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Comment by soundlab | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who thinks "lifestyle businesses" are a waste of time should look through some of the very small (in employees) companies for sale on bizbuysell.com. Yes, the sandwich shops and laundromats are poor earners, but I have run across 2-3 man operations selling niche products like vintage car parts that profit $500K-1M/year. I'll take earnings like that over "top tier VC", ridiculous business plan competitions, self-promoting PR, and dealing with staff any day.

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Thanks for the pointer to bizbuysell.com! I am going to have hours of fun perusing that one.

Edit: ooooh! Email alerts matching my criteria!

Are you going to buy a business? I've been considering this route as I'd love to aqquire a passive income stream but can't seem to gain any traction on my own projects.

It is something I am considering as well. I am a partner in an LLC that owns a couple of retail stores and am thinking that my future plans will involve buying existing businesses that I feel are under-performaning and that we have the skill set necessary to turn around.

For now I am excited about using the site to start evaluating opportunities for businesses in the areas where we are currently operating, maybe figure out who they are and do some evaluation so that when I am ready to pull the trigger I have a good understanding of the market.

That's interesting. How did you get involved in such an LLC.

After perusing that site, I didn't see many businesses that looked much like passive income. I guess I'll keep looking.

I recommend reading Buying a Small Business http://amzn.to/bmRz0T. It is really outdated in terms of the search methods (You can use a computer to do searches for information!) but the fundamentals about evaluating financials and understanding the relationship between buyer and seller haven't changed. One of the most intriguing aspects is for "lifestyle business" owners, your credentials and commitment to growing and protecting the seller's baby is nearly as important as your offer price. Huge caveat is that 99% of Business Brokers are complete morons and terrible to deal with, give them no insight into your liquidity, net worth, etc and stick to the type of business criteria or industry you are interested in.

Thanks. I wonder if I should not expect a real world small business e.g., cafe, roofing company, gift shop, to be a passive income source?

I wonder where I else I can look for passive income (Assuming I can't build something myself :-(

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