Andrew’s acquisition: from finance 9-5 to accounting firm owner

Let’s dig into a deal breakdown from one of my O.G. Acquisition Ace students, Andrew Whitney:

In early 2023, Andrew and his wife had just enrolled their son in private school.

They were feeling the squeeze and needed to find a way to dramatically increase their income.

Andrew worked as an FP&A professional. But instead of looking for another finance job or a raise, he decided he wanted to buy a business.

He started going down the acquisition rabbit hole on social media.

And as it turns out, it was actually Andrew’s wife who ended up getting him into Acquisition Ace!

She was scrolling on Instagram, found one of my posts, and convinced him to book a call.

After joining, Andrew connected with Sean, another student who shared his goals, and they quickly became partners.

Six months later, Andrew and Sean closed on an accounting firm in the Carolinas.

Here are the numbers on that deal:

• Purchase price: $560,000 (SBA valued it at $750k!)

• Down payment: Only $56k (10% with an SBA loan)

• The monthly SBA loan payment: $7,800

They got a fantastic price because it was a small, one-man operation (with the owner as the CPA, plus an admin and payroll manager), and the owner was burned out.

This guy was handling 1,300 tax returns annually — over double the typical CPA workload!

The upside was, the firm had a ton of clients, and the overhead was incredibly low.

So the owner was pocketing about $400,000 a year.

Andrew quickly realized he could use that money to:

• Bring on a few more employees to replace the owner’s workload

• Pay off the SBA loan

• Pay himself and Sean a fair salary

• Upgrade their accounting software

• And the business would still cash flow around $100k a year after all of that.

Andrew decided to keep his existing finance job, since he worked remotely.

So now he works from the accounting firm office, juggling his day job while growing the business.

I asked Andrew the advice he’d give to anyone getting started in acquisitions, and he said:

“Identify your strength. Being in finance, it made sense for us to look at accounting, because I can hit the ground running very quickly... So identify that strength and how you would fit into that company you would be acquiring, because that’s really how you want to make it. Not as a job, but a career.”

Words of wisdom right there.

If you’re considering buying a business, you’ve got to be in it for the long haul!

It’s not easy… but it’s often much safer, more profitable, and more reliable than building a startup from scratch.

If you’re just getting started and want more guidance on acquiring a business:

Fill out our 2-minute Interested Investor Survey here.

And if you have a business you’re looking to sell:

Tell me the details here, and we’ll send you qualified buyers as we come across them.

— Ben Kelly