Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - This $2M Nursing Brand Might Be Impossible to Buy

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

In this episode, the team analyzes a highly profitable flamethrower manufacturing business and debates whether its massive margins, robot-mounted products, and regulatory risks make it an incredible acquisition opportunity or a liability nightmare.Business Listing – https://quietlight.com/listings/18180678/Welcome 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: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.comQuiet 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/This week on Acquisitions Anonymous, the hosts review one of the most outrageous businesses ever featured on the show: a flamethrower manufacturer listed for sale in Ohio. The company is asking $2.2 million and reportedly generates $836,000 in annual revenue with approximately $542,000 in seller discretionary earnings. Founded in 2015, the business sells specialized flamethrowers for agriculture, vegetation management, fire ecology, entertainment, and industrial applications.Key Highlights: - Asking price: $2.2 million with $836K revenue and $542K SDE.- Products include handheld flamethrowers, drone-mounted systems, and robotic flamethrower dogs.- Hosts debate whether patents, certifications, or regulations create a defensible moat.- Major concerns include product liability, insurance costs, lender appetite, and regulatory risk.- Discussion includes creative growth strategies using influencers, YouTube creators, and viral content marketing.Subscribe 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]

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous, the internet's number one podcast for small business M&A. I'm Mills Snell, one of your co-host, me, Bill, and Heather talk about a fascinating business today. It's a online business, does $6 million in revenue, $2 million in SDE, and they are a niche nursing education program. They offer study guide materials. They sell direct to e-commerce, direct to consumers, e-commerce. It is a fascinating business. They come off the top of the listing description that it's

SBA pre-qualified. We talk about whether or not that really matters. Heather always has a strong opinion on this. We talk about whether SBA or traditional financing is really the right path or not. And this is a really interesting business. I really like it a lot. We all liked it, had really positive things to say about it. I hope you enjoy the episode. Stick around after a quick word from our sponsors. Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% beers anymore. And thumbs downing on just the plus inventory line.

Hey, 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. It's called CapitalPad. 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. 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, CapitalPad is a place to do it.

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, Capital Pad professionalizes investing in small businesses. And the returns can be really, really good. I'm so stoked 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 is 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. All right. You were joining us for Acquisitions Anonymous Lightning Round because the host talked about, we talked amongst ourselves for 40 minutes and then forgot to hit record. So we have 20 minutes left in this recording block, but we have a cool deal that we want to do. So we are going to skip the banter and get right into it.

I'm going to put it on the screen for our YouTubers. If you don't follow us on YouTube, you should check it out. You can see the teasers. You can see a lot of fun pictures. Sometimes we have cool things to see. But this week, it's from our friends at Quiet Light Brokridge. This is an SBA pre-qualified,

six-year-old number one nursing education brand with $6 million bucks of revenue and $2 million of SDE, 14% year-over-year growth, 3 million followers on social. and 67% margins. They're asking $9.2 million. So that is four and a half times.

So let me tell you a little bit more about it. This is a six-year-old company is the number one D-to-C nursing education brand in North America. Six million bucks of revenue, $2 million of TTMSDE, 14% year-over-year-year growth, and almost 68% gross margins.

Founded in 2019 by a registered nurse who created simplified study materials during her accredited nursing program, the business grew from Etsy into a trusted Shopify brand with more than 3 million social media followers. Their nursing school bundle is the most recognized supplemental resource for nursing students nationwide. Revenue stabilized at current levels as the owner's transition from a founder-dependent viral business to a systematized operation built for scale.

