Library
A short shelf for the person doing the buying.
Books we would hand someone before a first acquisition or a first month as owner. The notes are ours. The links go to Amazon.
Acquisitions
Built to Sell
A short argument for making a company less dependent on the founder. That is the question hiding inside a lot of small online listings: if the seller leaves, does the profit stay.
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Acquisitions
Buy Then Build
Written for people who want to own a company that already sells something. Read it as a way to think about deal flow and the first months as owner, then come back to our score for the price and the concentration.
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Acquisitions
Buying a Business That Makes You Rich
A practical walk through the whole purchase: finding a company, valuing it, negotiating and closing. Good to read before your first offer, then keep beside our score when you compare a price with the earnings behind it.
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Acquisitions
HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business
A plain introduction to buying an existing company instead of starting one. Useful before you read a listing, because it walks through what to ask about earnings and what you would actually do after the close.
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Acquisitions
Never Split the Difference
Negotiation notes for the call with a seller or a broker. It will not tell you whether the multiple is fair. Our rubric is for that. This is for the conversation.
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Acquisitions
Search Funds & Entrepreneurial Acquisitions
Explains how people raise money to buy one company and then run it. Even if you never raise outside capital, the chapters on sourcing, diligence and the first year as owner are worth the read.
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Operators
$100M Offers
About the offer itself: who it is for, and why the price is believable. Useful when a listing's profit depends on one promotion that may not repeat.
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Operators
Buy Back Your Time
About getting the owner out of the day-to-day tasks that eat the week. Relevant if the business you are looking at depends on one person doing everything, which our score flags as a risk.
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Operators
Clockwork
A short book on building a business that runs without constant owner attention, through clear roles and processes. A useful lens for the first months after a purchase.
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Operators
Company of One
For buyers who do not want to hire a team just because the listing says the business can scale. It is a check on growth plans that assume headcount.
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Operators
Profit First
A cash habit, not a valuation method. Helpful after you buy, when marketplace payouts and ad bills arrive on different days. It does not replace the multiple on our score.
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Operators
The E-Myth Revisited
Old, and still the cleanest warning that a business can be a job with a logo. Pair it with the track-record and hours figures on a listing.
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Operators
The Personal MBA
A survey of the words sellers use: margin, lifetime value, working capital. Handy if this is your first acquisition and the data room is full of jargon.
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Operators
Traction
An operating system for a company that has outgrown a single inbox. Relevant once a listing shows a team, a set of contractors, or a process that only the founder remembers.
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Research
Business Valuation For Dummies
The gentlest introduction to how a business gets a price. It covers earnings multiples, discounted cash flow and asset methods, which makes it a good companion when a listing quotes a multiple and you want to know what sits behind it.
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Research
Lean Analytics
A guide to choosing the few numbers that tell you whether a small business is healthy, and to spotting vanity metrics. Handy when you are asking a seller which figures they actually track.
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Research
The Lean Startup
A reminder to test a change before you rebuild the store you just bought. The score is about the business as it is. This book is about the experiments you run after closing.
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Research
The Mom Test
How to ask customers what they do, instead of whether they like the idea. Use it when a listing's growth plan depends on a new product the seller has not sold yet.
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Research
Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies
The standard reference from McKinsey on how value is created and measured. It is heavy going and aimed at larger companies, so treat it as a book to dip into once you want to check the logic behind a number.
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