right? It's a big market. It's a B-to-B market.

Brand does matter. The network effect of having a whole bunch of buyers who are active in a reputation in the space, like, for example, Quietlight does. You know, I think there's some enterprise value there. You know, I don't know, I would buy something like Quietlight. assume, but my whole criteria are you need infrastructure. The owners can't work in the business. Like this has to be, you're attracting both business sellers,

but you're also attracting brokers. You know, any broker can go out there and hang their own shingle and be a broker, but you want to make it more attractive to be on your platform, you know, with infrastructure. So, so that's, and that's a B2B marketing too. Hey, come work for us and, you know, you do well with a good broker. They grow your business. there's no overhead.

I mean, there's functionally no fixed cost, right? All your employees simply eat what they kill and you've got an email list. Yeah. I mean, you do see brokerages trade all the time and real estate brokerages trade all the time. There are insurance brokerages that trade all the time. So there are buyers for them.

You know, I think you're, when you asked, hey, Gurdley or Heather, would you like to buy this? We're going to answer with perspective of somebody who doesn't have a platform already. But you start to look at like C.B. BRE and all these guys in the real estate space, they're buying up brokerages all the time. And I think there are buyers for that stuff.

It just tends to be people already in that space because then they can bolt it on to their infrastructure. So, Heather, I don't know what your thoughts are. Yeah, I agree. It's kind of, it's either the junior partners buy out the senior or something like that, strategic buyers, you know, where you get rolled up into something larger. To be a standalone, not a business broker and just come in and buy this, I think that's pretty tough.

Okay. So if you're thinking about starting in business brokerage, know that there's almost no enterprise value in it, is what you're saying. Yeah, but that's okay. And look, I appreciate the innovation in this space. Like, this is cool. Like, would I rather, would I like to own this or Quiet Light look quite like as a good, you know, good reputation? At the same time, this business model and the systemization here, this is really attractive compared to your standard professional services, business broker type stuff.

Like, I really love the innovation of this thing. I think it's great. Yeah. And they're making good money, so you can't knock it. I don't know. We still can't make heads or tails of these numbers. And for that reason, I'm out. I mean, geez, you think like a business broker would like do the basic math.

So the hilarious thing is in this world, 2026, every time I see a teaser, I put it into Claude and I go, research the internet, which business do you think this is? Always do that. Claude, before even giving me its guesses, goes, there's something I need to flag. The numbers don't add up. And it did the exact math that we did. So, like, how, like, it's malpractice to publish this with just numbers that don't add. It blows the credibility of the entire listing. I mean, your, your sellers on their back foot from the jump. I'm already not going to trust almost any number coming out of this business for the entire process. It's just such a bad look and it's so avoidable.

And you're wasting your time and every buyer's time to try to tell them what the math really is later on. Yeah, it's tough. You just can't do it. You just can't have it. All right. So any, I would be thumbs up if this were a different brokerage that was more systematized. But this one, I think, feels like buying a job. that's what I mean.

Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Feels risky, but it's awesome. Assuming the multiple, I assume my DSCR work, Heather, can I get an SBA loan for a business like this? That is a good question. I don't know if there's any restriction eligibility-wise from a business brokerage getting an SBA loan. Maybe not.

I can't think of one. So yeah, you know, if you, it would be like three to three and a half times EBITDA. you could borrow about that much. But here we don't know what the EBITDA is. And certainly, you're not going to get 14.5 million. And of course, the SBA max is out at 5 million. So, you know, this asking price is way out of range. But if you could figure out what EBITDA was, you could borrow about three and a half, 3.75 times that. And no exclusion for service-based businesses or anything? No, we can be service-based businesses, professional services, you know, they're all eligible. Insurance brokerages. Is this like broker-dealer, money

transfer type of thing that that exclusion or now? I don't think so. I'm not 100% because I just never seen an SBA loan request for a business brokerage. But from what I know, I don't think it's ineligible. I think it could be eligible. Okay. Interesting. Well, if you go, if you go get the teaser, let us know how it is on X.

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