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.
📣 In Today's Issue:
#1: Semi-Absentee Apparel Decorating Business in TN with Department Heads and $1.3M EBITDA
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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:

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June isn't even over, and our Pro members have already closed 8 businesses with 20 more under contract. That's more than $45 million in deals, on track to be the highest-closing month in SMB Deal Hunter history.
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NEW OFF-MARKET DEALS
These deals span the country. For custom-sourced deals in your area, click here.
1/ Semi-Absentee Apparel Decorating Business
📍 Location: Tennessee
💼 EBITDA: $1,300,000
📊 Revenue: $7,000,000
📅 Established: 1996
💭 My 2 Cents: A school fields a new team every season. A company onboards staff and runs events. Decorated apparel is renewal demand, not discretionary demand, which is why this category holds up in a downturn far better than something this consumer-facing has any right to. Most shops at this size still have the owner running the floor across multiple production methods each with its own equipment, skillset, and production flow, but this 30-year-old Tennessee operation has built each production method with its own department head, allowing the owner to serve primarily in a CFO role handling only financial management and ad-hoc issues. The business runs with 45 employees and operates entirely on inbound demand and heavy repeat business (with no formal marketing or established sales structure). The seller also recently acquired a nearby competitor that's still being integrated, so a buyer is stepping into a business in active consolidation mode. That said, I'd want to understand the integration timeline and risk on the competitor acquisition, how concentrated the customer base is across the top 10 accounts (since inbound-only businesses can develop hidden concentration), and what the equipment age looks like across each production line given how direct-to-film and automation have reshaped the industry over the past five years. With consolidation already in motion through the recent acquisition, a buyer who continues that playbook in the surrounding market has a clearer path to scale than any single operational improvement would unlock.
2/ Absentee-Run Hay Supply and Delivery Business
📍 Location: Illinois
💼 EBITDA: $420,000
📊 Revenue: $1,000,000
📅 Established: 1980
💭 My 2 Cents: This looks like a hay business and isn't. Most farm operations sell into wholesale channels at commodity prices and earn commodity margins. This one sells hay directly to end customers by text with next-day delivery, and its margins tell you the product is the service, not the hay. It's been doing this for 46 years with five long-tenure employees, including an operating foreman with 20 years of experience who handles order processing, fulfillment, shipping, and collections, while the 74-year-old owner is minimally involved. The willingness to pay for delivery rather than self-load at a feed store is what creates the margin, and it's worth knowing who's paying for it. Horse owners reorder on a tight, predictable cycle since the animals eat year-round, but they churn as individuals come and go. Equestrian facilities are larger and stickier, with real switching costs, but a single lost account moves the numbers. Hobby farms are smaller, seasonal, and the first to drop delivery for self-pickup when money's tight. The mix determines whether the revenue is durable or fragile, and it's the first thing I'd want to see. The seller is projecting aggressive growth this year, and that trajectory deserves scrutiny in a small business with verbal-only contracts. Converting even a portion of those verbal commitments into standing-order subscriptions would formalize the recurring demand this operation already produces but doesn't track.
3/ Commercial Flooring and Concrete Coatings Company
📍 Location: California
💼 EBITDA: $550,000
📊 Revenue: $3,600,000
📅 Established: 2001
💭 My 2 Cents: In a project-based trade, the owner is often the rainmaker, so the business walks out the door when they do. This Los Angeles flooring company is built differently, with a sales team of 3.5 people managing client relationships independently of the owner, who only handles accounting, bidding, and job supervision. That structure alone makes the transition cleaner than most contractors this size. The deeper advantage is specialization. 80% of revenue is coatings work (polished concrete, epoxies, and terrazzo), the most technically demanding categories in commercial flooring and the ones requiring specialized equipment and training that create real barriers to entry. This 25-year-old operation runs with 20 employees, including five in-house concrete crews and a separate carpet and wood crew. That said, only 3% of revenue comes from maintenance contracts, so this is still primarily project-based work where backlog visibility matters. I'd want to understand the current project backlog and bid pipeline, how concentrated revenue is across the top general contractor or commercial property relationships, and whether the salespeople are expected to stay. A coatings specialist with an independent sales team is rare in a category where most operators are price-competing generalists with the owner closing every deal, and that combination is harder to rebuild than the equipment itself.
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
How many of you keep waiting for the next job to be the one that finally feels right?
