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Hello SMB Deal Hunters!

I’m excited to share 5 new off-market businesses for sale sourced directly by our team in this week’s issue of Off The Grid.

🔎 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:

💡 Steven didn't do this alone.

We helped him source this opportunity and worked with him 1:1 to catch red flags, structure a winning offer, secure financing, and navigate due diligence and negotiations.

We're now in the 60-day window after Tax Day. Right now, thousands of business owners are staring at their returns and doing the retirement math for the first time. Every year, this stretch produces a wave of new listings from owners who are finally ready to sell.

The best deals won't sit on the market long.

So if you've been waiting for the right time to make a move....

NEW OFF-MARKET DEALS

These deals span the country. For custom-sourced deals in your area, click here.

1/ Absentee-Owned Two-Location HVAC Company

📍 Location: Central Florida
💼 EBITDA: $642,000
📊 Revenue: $2,800,000
📅 Established: 1983

💭 My 2 Cents: Most HVAC acquisitions come with a long to-do list of operational upgrades, but this seller already handled the hard part. The current owner acquired these two Central Florida companies in 2020 and 2022, then modernized both from the ground up with a customer relationship management system, cloud-based accounting, web-based phone systems, and resource sharing between locations. Both businesses have been serving their communities for over three decades, with a combined team of roughly 11 and managers running each location. The proof those systems work: the owner runs everything absentee while holding a full-time W-2 job, with managers handling each location. I'd want to understand the split between installation revenue (the project-based, cyclical part of HVAC) and service revenue (the recurring, sticky part), whether a maintenance contract program could be layered in to formalize repeat business, and how the two locations cross-refer work today. A buyer stepping into this inherits the systems overhaul that typically consumes the first year post-close, which compresses the timeline to growth.

2/ Swimming Pool Construction Company

📍 Location: Florida
💼 EBITDA: $1,000,000
📊 Revenue: $5,000,000
📅 Established: 1979

💭 My 2 Cents: Forty-seven years of building pools in Orlando is a track record that carries serious weight with homeowners spending $70,000 or more on a backyard project. What stands out here is the subcontractor-heavy model, where a 5-person in-house team manages everything while nearly all construction goes to subs. That keeps fixed labor costs low and lets the business scale with demand without the overhead of a large field crew. The owner handles office operations but doesn't go into the field, so the day-to-day project management already runs without the owner on a job site. I'd want to understand how many subs are on the bench vs. depended on for each trade, AR/AP terms with subs (some pool builders effectively float their working capital on sub payment terms), and if subs are working on volume commitments, preferred-contractor relationships, or transactional POs. Florida issued over 2,300 new pool permits statewide in March 2026 alone, and the Orlando market continues to show steady demand driven by population growth and year-round building weather.

3/ Remotely-Operated Concrete Contractor

📍 Location: New York
💼 EBITDA: $1,000,000
📊 Revenue: $5,000,000
📅 Established: 1984

💭 My 2 Cents: On Long Island's East End, where residential construction runs high-end and homeowners expect precision, a concrete contractor's reputation is everything. This company has spent 42 years earning that and has never had a website or spent a dollar on advertising, yet keeps a full 16-person crew busy on referrals alone. The owner runs the entire operation remotely from a home office, managing by phone and computer, which tells me the field crew operates with real independence. But all coordination still flows through one person, and there's no formal management layer between the owner and the crew. I'd want to understand the general contractor and architect relationships (and if there’s any concentration), how seasonal the revenue cycle is given Long Island's construction window, and whether any foremen could step into a supervisory role post-close. The niche itself is a moat: concrete is the first trade in, paid early in the draw schedule, and impossible for a homeowner to skip, defer, or DIY, which is why a 42-year referral book in this category is worth more than the same tenure in almost any other trade.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

How many of you have spent years watching your clients build the businesses you actually want?

You see the numbers. You learn how they did it. And you start thinking you could do it too. But the years go by and you're still on the other side of the desk.

Nielson spent 15 years in commercial banking watching every kind of business owner up close. He saw enough to know he didn't want startup risk. He wanted to buy something that already worked.