The 12-person team led by a COO with four-year's tenure handles all-operative operations, content production, and marketing execution, with systems and processes that enable seamless transferability. Diversified traffic includes paid Google, 18%, organic search, 16%, email and SMS, 15%, organic social, 32%, paid social 11%, and referral, 9%. So very well-diversified traffic sources. A 425,000 person email list generates $7 to $18,000 per campaign with average order values of about $120. Clear growth paths offer a substantial upside. Number one, prerequisite product creation, which I think is for other types of study. NCLEX test prep represents the highest value opportunity as nursing graduates invest heavily in exam prep.

and this company's established trust with 3 million followers positions it to capture this market. Membership monetization offers recurring revenue potential, with existing portal requiring minimal development to convert product buyers into paying subscribers. Four, immediate cost optimization through 3PL transition project projects 200,000 of annual savings by reducing per-order fulfillment from $19 to $14. And five, Amazon FBA provides quick win. as the company captures less than 1% of Amazon revenue despite 5,000 monthly brands, urges.

After six years, the owners would like to focus on family with the founder seeking 10 to 20% equity retention and providing one to four years for filming and marketing continuity at 15 to 20 hours weekly. That's all I got. What do you guys think? This is an amazing business. You're all excited, Melz? Yeah.

I mean, I did Google. Google search it a little bit, not to try and out this business or the founder, but just to try and figure out exactly what it is, because they're not an accredited program. Like, this is not a substitute for nursing school, which obviously would be a very, just like Red Ocean. I think this is all just like you're already in nursing school. Here are pre-made study guide, flash card type things. And I think I found the business.

And it kind of checks all the boxes like this one has. has 862,000 Instagram followers. And they have a podcast and they say, you know, if you use our text, our test prep for NCLEX, we're at a 99% pass rate. Like, you would basically be stupid not to just try it because the price point is so low.

The price point's 120 bucks, right? Well, it looks like, so they have like a study guide bundle that is like, you know, nursing guys. collection volume one, two, and three. That's $179. They say it's on sale from $240, but then they have like pharmacology flashcards for nursing students for $49, you know, and things like that. So the bundle basically, I think, like puts a handful of things together,

but each volume is about $80. So it makes sense why the average order value is, you know, that blended down, right? So this is a website. a Shopify store where you go and you buy Dead Tree printed stuff and they ship it to you. Yes? Yep. Okay. And it's books,

it's flashcards, it's things like that, right? Yep. It's not online courses. It's just the material. No, it's just material.

One-time purchase, too, right? I mean, that's what the broker said as an opportunity for growth is convert to subscription or membership. Yeah. Now, I wonder, like,

you would probably have to create different product lines for that, right? Because once somebody passes this test, test, they're not taking it again. Like there's planned, you know, it's like planned obsolution or whatever because you want people to pass. But then you would have to figure out, and this person is probably the best person to figure out, what is the next thing? Like, this might be this one test, but you're going to have something else that, you know, you would need a resource for also. Well, they say growth paths, number one, pre-requisite product creation.

So this, I assume there are probably courses you have to take or exams you have to pass before you get to this one. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So moving kind of moving back down the chain would be a growth opportunity. I am skeptical of the ability to transition to subscription given the fact that you take this test one time and then it's over. You would have to. I think that's where it's like you'd have to create more excuse. If it's a $120 average value, average ticket price, it's a 50,000 sales. a year to get to $6 million in revenue. Which I mean, how many, you know, how many nursing students, you know? Yeah. You have to cap, they must have top market share because that's an awful lot of nursing students buying these packages. And I'm wondering out loud, does AI not disrupt this kind of test prep? I don't know. I think, I think this is just, it seems like so well designed.

and like they've drilled it down to like here's exactly what you need to know. Like, yes, maybe you could put it in chat, GPT or Claude and it could make something, but it seems like so nuanced. And so it's like, okay, could I spend a couple hours like telling it what to make? Maybe, but for 50 bucks I get the flashcards. You're right, right. Not worth it. Maybe for the savings, it's such a low ticket price.

Google says that there's, the U.S. requires over 200,000 new registrants. nurses annually to meet demand and replace retiring staff. That's based on Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wow. So, I mean, that means that they have 25% of the market. Ballpark, right? The hidden issue with this that I think is not clear in the listing, but you could kind of surmise is the case with a brand like this.

