By Jacob Wolinsky. Originally published at ValueWalk.
If you’re looking for a business to acquire, the process can be quite involved. Just trying to find a company you would be interested in buying can be a chore, but it’s easier if you know where to look. If you’re looking for a small business, a great place to start is with Microacquire, which connects buyers and sellers directly, removing the middleman.
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What is Microacquire?
Microacquire is a platform that connects sellers of small businesses with prospective buyers. The asking prices on many of the businesses are in the thousands of dollars, which illustrates just how small the businesses for sale on the platform are. However, there are some slightly larger companies with asking prices in the millions of dollars.
Microacquire lists several metrics to help buyers gauge how much a business might be worth, including annual profit, annual recurring revenue and number of customers. The platform also gives the date the company was founded, the number of people on its startup team and the asking price. Microacquire also allows businesses to say they are open to offers without giving an asking price.
If you’re interested in acquiring a business based on the metrics given, you can learn more about it by clicking on the arrow next to the listing. Clicking on the arrow also brings up some additional details, like trailing 12 months revenue and profit, the amount of last month’s revenue and profit, and competitors. Other information offered includes the type of business model and pricing, the tech stack the business is built on, growth opportunities, and highlights and key assets.
The seller can also state their reason for selling the business, financial and funding details like balances on loans, and whether they have a profit and loss summary available. The arrow also allows you to send a message to the seller, and after they approve your request, you will be able to see private information about the business.
Review
Microacquire offers an easy way for sellers to connect with potential buyers. Since it cuts out the middleman, it can save buyers a lot of money on their acquisitions as well. Middlemen usually take 10% of the sale price on small businesses and charge a flat fee of a few hundred dollars a year just to connect buyers and sellers.
Microacquire also collects numerous businesses for sale in one place, making it easy for buyers to see important details about the companies and choose from among many options. The platform is also extremely cheap if you want to sell or buy, so you get more than what you pay for when you use it.
One interesting thing about the platform is that it helps sellers pare down the list of potential buyers to serious inquirers only. They can list their business as a “premium startup,” which means that only buyers who subscribe to Microacquire’s premium service will be able to ask for private details on businesses for sale. It seems like a wise move for sellers who receive a lot of insincere interest.
The platform also allows you to sort businesses by price range, annual recurring revenue and profit, the age of the startup, or the number of customers. It also has a search bar so you can look for specific keywords in business descriptions, narrowing it down to a certain type of business.
My one complaint is that you cannot view the business name or contact details; you need to send messages via the system. Since Microacquire is not acting as a commission-based middleman, they should allow you to connect directly. The good news is that the founder told me they plan to add the ability to interact directly soon.
Overall, I think Microacquire is an excellent platform for buyers and sellers to connect through. It’s well worth what you pay for it.
Disclosure: The platform looked great so I reached out to them and the company was kind enough to offer me access in return for an honest review.
The post Microacquire review: Buy or sell a business without an expensive middleman appeared first on ValueWalk.
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