Sarah Moore

Industry is overrated — buy any business that's established and consistently profitable

Sarah Moore argues the industry filter most acquirers (and investors) insist on is irrelevant. The only thing that matters when buying a business with debt is that it's been established and consistently profitable for years.

“And what I found is that the industries were absolutely irrelevant. What matters is that you find a business that is established and has been consistently profitable for a number of years. Everything else, garbage.”

Steal thisStop screening by industry; screen for an established business with multiple years of consistent profit.

Recruit free interns by reframing the grunt work as 'private equity experience'

Moore couldn't pay interns, so she pitched her search as a private-equity apprenticeship — access you can't get even by interning at a real PE firm. She wiretapped her own phone via a conference line so interns could listen to every owner, broker, and attorney call.

“And so this opportunity is, hey, you're going to get private equity experience and I'm going to give you transparency into everything. I'm huge on transparency. So I created a conference line and I said, I'm going to let every single person listen in on these calls whenever they want. So those were calls with all the owners, brokers, accountants, attorneys, anyone from HBS, anyone that I contacted. My phone was basically tapped. 24/7.”

Steal thisPay unpaid interns in rare access and transparency by letting them shadow every real deal call.

The best interns come off Craigslist, not the school job board

Moore found student job boards produced cookie-cutter applicants. Her best intern, who lasted her entire search, came off Craigslist — people who don't think like every other college student.

“No, in fact, I initially used the student job boards and they were actually the worst. You get these cookie cutter students who think like everybody else. They were basic. The best interns I found came off Craigslist.”

Steal thisRecruit from Craigslist, not campus boards, when you want hustlers instead of cookie-cutter applicants.

Guess every email from 4 common patterns, then verify in bulk

Rather than hunt for each owner's address, Moore noticed business emails follow the same four name patterns. She generated all combinations in Excel and ran them through Bulk Email Checker to find the live ones.

“If you're looking all day for an email address, you see most emails are first name, last initial, domain. First initial, last name, at this. It's the same 4 patterns. So we created a big Excel file, guessed the combinations, and then ran them through something. I think it was Bulk Email Checker to see whether or not they were actually like real addresses.”

Steal thisGenerate the 4 standard email permutations per domain and bulk-validate them instead of researching each one.

Fake-targeted cold emails that make sellers self-qualify

Moore blasted generic outreach worded to look hand-researched, claiming the recipient's business hit her revenue/age/profit criteria. Owners who replied to correct her were unknowingly filling out a qualification survey.

“and we had sent the emails out in such a way that it looked like it was done targeted. Like it looked like we specifically did our research and said, hey, I, I'm looking for a business to buy and yours seems to perfectly fit the bill because it's within this revenue range. It's been around for a really long time and it's been profitable for a number of years. And the people that reached, that responded and said, actually, no, you idiot, That's not true. Great. Now we know that.”

Steal thisSend 'we researched you' cold emails stating your criteria; the corrections become free qualification data.

Only ~5% of businesses screened were consistently profitable and established

Moore says of all the businesses she looked at, only about 5% were both established and consistently profitable for years — which is why she pounced immediately when one met the bar.

“I would say maybe 5% of the businesses we looked at were consistently profitable and established, that few.”

Seller's note: make the seller the bank instead of raising equity

A seller's note lets the buyer pay part of the price over time, with the seller financing the remainder. Moore used a seller's note as a substitute for equity so she never had to bring in investors.

“Let's say you're buying a house for $1 million. Rather than giving the seller $1 million upfront, this— let's say you have a 25% seller's note. You would give that seller at close $750,000 and then they would get paid the remaining $250,000 over time. And whatever you define those terms at, whatever interest rate you decide on and time horizon, the seller becomes the bank.”

Steal thisNegotiate a seller's note as your equity stand-in so you don't have to raise money down.

Bought a multimillion-dollar business with $0 down: 25% seller's note, 75% bank note

Moore put no cash into eggcartons.com. She structured it as a 25% seller's note plus a 75% bank note, and shopped 20+ banks until she found one that treated the seller's note as equity.

