Where is the best place to buy a "job" type business?

acrobat · Mar 15, 2019

I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I've got a small amount of cash (approx 75k) and would really like to run my own business rather than work for others. However I've looked at a couple of sites like daltons, businessforsale and rightbiz and for the most part I'm seeing hair salons and cafes/restraunts/pubs.

I know I don't have enough cash for a "serious" business so I should expect these results but I'm wondering if maybe I'm looking at the wrong sites or should be taking a different approach? I'm looking for online opportunities - not really interested in getting into shop lease complexities.
Thanks

estwig · Mar 15, 2019

If your willing to punt £75k, why not buy stock of what interests you, watches, shoes, plastic replicas of rare south American frogs, whatever floats your boat. Get a website built and go for it.

Stedurham · Mar 15, 2019

Depends what you want to do? You need to look at something you enjoy or you might aswell go and work for someone else.

Deleted member 315707 · Mar 15, 2019

Have you thought about a franchise, the franchise fee is so you have a proven model, advice and brand to work with. If you go through https://www.thebfa.org/ they are the association which makes sure the franchise is legit.. It doesn't have to cost anywhere near £75k and you'd have your pick of industries and ones which are man in a van type roles rapidly turn into multi van enterprises.

Mr D · Mar 15, 2019

Running your own business can, as some found out the hard way, end up with you working for considerably less than minimum wage and be the lowest paid person in the building.

You are seeing a popular kind of business for sale on those sites - they do get others. Just perhaps not as popular or advertised a different way.
Even local free papers occasionally have jobs for sale.

Mr D · Mar 15, 2019

Helpful Johnny said:
Have you thought about a franchise, the franchise fee is so you have a proven model, advice and brand to work with. If you go through https://www.thebfa.org/ they are the association which makes sure the franchise is legit.. It doesn't have to cost anywhere near £75k and you'd have your pick of industries and ones which are man in a van type roles rapidly turn into multi van enterprises.

Though franchise businesses can also be a bad idea too.
BFA doesn't appear to have a lot of power if the deal goes sour judging by some comments over time from people who spent money on franchises that were …. not as good as claimed.

Deleted member 315707 · Mar 15, 2019

Of course, anything can be a bad idea. My take is if you are coming on here to get advice about buying a job, franchising is definitely one way to go and choosing a carefully vetted one, which the BFA ensures happens, would mean that you have a better chance of success.

I have experienced both sides, seeing people spending a large sum of money for basically nothing and others with multi van enterprises having invested a very small sum of their own money.

acrobat · Mar 15, 2019

estwig said:
If your willing to punt £75k, why not buy stock of what interests you, watches, shoes, plastic replicas of rare south American frogs, whatever floats your boat. Get a website built and go for it.

Well that is my plan B but I was under the assumption that if I bought a new or "retirement sale" business I'd get a bit of a head start in terms of a brand name (mostly unknown is better than completely unknown), website, FB account, etc. However what I see listed are dropshipping/adsense sites not real sites which I'm assuming is because they are out of my budget or I'm searching on the wrong sites.

acrobat · Mar 15, 2019

Helpful Johnny said:
Have you thought about a franchise, the franchise fee is so you have a proven model, advice and brand to work with. If you go through thebfa.org they are the association which makes sure the franchise is legit.. It doesn't have to cost anywhere near £75k and you'd have your pick of industries and ones which are man in a van type roles rapidly turn into multi van enterprises.

Thanks for the link, I will check them out now. I do like the idea of franchise but I took a look at the normal players like McDonalds, Subway, etc but they are way out of my league so I didn't pursue.

Darren_Ssc · Mar 15, 2019

acrobat said:
However what I see listed are dropshipping/adsense sites not real sites which I'm assuming is because they are out of my budget or I'm searching on the wrong sites.

Assuming you already owned the kind of website you are suggesting, established with regular traffic and income, why would you want to sell it?

This is why you won't see many of these kinds of businesses for sale. I'm not saying they don't crop up from time to time but, unless you are very lucky, you'll need to be patient.

Mr D · Mar 15, 2019

acrobat said:
Well that is my plan B but I was under the assumption that if I bought a new or "retirement sale" business I'd get a bit of a head start in terms of a brand name (mostly unknown is better than completely unknown), website, FB account, etc. However what I see listed are dropshipping/adsense sites not real sites which I'm assuming is because they are out of my budget or I'm searching on the wrong sites.

The people selling such sites will go where the buyers of businesses are....
Which is the same places that sellers of businesses advertise.

Clinton · Mar 15, 2019

Hey @acrobat, in addition to the three portals you mentioned, there are several others. I maintain a list of them here.

But, even in the others you likely to find a lot of the cafe, hair salon, newsagent type businesses. More disappointingly, you'll find businesses being sold by people with unrealistic ideas on valuation / price.

