🎙️How Ujwal Left His Corporate Career and Bought 10 Businesses

Hello SMB Deal Hunters!

Ujwal Velgapudi has acquired 10 businesses across 6 different industries.

But his path to getting there is one of the most unconventional we've heard on the podcast.

He started buying and flipping random stuff on Craigslist in high school.

By 22, he'd stumbled from commercial real estate listings into the "businesses for sale" section and thought: "Wait, I can buy a business?"

He had no M&A background. No network. No industry experience. He just kept buying things.

Here's what makes this one worth watching...

🔥 How he funded his first acquisition with 0% balance transfer credit cards and a $35K P2P loan that was approved based on his SAT scores and GPA

🔥 He bought a sports bar next to an NHL arena that was relocating. He’d never had a drink in his life AND he knew the foot traffic was about to disappear.

🔥 After quitting his W2 at 26, he tried "retiring" in Thailand. He lasted one week. Then, he came home and sent out nearly 7,000 job applications with zero offers.

🔥 He now owns 5 amusement vending businesses (jukeboxes, claw machines, arcade games, pool tables, ATMs) in a market he openly says is declining.

He also shared some of his sharpest lessons:

• Why being "too smart" actually stops people from buying businesses (and why his ignorance was his biggest advantage)
  

• The operational playbook he uses to turn messy, paper-based businesses into real companies.
  

• How his financing strategy has evolved from credit cards all the way to SBA loans, seller notes, equipment financing, and sale-leasebacks

👉 Dive into the full conversation with Ujwal

And for our audio-only listeners, jump in and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Member Spotlight

For those who missed it, we also did an SMB Deal Hunter Pro alumni interview breaking down Mikhail's acquisition of a $600K dryer vent cleaning business in 4 months.

Mikhail had 4-5 years of investment banking experience. PwC, then M&A. He knew how to read financials, structure deals, and run diligence on transactions worth hundreds of millions.

He figured buying a small business would be the easy part. It wasn't.

He spent months searching on his own, burning 20+ hours a week on top of his banking job, jumping on calls with brokers where none of the businesses were even financeable.

After joining the Pro program, he was under LOI in 30 days.

But the path to close wasn't smooth. In the interview, Mikhail breaks down:

🔥 How he convinced an 18-year employee who owned 10% of the business to stay (this guy was positioned to buy the business himself and chose not to)

🔥 How he structured the deal with a seller who was retiring to Greece and needed liquidity, not a long seller note

🔥 Why he negotiated $50K in working capital at closing and how that one move carried them through the slow season

Watch the full alumni interview here 👇

And when we asked him what advice he'd give to someone just starting out, here's what he said:

So, if you want me and my team to work with you to find, finance, and acquire a million-dollar cash-flowing business in the next 6-12 months, you might be interested in the Pro program.

👉️ Learn more and book a call

COMMUNITY PERKS

• Ready to buy and operate a $1M+ business? Get expert help at every step.

• Want to invest passively in SMB acquisitions? Get access to investment opportunities.

• Get a personal introduction to my preferred SBA 7(a) lender, non-SBA lenders, Quality of Earnings providers, or legal counsel

• Raising capital for your deal? I’ll connect you with investors from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.

• Interested in selling your business? I’ll help you connect with buyers from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.

THAT’S A WRAP

Want me to interview you for my podcast? Hit reply.

See you next week with some new deals!

-Helen Guo
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Disclaimer

This publication is a newsletter only and the information provided herein is the opinion of our editors and writers only. Any transaction or opportunity of any kind is provided for information only; SMB Deal Hunter does not verify nor confirm information. SMB Deal Hunter is not making any offer to readers to participate in any transaction or opportunity described herein.