How I run 8 businesses in about 20 hours a week

Happy Thursday!

Over the last five years, I’ve bought or passively invested into eight businesses across a range of industries:

• Financial services

• Due diligence

• An ATM route

• A SaaS company

• A drilling company

• Accounting firms

…And a couple others I’ve since sold.

On paper, that sounds like a lot (or almost impossible) to manage.

In practice, it looks very different.

Community Spotlight

Mario bought an $1.8M homecoming mum and party supply store for just $20K out of pocket, and 10x’d his investment in 6 months.

He went from CPG sales to owning a seasonal retail business making 40% more than the previous owner.

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The Honest Answer

I spend about 20 hours per week across all of them combined.

The majority of that goes to my financial services company (roughly 15 hours a week) because it’s currently the largest revenue driver.

That time is mostly emails and weekly calls with the team.

For everything else, I check in with the leadership team or general manager either monthly or quarterly.

We review sales numbers, talk through any personnel issues, and make sure revenue is trending in the right direction.

And that’s it! I’m not in the weeds on any of them.

(Knowing which businesses to buy, how to structure deals, and how to put the right people in place takes real guidance. Inside the Acquisition Ace community, 2,000+ members are learning exactly how to do this, supported by people who’ve already built portfolios of their own. If you’re interested in joining, book a call with our team here and we’ll talk to see if it’s right for you.)

This Doesn’t Happen by Accident

The reason I can operate this way is because of how I structure deals from the beginning.

When I’m evaluating a business to buy, one of the first things I look for is whether it already has capable management in place - people who can run daily operations without the owner being present.

If the owner is the glue holding everything together, that’s a problem I’d have to solve before I could ever step back.

By buying businesses that are already structured this way, I can transition in as the new owner without disrupting what’s working.

The team stays, the operations stay, and the business keeps running.

The Thing That Makes it Scalable

Once you own a business, the goal is to systematize everything that currently lives in someone’s head.

Standard operating procedures, clear reporting structures, a leadership team you trust completely

That’s what allows you to eventually step back, and then go do it again with the next acquisition.

From there, each deal gets easier because you’ve already built the muscle.

And over time, you end up with a portfolio of businesses generating cash flow that doesn’t require you to show up every day to keep the lights on.

If you’re ready to learn the ins and outs of business acquisitions…

👉 Book a call with my team here to see if the Acquisition Ace community is right for you (where we help 2,000+ members learn how to find, negotiate, and close on their first business).