People like you looking for "online opportunities" end up in places like Flippa and Empire Flippers. I was buying and selling online businesses long before those sites ever existed (and long after they were created). I've also run a forum for buyers / sellers of online businesses and we've exposed no ends of scams at places like Flippa.

I've written extensively on due diligence etc when buying an online business (you could start at this article of mine). But the scams have become more and more sophisticated and Flippa themselves aid and abet the scammers (because they are paid by the seller).

I would advise you to ditch all that you've heard about website flipping. 99.99% of it is nonsense. If you have the savvy to run an online business then use that £75K to start a new business! If you jump into buying one ... you're a lamb to the slaughter. Even I, with my vast experience in this area, have a 75% chance of getting burnt if I bought a small (sub $75K) online business today.

TheWebDesignCompany · Mar 16, 2019

Have you considered an investment type business, there are certain whiskeys that increase in value so fast, you could buy £20K or £30k of rare whiskey and sell it just a few years later for 2 or 3 times as much sometimes much more...

The Byre · Mar 16, 2019

Talk to @Pish_Pash - he's trying to sell his one-and-a-half-man business. You two may be made for one another!!!

As for @Clinton's supposition - he's waaay out and so I've fixed his quote -

Clinton said:
I would advise you to ditch all that you've heard about website flipping. 100% of it is nonsense.

As for the rest of his advice - pay close heed (esp. about due diligence!) and read every word on his site!

Clinton · Mar 16, 2019

The Byre said:
Talk to @Pish_Pash - he's trying to sell his one-and-a-half-man business.

I doubt @Pish_Pash 's wife would like you calling her half a man. Ol' Pish_Pash has enough wife problems without you adding to them!

Alan · Mar 16, 2019

I would say that $75k is more than enough to build your own 'job' business. In fact £7.5k is still plenty to build your own job business.

MBE2017 · Mar 17, 2019

Totally agree with Alan above, why buy a job instead of making one instead, £75k should give you 3-4 years to build the business up.

The hard part is deciding what to do, but if you can find something it is almost always cheaper to start yourself.

Pish_Pash · Mar 17, 2019

The Byre said:
Talk to @Pish_Pash - he's trying to sell his one-and-a-half-man business. You two may be made for one another!!!

My stock alone amounts to £170k

Alan · Mar 17, 2019

Pish_Pash said:
My stock alone amounts to £170k

So that means £17k if you actually want to dump it - lol

Pish_Pash · Mar 18, 2019

Alan said:
So that means £17k if you actually want to dump it - lol

I'm not dumping ...& even if I were, I think 90% off is a little optimistic (is your name Philip Green by any chance?)

Stedurham · Mar 18, 2019

Just bought some liquidation stock and paid 15% of their cost and a well know pound retailer it was far far less than that, wish I could find some more

acrobat · Mar 18, 2019

Clinton said:
Hey @acrobat, in addition to the three portals you mentioned, there are several others. I maintain a list of them here.

People like you looking for "online opportunities" end up in places like Flippa and Empire Flippers.

I would advise you to ditch all that you've heard about website flipping.

I was actually using that list of sites as my guide, I didn't realise it was yours, thanks for that useful resource @Clinton

Yeah I took one look at flippa and left before the site even finished loading.
I was thinking more along the lines of buying an app or maybe a service (e.g. saas) type site but I think the bottom of those (legitimate) markets is way above me. I know development of those type sites can easily run into millions so I guess its no surprise really.

acrobat · Mar 18, 2019

TheWebDesignCompany said:
Have you considered an investment type business, there are certain whiskeys that increase in value so fast, you could buy £20K or £30k of rare whiskey and sell it just a few years later for 2 or 3 times as much sometimes much more...

Its a nice idea but sadly I know nothing about whiskey, wine, art, coins or pretty much anything worth collecting.
If all else fails, I was considering sites like crowdcube to invest in startup type businesses. Hopefully help out others who were able to come up with better ideas than I was.

estwig · Mar 18, 2019

acrobat said:
Its a nice idea but sadly I know nothing about whiskey, wine, art, coins or pretty much anything worth collecting.

I have over the years acquired some very rare Star Trek memorabilia and conversely, rare postcards of my home town, in both cases buying individual pieces to make complete sets.

Everything is collectable, and everything is worth something to someone.

Stedurham · Mar 19, 2019

What do you enjoy? What do you like doing. What are you good at.This is where to start you will have a better success rate

FD Capital · Mar 19, 2019

My advice is to start off small and if you make a success out of it scale it up. That worked well for me back in 2004 I built a business up working in the evenings and weekends then only left my day job when it was established enough and I proved to myself I could make it work.

A website / store business is very tough and competitive so I would be careful of trying to start something like that from scratch at the current time.

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Where is the best place to buy a "job" type business?

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