He found a deal through a friend of a friend. A commercial landscaping business in Los Angeles with 17 employees and mostly government contracts running 4-6 years. But structuring a $2M+ acquisition on his own was a different story.

That's when he joined SMB Deal Hunter Pro. With our team behind him, he got the seller to finance 60% himself. Put 20% down at close, another 20% at 90 days, and the seller carried the rest on a 3-year schedule. No SBA loan. No bank.

The negotiation took 12 months. He and the seller walked away from each other twice. He spent over 100 hours sitting in the truck with the seller before they ever signed.

He quit banking. His wife, a behavior specialist, quit healthcare. They went all in together.

5 months in, he's at the yard by 6am every morning learning the business inside out before he ever considers stepping back.

4/ General Electrical Contractor (Seller Stays as License Qualifier)

📍 Location: Nevada
💼 EBITDA: $1,400,000
📊 Revenue: $3,500,000
📅 Established: 1986

💭 My 2 Cents: Las Vegas is in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar construction cycle, and licensed electricians are some of the hardest tradespeople to find in the metro. This company has spent 40 years building word-of-mouth relationships in that market, with a team of 12 and work flowing through referrals and platforms like Home Depot and Houzz. The owner is already training a field manager to take over operations, and his wife's office role is being transitioned to an assistant, which means the handoff is already being set up. The margin on this business runs well above the typical electrical contractor, which tells me the job mix or pricing discipline is doing something right. The client relationships are ongoing but not formalized in written contracts, which is common in residential electrical but worth understanding before signing. I'd want to know what's driving the profitability (residential versus commercial mix, average project size, subcontractor use) and whether those relationships are tied to the business name or the owner personally. The seller's preference to retain 25% tells me he expects the business to keep performing, and it also solves the licensing problem. Nevada requires every contractor license to have a designated qualifying individual, and his rollover keeps that in place through transition while the buyer develops a successor qualifier. That kind of alignment is hard to find.

5/ Commercial Printing, Mailing, and Vehicle Wrap Shop

📍 Location: Pennsylvania
💼 EBITDA: $460,000
📊 Revenue: $1,500,000
📅 Established: 2004

💭 My 2 Cents: Vehicle wraps are one of those services where the finished product advertises itself. Every wrapped truck on the road is a moving billboard for the shop that did the work. This one figured that out 15 years ago when it expanded from commercial printing into wide-format wraps and wall murals, and that pivot is what drives the business today while traditional print keeps shrinking. Every customer comes through word of mouth, direct outreach, and social media with zero paid advertising. The team includes 6 full-time and 2 part-time staff, but the owner and his wife are embedded in every function from production to sales. I'd want to understand the revenue and gross margin split between printing, mailing, and wrap services, how dependent the wrap pipeline is on the owner's direct relationships, and what the equipment replacement timeline looks like across the shop floor. The seller isn't looking for a full exit. He wants to bring on an operations partner while he stays on for business development, which means a buyer could step into a business with a built-in sales engine already running.

COMMUNITY PERKS

Ready to buy and operate a $1M+ business? Partner with my team and get expert support 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.

RECENT PODCAST EPISODE

Ryan Sullivan spent 30 years in corporate. Survived seven rounds of layoffs in telecom. Lived through the largest housing crash in U.S. history at James Hardie, the country's biggest siding manufacturer. Then got fired twice.

Today, he owns 6 cash-flowing businesses he never plans to sell. Around 250 employees. $6 million average deal size.

In December 2021, he and his partner Greg formed North Park Group. The plan was to hold for 40 years, never flip. Five months later, they closed their first deal. Greg moved to Wichita and slept on a mattress on the floor for a year while they figured out how to run it.

Now, new operators in the portfolio take the personal guarantee on their own deal, then get equity in every other company. Investors get distributions twice a year. Ryan is 52. He wants to hold until he's 85.

When we asked about the hardest part, he didn't mention financing or diligence. He said running a business is way harder than buying one, and doing it alone is crazy.

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

THAT’S A WRAP

See you tomorrow!

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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.

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