I love businesses that grew from Etsy to Shopify. Like, that is so baller because that tells you, like, they really did bootstrap it. The problem with this, though, is it is very founder-centric. And I think the founder is, like, their name is not synonymous with the brand or anything, but, like, it's a personality-driven brand. Like, all their customer acquisition, all their content for a company like this, is because this nurse started it. And, like, they were the prime candidate who was like, I needed this and my friends needed it.

And that's why I started doing it. So, like, you lose the inside. Like maybe another nurse buys it. But then the issue is like this person who has been the face in all their, you know, all their content is now, but he wants to roll equity. You know,

he says that. But I think that's a risk. That it is a risk and they do want to roll equity. And they also said SBA prequalified. So I have to jump in and say rolling equity with an SBA loan is not something. I don't know if this, this seller really understands what they're offering. The rules as of June 2025, the new rules that were updated say that if a seller is rolling over equity, even if they're going to be below 20% post-close, which is the personal guarantee threshold, they're below the personal guarantee threshold.

That seller would still have to personally guarantee the buyer's SBA loan for two years. Yeah. Just two years, though. Two years, but nonetheless, they're guaranteeing somebody else's loan who's taking control of the company. you also have two more rules. You have to do a stock sale. You cannot do an asset sale. And the third rule is if you bring in any investors

and at a deal of this size, you probably want to, all new minority owners, regardless of being below 20% have to PG for the life of the SBA loan. Yeah, the seller rolls through any equity? Yeah, so if you bring in an investor who's going to own 5%, that investor has to personally guarantee your loan for the whole 10 years and may have to pledge their house and all of that kind of stuff.

So to do rollover equity, you really kind of have to be bringing in all the equity yourself. That's not going to work. You're not going to bring up. That's got to be okay with a two-year PG. A two-year PG. This is a real thread, the needle situation to roll equity. Yeah. Interesting.

Not too many deals since that rule changed are being done with SBA and roll over equity as a result. Also, the elephant in the room here is it's $9.2 million. So if you're doing SBA, you've got to have $4 million in equity, right? Yeah, right. It's too big for someone to write one check out of their own personal, right? So this is the kind of situation where that rule kind of kills the deal for SBA funding. I mean, you really would have to do something else. Or they can't roll, right?

Yeah. And then you have the problem that Mills was just talking about because the other SBA rule that's, I just don't agree with, is if you buy out a seller fully with an SBA, B.A loan, they have to depart the company fully in 12 months. So you could not say they're going to stay on and do some of the marketing or, you know, be the base. I have a question, though, about that, Heather. Like, I feel like there's certain things in the lending world and in, like, the covenant aspects that, like, how often and when do they actually check that? Like, are they going to, they don't check it. But what the problem is, is that you've got to.

to sell the story going in that they are like on paper it has to look like they're going to leave and everyone's going to go well this this is too risky for this seller to leave yeah yeah here's the conundum i do think that there's a lot of gray area like in that where you know crazy things happen and like plans nothing goes according to plan and i i can't imagine the bank comes back in 14 months and says what the heck this guy's still here he's on the payroll like and now you're in Covenant default and we're going to, you know, take back the lot. Yeah, I've never seen it happen to your point. Like, I've never seen the bank actually come back and check with the sellers involved.

But like I said, the problem is you've got to sell it to the bank and the SBA going in as if they are definitely going to leave and you're going to take over all the marketing. And anyone that reads that is going to say, ooh, that that just introduces too much risk because this, you know, once they understand the company, they're probably going to see that the brand is too tied to the personality of the seller, potentially. Hey everyone, it's Bill, and I want to talk to you about Quiet Light brokerage. I was so psyched when Quietlight agreed to sponsor the podcast because I am a customer. I have used Quietlight to sell three businesses, and if I were selling an e-commerce or a SaaS business, I really would not consider anyone else. Like I said, I went back to them three times. I worked with three different brokers at Quietlight.

I had a great experience all three times. Even on one occasion, they found a buyer for a business that I just didn't know it was even going to be possible to sell. So they have pulled rabbits out of their hats several times for me. Just they've been in the e-commerce and SaaS business brokering game a very, very long time. They really know what they're doing. They have great reach with both buyers and sellers. And the other thing I really love about Quietlight is all the brokers there are former operators.

