Yeah. Okay, so mid six figures SDE is what you were looking for with the idea that half of that would go to the loan. You pay down the loan as quickly as possible, also grow the business and hopefully get back to mid six figures into your pocket in single digit number of years. Hopefully something like that.
Acquiring Minds
How Business-Buyer Fit Led to 2.2x and No PG
Deal story
Former medical device sales rep Joe Wynn bought an operating-room equipment sales/service distributorship in Georgia for $1.35M, leveraging supplier veto power and business-buyer fit to negotiate a 90%+ seller note at 7% over 10 years with no personal guarantee. The business does $2M revenue with ~45% margins; Joe underwrote it at a stabilized ~$600K SDE and is forecasting $3M+ revenue in his first full year.
Deal facts
Industry
Medical / operating-room equipment (surgical lights, tables, booms)
Business
Sales & service distributorship
Location
Atlanta / Georgia
Revenue
$2M (2025)
SDE / EBITDA
$889K reported SDE; ~$600K stabilized (underwritten)
Multiple
~2.25x on stabilized ~$600K SDE
Deal size
$1.35M purchase price
Acquisition model
Partnered
Outcome
Closed Jan 21; $120K down, ~90% seller note at 7% over 10 years, no PG, 3-month standby; received $150K working capital; forecasting $3-3.5M revenue for the year
People
Will Smithhost
Host of Acquiring Minds podcast
Joe Wynnguest
Former medical device sales rep, now owner of Surgical Specialties, an OR equipment sales/service business
Topics
Excerpts · 410 segments · ~1:33:42 long
Short excerpts only — hear the full conversation on the publisher's site.
05:03 Joe's medical sales background13:40 Finding the equipment business18:15 Revenue and SDE breakdown21:14 High margins and pricing power26:04 Lumpy project revenue history37:13 Purchase price negotiation57:52 Deal structure and seller note1:11:53 Bank froze account post-close
Okay. Okay, great. Let's hear about the business that you found and how you found it.
Yeah, so it's actually interesting. So before I joined the acquisition lab, I found this business. Prior to that, so found this business in January of last year before going through the acquisition lab, didn't know anything about what it took to actually purchase the business, but found the business, had a conversation with the owner and then conversations just fell off.
I think there was a change in brokerage that was being represented. He was represented by. And then obviously revisited months later.
But the business that I purchased is a medical equipment company. So essentially what we do is we design and build out hospital healthcare rooms with the, with lights, surgical lights, surgical tables, product called a boom, different things that we can supply. The business has several different functions to it.
So we have a sales function which we sell to a hospital, for example. We also have a installation portion to the business and then we have the service which is probably the, the biggest revenue for the, the company because that's something that is controlled in house. So three prone folks, function of the business.
And the average sales price of our equipment is about 75k per equipment. And then project projects that we do can be pretty large as well. So. So yeah, but found it on biz by sale in January of last year before joining the acquisition lab and then revisited a month later.
Great. And it was local to you?
Yes.
And so what jumps out at us here Joe, is the at least what seems to be good business Buyer fit. This is it. This is a medical equipment sales business. You were in medical device sales.
There's probably some overlap there. Speak to that.
Yeah. So me coming from being a medical device sales rep, I was in the rooms where the equipment was being used. So I had a lot of experience navigating the equipment. But then also the piece that made it a no brainer for me as well is that it was the same customers that I was already calling on from my previous job as a W2 employee because I covered the state of Georgia previously.
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