A $10m Acquisition for Freedom and Family

Lots of great details in today's interview. Digipod, a print on demand service for self-publishers, is a bigger business than is typical in self-funded search. Our hero, Anika John, paid almost $9 million, which means she needed $2.6 million of para-pissue debt on top of the SBA loan that maxes out at $5 million.

She also had seller financing. We'll hear how she structured that. Then there was another million that went to cover excess cash requirements, the fee to rejig, the platform where she found the deal, and other items, bringing the total project cost to about $10 million.

Also, Digipod is far from Anika. She lives in Palo Alto, while it is based in Tecumseh, Michigan. The business has two other attributes which would scare off many searchers.

It is declining, and it is capex-heavy. Anika addresses both of these points. You'll learn about the self-publishing industry, which is surging, and a great fit for Anika's background working in products for creators.

Finally, listen for Anika's why. She's a mom and wanted to control her schedule in a way that life at Amazon, her employer, just wouldn't accommodate. And she wants to spread the awareness of ETA to other women frustrated by the mom unfriendliness of high-paced corporate life.

So if you know such a mom, please forward her this interview. Okay, here is Anika John, owner of Digipod. If you haven't checked out Smith List for a while, there are some great opportunities listed there right now.

These are leadership positions within entrepreneurial small businesses, including from a small manufacturer of an iconic American product, a 45-person design and build firm, and an ABA center for children looking to expand to multiple sites. Head to smithlist.com to check out these new roles for entrepreneurial operators and GMs and CEOs.

And while you're there, sign up for the alerts so that you're notified as we post yet more opportunities from the SMB and ETA ecosystem. smithlist.com smithlist.com Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses.

My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs. And on this podcast, I talk to the people who do it.

If you ask owners in the ETA and search community, which insurance broker provides highest quality work, great outcomes, and has a practice dedicated to searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs, one name comes up again and again. Oberle.

Oberle Risk Strategies has worked with hundreds of searchers over nearly a decade and is in fact led by a two-time successful searcher, August Felker, which makes Oberle a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. And if you've got a business under LOI, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. An easy, no-risk way…

To take advantage, check out oberle-risk.com. That's O-B-E-R-L-E hyphen risk.com. Link in the notes. Anika John, welcome to Acquiring Minds.