So you can't just show up and go, hey, I'm a lifetime business broker. I want to work at Quietlight. You have to be a former operator. So they all know what it's like to be in the operator chair. So if you go to Quietlight.com, they have free business valuation calls. which they'll do with you, no obligation, just tell you what they think about your business, what they think it would be worth, and then what you might need to do to kind of get it ready for market. Those guys over there are great, great SOPs, great systems. I just felt like I was

really in really good hands all three times with Quiet Light. So if you're interested in selling your business, especially in e-commerce or SaaS, hop on over to Quietlight.com, fill out their onboarding form for a free valuation call, and you can tell them Bill or Acquisitions anonymous, sent you. The only thing that makes this buyable is the fact that the seller has offered to provide one to four years for filming and marketing and continuity at 15 to 20 hours weekly. I go, that's awesome. Right? That's the thing that makes this viable.

Now, the other thing, Heather, is if you don't get an SBA loan for this business, none of this matters and all of it works. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. I think you've got to go that route. Yeah. So they did lead with SBA pre-qualify. That's why I have to say that. Yeah.

I have a lot of respect for quiet as a broker. This kills me a little bit because they lead with SBA pre-qualified and they say something that basically makes it impossible. Like you basically can't do this deal with an SBA loan, right? There's too many reasons the need for the seller to stay, the size, right? I mean, there's just too many reasons, the desire for a seller role. Like you just can't do this with SBA loan. But if you do this with conventional financing, all this is totally doable, right?

You know, you can use the seller rolls equity. The seller can stay involved. All the stuff. No problem. But for conventional financing, this is a little small. So this is that weird, you know, this is that whole problem that I call these deals a tweener. They're too big for SBA or they have, you know, a component like roll over equity. And they're a little too small for conventional financing.

So, I mean, I think this actually works, though. I mean, you're looking at, if you, you know, if you finance, like, I don't know, seven and a half million dollars of this thing. You're looking at like on a 10 year am a million dollars a year of debt service. It pencils. This is my favorite test. Does the deal actually pencil? And so you have two million in SDE, a million dollars a year in debt service. Even if you don't grow this thing, which I'm not convinced there is a, I think there is a way, but I'm not convinced that there's a like a low risk way to do it. And I wouldn't bank on it. Like it seems it seems like a very durable thing. As long as you don't lose your you know 20 to 25 percent market share.

And I mean, it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like this product has to be reinvented all that often either. Maybe there is a little bit of like pin stroke risk of like the test changes and all the sudden you've got to redo your study guide materials. But like you could you could figure that out. Yeah, that wouldn't be that hard. And the first thing I would do, let's say I bought this business, first thing I would start doing is introducing new faces, right? So what you do is you spend the next two years mixing in four other nurses, right, who are your teachers, who are employees, right?

And then when this person eventually wants to bail after two years, it's fine. They're only in 20% of the videos anyway, right? I think like the magic of this business is like they already have a massive following. They probably have figured out like, you know, Facebook groups more than just like meta ads, you know. And like the nuance of the funnel that they've built is probably the majority of the value. Like the actual product could be recreated and ripped off probably like very easily. There's no patent protection, you know, or anything.

Well, there's copyright, but still. But that's just, that would just be for the name. And the name is not like, I don't know. But also the content. Like, books are copyrighted. You know, I don't know if these, I don't know if these are. Like, I don't know if study guides are like this. Yeah.

No, I think you can copyright. Like, you can't go in the library and Xerox a study guide. You know, that's, it's copyrighted. Yeah, okay, maybe. But to the point, your point stands, Mills, which is that you can rewrite it and it's basically the same course, right? You know what they do? This is actually really, really good if this is the business.

So one of the things about the study guide volume one that it says is it incorporates QR codes that connect to follow along video content, but you have to have an active membership to access them. That is brilliant. Yeah. There's a lot of ways to grow this business, I think. Even in the nurse practitioner, or this is not a nurse practitioner, this is actual nurses in the nursing space. But then also you could run the same model in adjacencies. I love this business.

