Timing is Everything: Buying a $30m Tutoring Business

In our world, we spend a lot of time imagining sellers trying to understand their motivations, get inside their heads. But for all that study, we rarely hear from them directly. In today's episode, you will.

We have two guests here, the first buyer, Jared Leonard, who acquired great potential from the second seller, Dave Surwitz. So we get the journey of this transaction from both perspectives and hopefully you come away with a more concrete sense of that mythical theoretical thing, as Jared jokingly called it, the seller.

If you want to hear another interview with a seller, listen to episode 181 with Peter Wild, the seller of a tree business he'd founded in the 70s. In that interview, Peter's motivation to sell is retirement. In today's interview, seller Dave is only 42 and has different motivations, a good reminder that retirement isn't the only valid reason to sell a business.

As always, we also learn about the subject business and industry Grade Potential sends in person tutors to family homes. It has a national footprint and does over $30 million in revenue. Please enjoy this conversation with Jared Letter speaking, CEO of Grade Potential and Dave Surwitz, founder and Seller of Grade Potential.

One of the most common structures used to buy a business is what we call a self funded deal with an SBA loan and investor equity. Probably the majority of Acquiring Minds guests have used this very structure, and if you don't really understand it, come to a webinar tomorrow with Tim Erickson of Shareholder Ventures and Acquisition Lab.

Tim is going to present a primer on the financial anatomy of a self funded SBA search deal with investor equity. Topics to include PREF rate, liquidation, pref step up waterfall, how invested capital translates to common equity, what the market rate is fall of 2025 for these key terms, how investors evaluate your deal from an IRR and MOIC perspective, and much, much more. It's going to be a…

Consider it required reading if you're a self funded searcher, that is. Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 4th noon Eastern. Link to register for the webinar is right at the top of this episode's show Notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage.

Acquiringminds Co. And speaking of SBA loans, you're much more likely to have success getting one underwritten for your deal if you understand how lenders evaluate risk when financing a business acquisition. On Thursday, leading SBA loan broker Heather Anderson will host a webinar teaching the five key risks that lenders look for, how to spot them in your own deal, and how to mitigate them.

Heather will cover customer concentration, buying into an unfamiliar industry seasonality businesses that require licensing and business valuation based on recent growth as opposed to steady eddy historic growth. Heather has years of experience doing hundreds of SBA deals, so come learn from the best that webinar is this Thursday, November 6th, noon Eastern.

Link to register is right at the top of this episode's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiringminds co 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 that who do it. Running payroll, paying your bills, closing your books, and producing financials.

These are critical tasks every business owner must do or oversee, but spending time on them distracts you from the leadership in growth work you want to do. So let System Six do it for you. Owned and led by a former Searcher, Chris Williams, System Six is a leading outsourced finance team for hundreds of SMBs, including over 50 searcher acquired businesses.