When a $2.8m Acquisition Is More Like Zero to One | Dave Gilbert Interview

You may have heard me say recently that seller dishonesty or outright fraud is the leading reason that buying a business goes south. Well today's case is not that. It's a look at how an acquisition entrepreneur can find himself in crisis for other reasons. Dave Gilbert bought a fractional CFO business, only to discover bad, camouflaged customer concentration. Not only that, the business model was fundamentally flawed. The third critical issue was just how much of a family business it was; there were family members throughout the organization, which of course made making changes all the more difficult. (This is an issue Dave knew about from the outside, and was in fact concerned about. Unfortunately he was right to be.) So the business was essentially a turnaround, and our interview today shows how Dave spent two years doing exactly that. Remarkably, Dave was able to sustain revenue and EBITDA the whole time. But listen toward the end for how the brutal experience has changed Dave's views on SBA acquisitions. Here he is, Dave Gilbert, owner of Proven.

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Capters:
00:00 Dave’s background
06:47 Search strategy & focus on accounting firms
12:21 Acquiring Proven CFO for $2.8M
21:45 Post-acquisition – EBITDA half of expected
29:24 Customer concentration & client losses
32:45 Team restructuring & operational overhaul
41:03 Family business red flags & lessons learned
57:44 SBA vs independent sponsor route
01:07:11 Final reflections & turnaround advice

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ABOUT Acquiring Minds
Acquiring Minds is a podcast about buying businesses. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs, and host Will Smith talks to the people who do it. New episodes 2x per week.

Credits:
Edited by Anton Rohozov
Produced by Pam Cameron

#business #acquisitions #buyingbusiness