But this also illustrates one of the things I love about this podcast, which is that this business can be totally great. But because of the financing dynamics that Heather is illustrating, right, it doesn't work for SBA for the bunch of ways we are talking about. But also, this is really tough on conventional financing, and I'd like to double click on that. Because Mills is also right that this pencils all day long. The problem is it's very, very hard to get any conventional lender out of bed for a $7 million loan. Yeah. What they will say is, we'd rather it be a $5 million loan and push it through our SBA group. And you'll go, but it doesn't work because we can't do that.

And they're like, okay, well, then do you want to borrow $20 million? And you're like, no, I don't need $20 million. It's the no man's land. This is it. It's a total no man's land. And it's such a bummer because this is a great business that deserves debt financing, I think, and deserves to transact. And it's going to make it really, the financing markets are going to make it really challenging to get this deal done because of the size. And the size alone, pretty much.

Yeah, it doesn't fit nicely into anybody's lending box. That's right. If this were half the size, I mean, maybe. If this were twice the size, you'd have conventional financing for it. Sure. Right? But it's just such a challenge. So if you're looking for businesses, and that's why you're listening to this podcast,

that you need to understand the dynamics from the lender's point of view. It is nearly impossible to get a loan that is not an SBA loan in a notional value less than $10 million. almost impossible because the banks are set up to run all those loans through their SBA programs, which the AC caps out of five. Then some of them have this Perry Pesoo program, which lets them do an extra loan up to 10, but then you still have the SBA and your capital stack and you're still subject to all that stuff. Oh, and we have to talk about the new limit, the new loan limit. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. It doesn't work in this case, though. There's now a new rule that just came out this week where the SBA said they decays. they decoupled the $5 million at the $7A limit from the $5 million 504 limit. So there's a scenario in which you could get $10 million, five from 7A and five from 504. But 504, you can only use the money for owner-occupied commercial real estate or equipment that has at least a 10-year life.

So it has to be like manufacturing businesses and cannot even be used for rolling stock. Just like fixture type long-term equipment. or real estate. So there's that, but it's not going to work in cases like this. Interesting. So, all right,

because this was the lightning round, we're basically out of time. What are you guys doing with things? Are you interested in this? How do you finance it? I'm super interested in. I think this is like a really compelling business. I would love to have a conversation with the seller

and go, hey, you're in kind of a no-man land. Like, Heather, you know, your tweener idea. Like, you go to them and say,

I want you to, a little bit more, and I want you to stay involved. You will have more time for family. I'm going to be your growth partner. I'll bring in traditional financing and let's grow this thing to where we can exit, you know, up market and double it in three years or something like that. And then all of a sudden at $4 million in SDE, you know, you've got a much bigger buyer pool. Yeah. I agree with, I agree with Mills, except I would do one more thing. I would talk to a few conventional lenders first to make sure I've got a lender somewhat on board with this smallish conventional loan and, you know, be sure what, how much equity, cash equity they're going to make me bring in to do that.

Yep. The financing is the whole ballgame. I think this is a really good business. It's a fascinatingly good business. It's awesome. But the capital structure is the challenge. You know, I wonder if there's some sort of earn-out structure. I mean, full standby, seller note, you know, because if you have only $5 million a debt,

on this thing, your service is going to be half a million bucks, you could have it paid down in two and a half, three years, and then you could start paying the seller. Like, I wonder if there's some sort of structure like that. But I think you got to solve for that at the front end of this thing. Agreed. Yeah. All right. We're going to wrap it up. I hope you guys enjoy this episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. Head to our website, acqueu.un.com. We have 500 more. Yes, 500. It's crazy to me too, just like it. All kinds of different businesses, all kinds of different industries. If you're interested in something, we've probably covered it. So go find us on the internet, find us on X also, and we will see you on the next episode of Acquisitions Anonymous.