Hello SMB Deal Hunters!
I’m excited to share 5 new off-market businesses for sale sourced directly by our team in today's Off The Grid issue.
👇 In Today's Issue:
#1: Dog and Cat Boarding Facility in WA with Absentee Owner and $325K EBITDA
🔎 Looking for deals in your area? We can source them for you.
This issue is proudly sponsored by SMB Deal Exchange, our new platform for connecting buyers and sellers of off-market businesses.
COMMUNITY WINS
Here’s what one SMB Deal Hunter Pro member shared this past week:

👀 Heads up: We’re only one week into August, and 3 Pro members have already closed deals with another 13 under LOI.
Deal activity always picks up as summer ends and everyone's back at their desk. At this pace, August is tracking to be one of our best months inside Pro.
So if you want to work with us to find, finance, and acquire a million-dollar cash flowing business in the next 6-12 months, start now and you could be under contract before Thanksgiving.
NEW OFF-MARKET DEALS
These deals span the country. For custom-sourced deals in your area, click here.
1/ Dog and Cat Boarding Facility
📍 Location: Washington
💼 EBITDA: $325,000
📊 Revenue: $450,000
📅 Established: 1986
💭 My 2 Cents: Most pet boarding is owner-operated, which is why no operator in the country holds even 5% of the market. Here the owner is already out of the day-to-day, and two contractors take care of the animals. The thing that makes a kennel worth owning is that it costs about the same to run half full as it does full, so every night above the break-even point is close to pure profit. Individual stays for dogs and cats range from 2 to 45 days, and interestingly the rate goes up once a stay passes 7 days, which is the opposite of the weekly and monthly discounts most kennels run. That said, I'd want the share of nights that run past a week (the higher rate), and what they charge over the holidays (kennels often charge more). I'd also want to know how many animals it can hold and how full it runs, since a full kennel only has price left to work with while one with empty nights can fill those too. The easiest money here is sold to a dog already in the building. A bath before pickup, an extra walk, a training session or medication runs another $15 to $20 a night without anyone finding a new customer.
2/ Professional Carpet Cleaning Equipment Manufacturer
📍 Location: Washington
💼 EBITDA: $1,000,000
📊 Revenue: $4,000,000
📅 Established: 1980
💭 My 2 Cents: A carpet cleaning business costs $5,000 to $20,000 to start and needs no license in most states, which is why there are more than 40,000 of them and 78% are one- or two-man shops. This Washington manufacturer builds the machines those operators buy, and sells them as a complete startup package with no franchise fee attached. It has been at it since 1980, and 9 to 10 people run the place, which is what lets an owner of 73 only be semi-active. At this size they have clearly figured out an acquisition engine, with every lead coming from online or from an inbound call. I'd want to know what comes in that package besides the machine, because a first-time operator buying something shaped like a franchise is buying help as much as equipment. I'd also want to know what these machines clean besides carpet, since carpet has fallen from 66% of American floors in 2010 to 43% while cleaning revenue kept climbing on tile, grout and upholstery. Then I'd want revenue split between the machines and the parts, wands and chemicals, because a machine sells once and the rest of it sells every year. This business is not really about carpet, it is about people wanting to work for themselves, and entrepreneurship is at an all-time high. Close to 5 million Americans a year now apply to start a business, up from 3.5 million in 2019.
3/ Staffing Agency
📍 Location: Remote
💼 EBITDA: $4,500,000
📊 Revenue: $9,000,000
📅 Established: 2022
💭 My 2 Cents: The staffing industry has been shrinking since 2022, down 14% in 2023, another 12% in 2024 and 3% more last year. This firm was built entirely inside that stretch, working nationwide with no office and very little overhead to carry. It has already grown into a business with a chief operating officer, a sales executive and five recruiters in place, while the owner sits above them on oversight. I'd want production by recruiter for three years, because a top-quartile recruiter generates about $400,000 of gross profit a year and the five here are carrying well beyond that. I'd also want to know exactly which niche they recruit for, since the industry is only forecast to grow about 1% this year and nearly all of that sits in four verticals while other segments keep contracting. Then I'd want the share of revenue from the largest client, since a placement fee is earned once and a client who stops calling takes their whole share of the year with them. Where staffing is growing, it is growing on demographics rather than on the economy. For example, nurses, electricians and welders are all retiring faster than anyone is replacing them, and the infrastructure money behind construction and utilities is already committed, so a buyer in the right niche is not waiting on a hiring recovery.
