Month One: Blood, Robots & Pipeline Blue Balls
The BuyBro Journey Gets Real
Three deals. All dead.
A boutique pet groomer where the owner “forgot” to mention he’d been bleeding money for five years. A chimney sweep company that sold before I could see the books. A solid ass deer repellent biz where the broker disappeared like a gym buddy in February.
Welcome to the hunt, BuyBros 😎.
The first few months of buying a business feel like showing up to a chess boxing match having only trained for the chess part. You’ve read the books. Built the spreadsheets. Watched every training video twice.
Then you get the ol’ Mikey T special …
Brokers who’ve done this since before you hair on your balls can smell inexperience through the phone like that cheap ass bathroom cologne.
You’re analyzing P&Ls with terminology you perplexitied ( I’m trying to make it a thing haha - yes fk go*gle ) last Tuesday. Trying to sound competent while praying they don’t ask a follow-up question you have no clue about.
It’s humbling af.
This week, imposter syndrome hit hard. Sat in my car after a broker call, engine off, staring at the snow falling. Twenty-plus years of experience on the other end of that line. Me with downloaded templates and manufactured confidence.
Stupid brain was saying ‘Who tf am I to be doing this?’
The feeling sat on my chest like a weight. Then it passed. Honestly, took the better part of an afternoon.
Ya know what? Everyone starts somewhere. Every person who’s bought a business had a first call where they mispronounced something. Asked a dumb question. Felt the heat of their own inexperience.
But dammit, I’m going to be one of the bros who actually close deals. Those mfers keep dialing anyway.
So I keep dialing.
Pssst … missed last post? 👇
This Groomer Wasted Two Weeks of My Life
This one was BS.
The broker kept hyping it.
“Everything’s in place.”
“Just needs the right operator.”
Classic broker poetry. I wanted to believe it.
On paper, it looked decent. Ten years in business. Five-star reviews. Grooming bringing in $1,400 a day. Turns out, the owner was a real estate guy who didn’t care about the business. He just wanted rent and a warm body in the space.
I could be that warm body, I thought.
Red flags everywhere. I just didn’t want to see them.
The numbers kept shifting. The broker couldn’t get me clean financials. The story changed. “Well, the owner’s been pretty hands-off.” Then more hands-off. Then basically comatose.
A couple weeks of back and forth. Me asking the same questions different ways, trying to nail down something concrete.
Hell, I even went to the store to check it out - discretely ofc. Didn’t want to spook the staff, ya know?
Finally, the truth surfaced: the owner had lost money for five years straight. Half a decade of red ink. He wasn’t hands-off by design, bro had mentally checked out years ago and was running out the clock.
I walked.
Turnarounds can work. But I’m looking for cash flow, not a project. A foundation, not a renovation. I’m not in the turnaround game yet … or tbh, ever.
Here’s the part that made it worth it.
That same broker, ya know, the one who’d strung me along for weeks, he offered me a job! haha.
Said I had the right temperament. The persistence. The even keel when deals go sideways.
I said no. I’m not here to sell deals. I’m here to own them.
Still felt good though.
Validation that the reps are working, even when the deals aren’t. Sometimes the win isn’t the deal. Sometimes it’s proving you belong in the room.
My Pipeline Has Blue Balls
My deal box is tight. Maybe too tight.
I’m on Long Island. There are only two counties. Population of 8.5M, but still, pretty small.
I need this first biz to be within an hour of home. Can’t move for five years — family stuff, life stuff, the anchors ain’t budging atm for opportunity.
No fkn restaurants ( 90% fail! ). No heavy regulation. No customer service nightmares. Minimum five years in business. At least $100K in cash flow. Some community angle. Automation potential.
That's less 'casting a wide net' and more 'hoping the right fish swims into my mouth’ lol.
Now, when I started, I was seeing 5-7 new listings a day that fit the criteria. Now I see 1-2. Sometimes zero.
I’ve already picked through the platforms like a clearance rack at closing time. What’s left either doesn’t fit or doesn’t make sense.
So my game is shifting a bit.
TBH, the best deals never actually hit the platforms. They trade hands through relationships. Whispered referrals. Years of trust built one conversation at a time.
I’m building broker relationships now. Getting on actual phone calls instead of hiding behind email threads. Asking questions about their other clients. Remembering details ( AI notetakers FTW - my memory is SHOT ). Playing the long game.
The play here is to see deals before they hit the listing sites. Get the first call when a business owner decides to hang it up. Be the guy they think of.
That takes months. Hell, I bet it will definitely be longer.
Good thing I’m not going anywhere 💪.
Six Employees Who Never Bitch About Benefits
I built a team of AI agents to help me hunt. Six of them. No salaries. No benefits. No “I need to take Friday off.”
The Sourcer agent scrapes listings and drops new leads into my pipeline.
The Analyst agent crunches numbers, calculates seller’s discretionary earnings, flags concerns before I waste time on a call.
The Outreach agent drafts broker messages that don’t sound like templates, because nothing kills a relationship faster than sounding like everyone else.
The NDA Analyst reviews contracts and highlights red flags before I sign something stupid.
The Diligence agent researches reputation, digs through reviews, assesses risk.
The Orchestrator agent. Gives me a daily summary of what to focus on, and 'orchestrates’ the other agents
All built on top of Claude. All talking to each other through a shared Notion database like a hive mind.
My deal team without the payroll.
My morning now: I open the Orchestrator, run a briefing command, and it tells me exactly what needs attention. Which deals moved. Which brokers to follow up with. Which leads went cold. All fairly prioritized, organized & ready.
The agents handle grunt work. I focus on calls, relationships, and the gut decisions that will inevitably close deals.
I’m turning this into a product. The full system - agents, skills, workflows, templates, the whole architecture. If you’re hunting for a business, this cuts weeks off your process.
Details coming soon. Premium subscribers get first access and a heavy discount when it launches.
The Body Count
Deals reviewed: 31
Deals contacted: 39
Deals dead: 27
Deals in pipeline: 4
Deals passed ( Doesn’t fix box ): 375
Days since starting: 30ish
The TL;DR for You Impatient Bastards
I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. I’ve got a solid general direction, and I understand the process, but the little intricacies and nuances from inexperience keep making me stumble for now.
I misuse terms sometimes. I ask questions that reveal inexperience. I sit in my car after calls and wonder if I’m built for this ( I am ).
But I’m not quitting.
This is a ten-year game. I’m on month one of being serious. The deals will come. The relationships will compound. The pattern recognition will sharpen. The voice on the phone will stop sounding like a n00B.
You can do this too.
You need a box. You need persistence. You need to keep dialing when you feel like a fraud.
That’s it bros. That’s always fucking it. TAKE ACTION,
No MBA required. I don’t have one. No rich uncle. Mine’s a IT nerd - like me haha. No permission from anyone. Nobody’s coming to tap you on the shoulder and say you’re ready.
The brokers will test you. The deals will fall through. Imposter syndrome will visit like an unwanted houseguest. Let it in. Then show it the door.
See you next week. Probably with more dead deals and more lessons.
That’s the game.
Thanks for not quitting.