“You don't need to put any cash down. And I didn't have to because of the seller's note. So I did a 25% seller's note and a 75% bank note. And the idea there was when shopping around for a bank to do the deal, it was all about— and it took me, you know, 20+ banks to figure this out. It was all about how did they view the seller's note. Banks that viewed that seller's note, which very few did, as equity.”

Steal thisShop dozens of banks until one counts your seller's note as the equity, then borrow the rest.

Buying a small business is the last open lane of the American dream

Moore's core message: anyone who wants to buy and operate a small business can, from a cleaning company to a dog-walking business. It's not a matter of can or can't — it's will or won't.

“Which is that anyone who wants to buy, and I really mean anyone who wants to buy and operate a small business, can do so. It is not a matter of can or can't, it's a matter of will or won't.”

Egg cartons were actually specialty packaging — 40% of revenue had nothing to do with eggs

After buying, Moore studied the order history and realized customers used the cartons for crickets, roaches, bath bombs, and small parts. She reframed the business from 'eggs' to specialty packaging, focused on sticky custom molds, and 5-6x'd during COVID.

“And I realized when I got in it, I'm not really in the egg industry, I'm in specialty packaging. And so it actually was a lot more of an opportunity than I ever realized. And I wasn't some genius figuring this out. I just looked at our order history. We were getting orders from people that were selling crickets and Dubai roaches and people that were using the egg cartons for small parts, people that were using them for bath bombs, cupcakes. I estimate now that 40% of our revenue has nothing to do with eggs.”

Steal thisMine your order history to discover the bigger market your business is secretly already serving.

After acquiring: hire and fire fast, and change nothing the first year

Moore's two biggest regrets, borrowed from her mentor but ignored: be quick to hire and fire, and don't change anything big (or anything at all) in year one. Both cost her dearly.

“It was hire and fire fast. Didn't do that. Huge mistake. And do not change anything big or really anything at all the first year. Both of those things cost me a lot.”

Steal thisIn your first year as a new owner, freeze changes and move fast on people decisions.

Switching the office phones to VoIP nearly killed the new business

Moore thought modernizing the hardwired phones to VoIP was trivial, but the 1-800 number forwards to 10-12 lines and is the lifeline for the biggest customers. Spectrum lost the lines mid-port; phones were dead for almost a week and customers thought the new owner had gone out of business.

“We should just change our phones to VoIP phones so that I can see everything remotely where there's not phones ringing. Let's get, you know, into the modern age here. Seems like not a big thing. No, that was one of the biggest mistakes I made because you called and our phone number is actually extremely important.”

Steal thisLeave mission-critical infrastructure (phone numbers, the thing customers actually use) untouched after an acquisition.

Turn being a woman in a male broker world into a memory hack

Moore leaned into standing out: at 5'9" she wore 5-inch heels and loud outfits to broker events so every broker remembered 'the extremely tall chick.' She also wore a 'I want to buy your business' sweatshirt with her number on the back around Boston.

“So I'm 5'9" and I would go to only free broker events, but I would go to them in 5-inch heels. So I'm walking around as this 6-foot-2 Amazon and I'd always wear like a ridiculous outfit too, like a loud color. So when I'd call the brokers, I'd say, because they never remembered, They'd say, who are you again? I'd say, I'm that extremely tall chick that introduced myself to you looking for a business. There wasn't a single person that didn't remember.”

Steal thisEngineer one memorable physical signature so gatekeepers instantly recall who you are.

Mass-fax boring B2B owners — the untapped channel with no competition

On an intern's idea, Moore faxed business owners a flyer with her photo saying 'we wanna buy your business.' Years later people still recognize her from the faxes — proof the fax machine is an unsaturated channel for legacy B2B sellers.

“And then I faxed everybody. That was one of the interns' idea to send out mass faxes. And part of the faxing campaign was just putting anything that will get their attention. So part of it, I did put my picture on there and I'd say, we wanna buy your business. And I told you this, to this day I have people that recognize me from those faxes.”

Steal thisReach legacy B2B owners through their fax machine — nobody else is competing in that inbox.