💰  Buying boring businesses

THE BIG IDEA

Why start a niche business when you can buy one? 

Starting a small business is hard, but, apparently, you don’t have to. You can buy an existing one, a growing trend that, per Forbes, began with the publication of Walker Deibel’s Buy Then Build in 2018.

The benefits are obvious. Instead of doing everything from scratch — coming up with a business plan, finding and renovating a location, building a customer base, etc. — you just hop right in.

Where do you find one? 

There are online marketplaces that list businesses for sale, of which BizBuySell is the largest. 

• It saw 9.5k transactions in 2024 and earned $2.7B in revenue from listing fees.
  
  
• In Q1 2025, 2.3k+ businesses sold on the platform, representing $2B in value — a 9% year over year increase — despite economic uncertainty around tariffs. 

What can you buy? 

TBH, we were mostly attracted to Forbes’ headline about buying a haunted forest. That refers to a 20-acre New Jersey Halloween attraction available for $2.85m, but there’s a huge range of businesses, many under $100k. 

Some are ordinary — restaurants, retailers, spas, vending machines — and others, like the haunt, are quirkier. BizBuySell marketing director Adam DeBussy told Forbes that the site has even listed “ghost towns, islands, and an independent league baseball team.”

While niche businesses can be harder to both sell and buy — and buyers should of course do their due diligence — experts say acquisitions often go through, assuming the cash flow is there. 

Who’s buying and who’s selling?

Many sellers are boomers, who, as of 2024, owned ~51% of privately held US businesses, per The Guardian. They’re looking to retire: BizBuySell reported that 35% of its buyers, often millennials, want to leave corporate America to run their own small business.

The New York Times highlighted several people who bought niche businesses and noted that often, boring is best — something with solid revenue and room for growth, and in an industry that sustains small operators.

Among them: a manufacturer of machines that clean other machines, a garage and gate door controller business, and an indoor plant maintenance company.

🔗

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

What happened to the McIntosh apple? In the late 20th century, it was among the top-produced apples in the US. Now? Not so much. Production of the McIntosh has declined by half in the last few years alone. RIP, grandma’s favorite apple.

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

How far sculpture artist Sam Shoemaker sailed from the coast of Catalina Island to San Pedro, California, in a kayak made of mushrooms, per The Guardian. Shoemaker grew fungus for six weeks in a fiberglass mold, then dried it for three months. 

The journey took him 12 hours, included a bout of seasickness and an encounter with a fin whale, and “was just like a psychedelic experience,” Shoemaker said. 

You may be wondering why anyone outside of a crafting survival video game would do this. Shoemaker wanted to show that fungus is a more sustainable material than plastics, which are frequently used in boats, buoys, surfboards, and other items we use in the water.

HOW YOU HUSTLE

We always use this spot to see what our readers are building, but this one’s extra dear to our hearts: these two are the grand prize winners of the $50k AI startup pitch competition we recently co-hosted with HubSpot for Startups. Our congrats to…

Who: Caden Broussard & Jinny Chen

What: Cello

The elevator pitch: “Cello uses AI and predictive analytics to give everyone access to their own real professional stylist at an affordable price.”

Origin story: “We're big data and operations nerds. Before founding Cello, Jinny taught predictive analytics and led GTM strategy in tech while Caden led strategy consulting teams and headed a product and analytics business unit at a bank. We met as roommates at Stanford Business School and bonded over a second shared passion: making people feel comfortable and confident in their own skin. Over the next year we interviewed hundreds of people and found that feeling great about what you wear is one of the biggest determinants of how confident we feel. Everyone deserves to draw power from how they look. Thus, Cello was born.”

Their biggest innovation: “We're bringing down the cost of personal styling from $5,000 to $100.”

Advice for fellow entrepreneurs: “Don't be afraid to do things that don't scale at first. If something is really easy, someone else would have done it already!”

What are you working on? Tell us here. 

AROUND THE WEB

📆  On this day: In 1976, NASA debuted its first space shuttle, Enterprise. It took nearly $10B ($56B+ today) and a decade to build.

🌲  That’s cool: In 2021, Beau Miles planted a forest on his friend’s farm. Four years later, he returned to see what had grown.

🕵️  How to: See how anonymous your browser is (or isn’t).

🥱  That’s interesting: Why you should be bored sometimes.

🐇  Aww: Leaf thief.

QUOTE OF NOTE

What Valentino Luchin, a prominent Italian chef from the Bay Area, said during a 2018 jailhouse interview after robbing a local bank that year, per SFGate. Despite acknowledging what a bad idea that was, the 62-year-old chef apparently didn’t learn his lesson — last week, he was arrested for allegedly robbing three San Francisco banks in a single day.

Admittedly, times are tough, but stealing dough is probably still harder than making it.

SHOWER THOUGHT

A planned encore isn't really an encore, it's just part of the set. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Sara Friedman, and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Ben "Ideal candidate for a personal stylist" Berkley.

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