Alejandro spent six years in tech sales, bouncing from a Fortune 500 to AI startups. The money was good, but he kept blaming the company.
Then his wife gave it to him straight: "I think you're the problem, you need to go do your own thing." Deep down, he wasn't after another job at all. He wanted something of his own.
So at 28, with zero business ownership experience, he started hunting on BizBuySell. After almost a year of tire-kickers and confusing NDAs, he was getting nowhere.
Then a friend who we helped buy a plumbing company posted a photo slamming his laptop shut, captioned "Goodbye to corporate." That was all it took, and Aleajndro joined SMB Deal Hunter Pro that September.
From there it moved fast. We helped him find a concrete coatings business in South Carolina throwing off $350k/year in cash flow, and he beat out more than 10 other buyers to win it.
Our deal team helped him structure a 10% down payment and finance the rest with a seller note and SBA loan. By the end of March, he'd left his W-2 for good.
He's leaned on his sales background to land additional work and is already buying a third truck to keep up with demand.
4/ Heating, Cooling, and Plumbing Company
📍 Location: Iowa
💼 EBITDA: $450,000
📊 Revenue: $1,000,000
📅 Established: 2000
💭 My 2 Cents: Most HVAC companies don't touch commercial kitchen equipment because it requires separate refrigeration, gas, and steam certifications that don't overlap with standard residential or light commercial HVAC training. This Iowa operation does both, with all employees cross-trained on heating, cooling, plumbing, and commercial kitchen equipment repair, which puts it in a service category most HVAC shops can't access. That access matters because commercial kitchen service sits in an undersupplied corner of the trades: restaurants need warranty-compliant service to protect their equipment investment, which makes the relationships sticky once established. The business reinforces that stickiness with permanent contracts that continue indefinitely unless one party exits, one of the strongest contract structures you'll find on a small HVAC deal. Revenue durability follows from the same structure. Primary services are maintenance (filter changes, spring and fall commercial startups) and commercial cooking equipment repair, so most revenue isn't tied to new construction or one-time installations. I'd want to understand customer concentration across the commercial contract base, what foodservice equipment certifications the team actually carries since that's the moat, and how often the permanent contracts generate work versus sit dormant. The owner is retiring, and the team of four field employees and two office staff was recently expanded with a fifth field hire, the kind of preparation that makes transitions cleaner.
5/ Tree Service Company
📍 Location: Texas
💼 EBITDA: $460,000
📊 Revenue: $850,000
📅 Established: 2009
💭 My 2 Cents: In tree service, the owner is often the one climbing or running the saw, so the business stops the day they step back. This Dallas operation has already crossed that line, with the owner no longer working in the field and limited to estimates and business management. The work runs through a crew of five 1099 contractors, and customer acquisition leans on word of mouth, referrals, and roughly 260 five-star Google reviews backed by paid placement on Google Local Ads and Angie's List. That review base is a real asset in a crowded Dallas-Fort Worth market where dozens of established tree companies compete. That said, I'd want the revenue mix between removals, trimming, and emergency storm work, since they behave completely differently. Storm work is lumpy and weather-dependent, so a year inflated by a heavy storm season isn't a baseline you can underwrite, and if a meaningful share of trailing revenue is storm-driven, the run rate is softer than the headline. I'd want the equipment picture too, because this is a capital-intensive trade running on bucket trucks, chippers, stump grinders, and cranes, and an owner heading into retirement often stops reinvesting, so a buyer can inherit a fleet due for replacement right as they take over. The real question is whether the owner will stay long enough to teach the estimating, because pricing the work is the one part of this business that three decades built and a handshake can't transfer.
COMMUNITY PERKS
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RECENT PODCAST EPISODE
Ryan spent a decade as a CPA and corporate finance executive before moving into a career selling medical devices in operating rooms. The whole time, he resented needing permission to take a day off.
Then business school flipped his thinking: why gamble on a startup idea when you could buy a business that already prints cash?
So he bought a 30-year-old shutter manufacturer in South Carolina for $5.5 million, funding nearly 80% with an SBA loan.
Then reality set in. The business still ran on paper, down to the punch clock, and he had never run a production floor in his life. So he digitized everything and went hunting for growth in an unlikely place: a 30-year customer list nobody had ever mined.
Three years later, he's grown it more than 50%, to a $4.7 million run rate at 32% margins. And the shutter business is only step one. The real plan is a platform built on bolt-on acquisitions.
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.