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
For 30 years, Ramsey grew other people's companies, one of them from $100M to $700M.
He did well. But he never owned any of it and business ownership had been a dream since college.
So instead of building from scratch he went looking to buy something already cash flowing, and originally joined a program that never delivered.
But Ramsey was committed and ended up joining us inside SMB Deal Hunter Pro after.
2 months in, he found a group of two smoke and vape shops in Northern Virginia. He got under LOI, but it was a category two SBA lenders refused because of regulation fears.
We helped him work around the SBA challenges and close in 6 months, start to finish.
Today, he runs that $890k-a-year business with a manager of 10 years handling the day-to-day, while he lives in Michigan.
4/ Fire Alarm Security Company
📍 Location: Texas
💼 EBITDA: $500,000
📊 Revenue: $1,000,000
📅 Established: 2025
💭 My 2 Cents: A building owner can defer almost any repair, but not a fire alarm inspection. The fire code puts commercial systems on a visual inspection twice a year and a full functional test once a year, and the fire marshal enforces it. This Texas company does that work, with contracts in place with every customer and distributors routing jobs to it, and a chief executive and a sales executive already run the day to day while the owner oversees. I'd want the contracts broken out by what each customer buys, because inspection and monitoring come back every year on their own while an installation has to be won again each time. Where the customers came from matters as much, since a company with barely a year of history does not normally arrive with every account already under contract. Then I'd want to know how much repair work comes out of those inspections (the inspection is the small invoice and the deficiencies it finds are the big one). Every inspection leaves a signed record the fire marshal can ask for at any time, which means a buyer can go through the accounts in diligence and confirm the work was actually done.
5/ Cabling Infrastructure Business
📍 Location: Texas
💼 EBITDA: $500,000
📊 Revenue: $1,500,000
📅 Established: 2008
💭 My 2 Cents: In low-voltage work the hard part is finding the technicians, not the work. Data center projects pay 25% to 30% above standard construction rates and pull experienced people off everything else, and Texas has $89.5 billion of that construction under way. This company runs a core team of the owner, two officers and four employees, and its work comes in through networking and distributor partnerships with Siemens and Honeywell. The advantage here is that the owner separately owns a staffing company, so the business can put 30 or more extra technicians on a job without hiring any of them. I'd want to see what that staffing company charges and under what agreement, because it belongs to the seller rather than to the business being sold. I'd also want to know what those partnerships actually deliver, whether referred work, protected territory or just discounted product, since one that sends jobs is worth far more than one that only sets the price of equipment. Then I'd want the receivables aging with retainage on its own line (what a customer holds back until the job is signed off). In Texas that is 10%, held until 30 days past completion, so a real slice of every finished job is earned and unpaid. The work here is easier to win than to staff, so the first thing worth negotiating is a long-term rate with that staffing company, not a longer transition with the owner.
COMMUNITY PERKS
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• Interested in selling your business? I’ll help you connect with buyers from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.
RECENT PODCAST EPISODE
Ryan spent his career consulting on customer experience, first at Lowe's, then opening his own firm.
But he kept handing clients answers they never used, and he wanted the authority to make the call himself.
So, in 2022, he started looking for a business of his own.
After two dead deals, he landed on a grant writing business in his New Mexico hometown, an industry he knew nothing about.
He didn't want to go the SBA route, so we helped him structure an offer where the seller carried 80% on a 10-year note and he put in 20% cash.
Then, all in the same month, he closed, rebranded his consulting firm, and had his first child. (and somehow came out on the other side in one piece)
The grant writing business had never had a real sales engine, so he set out to build one. It took five months longer than he planned.
Then the State of New Mexico awarded them a contract.
One year in, revenue has doubled.
Today he runs it remotely from Southern California, still running his other company, and he plans to buy more.
And for our audio-only listeners, jump in and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
THAT’S A WRAP
See you tomorrow!

-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.




