This Week’s Business Buyer (in 10 Seconds):
Hillary is a former B2B tech marketing exec who got laid off three times before she walked away for good.
The broker gave her one day to beat 12 other offers and she still won the deal.
She acquired a children’s book publishing business for ~$1M, cash flowing $300k/yr
Today, her books are on shelves nationwide at Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Target.
Her top-line revenue is on track to DOUBLE.
Her husband has now quit his corporate job to join her full-time.
And for our audio-only listeners, jump in and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
But if you want to learn a bit more, let’s dive into the story…
Hello SMB Deal Hunters!
How many of you have been through enough layoffs to see the news coming?
Maybe it's marketing that goes first. Maybe it's sales.
Maybe it's whatever leadership spins as "streamlining" that quarter. Either way, you can feel it.
That's the pattern Hillary lived for 15 years.
First marketing hire at one B2B software startup after another, climbing all the way to CMO.
But always for somebody else's company.
By her third layoff, she was done.
She wanted to buy her own business.
But after months alone, every book and forum left her with more questions than answers.
So she joined SMB Deal Hunter Pro.
As a quick reminder, SMB Deal Hunter Pro is our business buying accelerator where we help you find, finance, and acquire a business in 6-12 months...or work with you for free until you do.
Today, Hillary owns a $1M+ children's book publisher
And from day one, we helped her navigate every step.
Our advisors helped her lock in her must-haves before she screened her first deal.
One month later, this publishing business landed on her desk with 12 buyers in line and a same-day deadline.
Then, we connected her with a lawyer to handle the contract and a team to audit the seller's books. They walked her through every financial and legal hurdle all the way to close.
This week's interview is our one-year follow-up.
Last time we sat down with Hillary, she'd just closed.
Since then, her family and her business have grown together.
Six months in, surprise identical twins, and overnight she went from two kids to four.
It was the right moment for her husband to make the move they'd been planning for years, and he left his corporate job to build the business with her full-time.
Together, they took on the move we'd warned her would be brutal: diversifying off Amazon.
When she bought it, it was 100% Amazon. Today it's 70%, with the rest split across Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Walmart, and Target.
The result? Top-line revenue is on track to nearly DOUBLE.
Here's why this week's alumni interview is a must watch:
→ Hillary beat 12 other offers on a same-day deadline, less than 4 weeks into her search. We break down exactly how she structured the offer that won her the deal.
→ The deal nearly fell apart over numbers, legal issues, and structural problems during diligence. We walk through how we helped her hold it together until close.
→ Hillary told us "I'm not the person necessarily who would do this." We talk about what changed her mind and how she went from a laid-off tech marketer to running a $1M+ publisher.
→ 18 months in, the business grew fast enough for Hillary's husband to leave his corporate job and join her full-time. We get into how she pulled it off while raising four kids under seven.
"That's when I came across SMB Deal Hunters. I started working with you and it just opened up this whole new world to me. I was so used to the startup world where I always thought if I ever wanted to have my own business, I needed to start my own business. And that to me was so daunting because I had seen that firsthand time and time again."
Hillary leaned on our battle-tested deal team to help her...
Lock in her must-haves before she screened a single deal
Build the offer that beat 12 other buyers in a same-day fire drill
Talk her off the ledge during diligence whenever the deal threatened to fall apart
Get introduced to the attorney and QofE provider she still works with today
Talk soon,
Helen Guo
P.S. Hillary used to work for somebody else's company. Today, she owns her own business, her husband quit his corporate job to join her, and they just had identical twins, bringing them to four kids. As she puts it: "If we had not bought this business, I don't think we would have the twins." 👉 book a call here