Entries by Apex Business Advisors

Know Your Broker: Jerry Meinert

In this occasional series we will share profiles of our team here at Apex so you can get to know the men and women that make us best qualified to help you buy or sell a business. “You can’t make this stuff up!” Jerry says when asked about “war stories” in the business brokering world. […]

Case Study #11: Be Prepared to Walk

Before Jeff Hoffman became a cofounder of the Priceline group of companies, he built Competitive Technologies, which was one of the first business intelligence companies in travel. He’d had a suite of products that would help companies manage and reduce travel expenses.   He got his first break with Exxon-Mobil, which spent $40M USD annually […]

Family Businesses: Planning for Succession

Talking about succession planning for family owned businesses… Did you know that 7 out of 10 Baby Boomers plan to work past the age of 65?   While that’s not really too surprising, given that generation’s legendary work ethic, this can cause a problem in family businesses, particularly around succession plans. Indeed, when some owners […]

Using Your Retirement Account to Acquire a Business

Talking about using your retirement account to acquire a business… We’ve previously discussed getting an SBA loan (and many of our acquisitions use the SBA) when starting or buying a business. If that’s not an option open to you, or if you need even more financing, or if you need more cash for a down […]

Book Club #9: The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman

Because college degrees carry (still) such an outsized weight of social proof, some business owners have been known to acquire an MBA after they’ve built, scaled, and sold a company.   Josh Kaufman persuasively argues in his 400+ page book The Personal MBA that you don’t need to do that. Reading his book can distill […]

Case Study #9: Fishing Trips

John Bowen was the CEO of Reinhardt Werba Bowen (RWB), a financial services company that was acquired by Assante Capital in 1998 for $25M. While the exit was ultimately a happy one, it started inauspiciously. Why? Because John was the object of a “fishing trip” from a competitor. What’s a “fishing trip”? Sometimes a firm […]

Know Your Broker: Jay Kvasnicka

In this occasional series we will share profiles of our team here at Apex so you can get to know the men and women that make us best qualified to help you buy or sell a business. Jay has been in the industry for just about a decade. He has owned both a promotional products […]

Book Club #8: Anything you Want, by Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers sold his company, CD Baby, for $22M. For years he’d made tens of millions of dollars for independent musicians by giving them a platform by which they could sell to their fans. Some time after, he wrote a very short book about the experience, Anything You Want, which is packed with lessons and […]