Hi, I’m back. Update, I’m buying a business

I’m back. I’ve been away for a few months. During this time, several big things have happened. We welcomed a new baby boy into our lives, I’ve since gone back to work as of Thanksigiving week, AND I’m in the process of buying a business.

Since this is a blog about my professional journey, I would be remiss to not include how I’ve embarked down this path of becoming a small business owner.

My husband and I have dreamed for a long time about owning our own business. Having worked for other people for the majority of our careers, owning a business eventually was always the end goal. At multiple points in my life, I’ve considered starting my own accounting consulting business. The thing that stopped me each time was the fear of acquiring a book of business and the lack of confidence in my own ability to sell myself. Not being sales-minded, the thought was highly intimidating. Additionally, as I progressed along the ranks, my compensation increased accordingly and I couldn’t justify the amount of energy and effort it would require to start my own firm, and then to have take home a significantly smaller salary was the nail in the coffin for my entrepreneurial dreams. Occasionally, a frustrating event or conversation with my boss would drive me back to look at my options, but the math just never mathed.

I’ve considered opening my own nursery because my husband and I love gardening so much. But when I did the math on how many plants I needed to sell to replace my W2 income, it just didn’t make sense. I thought, maybe it could be a nice retirement gig. Then I thought, okay maybe I want to look at laundromats. I heard those were always really good passive income strategies, and for a while, that was the idea I had in my head. My brother also proposed opening a family grocery store together, which just sounded like the most fun thing ever. We would open an asian / american grocery store so asians can have a one stop shop. I think we’re a little late to the market though, because several large asian markets have opened up in the area recently. Also, I looked into the logistics of starting up a grocery store, and it just sounds hard. You have to deal with refrigeration machines, food expirations, importing things overseas, hiring, etc etc etc. Probably best we didn’t go down that path. I briefly considered opening my own boba store, because I am obsessed with boba and basically would go for one a day during my pregnancy. But you know what they say… it’s best not to get high on your own supply!

This past July, my husband was laid off from his job. It’s been a very turbulent year for those of us in tech, unfortunately. It was bad timing as we were expecting our baby end of August / beginning of September. Maybe it was bad timing, but also, maybe it was a sign that something needed to change. I could not fathom having to constantly be jumping from job to job into our 40s and 50s. Having a young family to take care of and being at the mercy of someone else who controlled our destiny really changed the math. The silver lining here is that my husband was able to (for the first time) “take some time off” to spend with our newborn. For both our other children, paternity leave was not offered. The other thing that helped all of this is that California offers new parents bonding leave (8 weeks of paid family leave) to spend with their newborn. This additional income took the stress off him, having to find a job immediately. I think we are fortunate to have built up a healthy savings account and have lived frugally enough to not have to feel the stress of not being able to make our next mortgage payment. That’s something that I advocate heavily: limit your spending to a level well below where your max is. You never want to be stuck up against a wall because something unforeseen happens.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I made a new friend via the Peanut app. Our babies had the same due date, she lived in the area, she was at a similar management level as me, working for a tech company and… she was also interested in starting her own business one day! As a passing thought, she introduced me to a podcast called Acquiring Minds. I listened to a couple of episodes, and I was hooked. It was here that I learned all about searchers, search funds, SBA loans, and of course, the ETA movement. ETA stands for entrepreneurship through acquisition. Acquiring Minds is a podcast where the host interviews people who have, for one reason or another, decided to purchase an exsiting business. This podcast made the process of purchasing a business a possibility for me, and it really uncovered the innerworkings. It taught me two really important things.

1. Anyone could do it, including me.
2. SBA loans were a thing!

Up until this point, I had thought that I needed to have the full purchase price amount in cash in order to make a purchase. But the truth was, no! I only needed 10%, perhaps maybe only 5%, in order to start. This blew my mind and changed the way I thought about the whole thing. Within a few days, I was back on BizBuySell, scrolling for potential opportunities.

I believe the universe has a way of signaling when change is necessary, and everything was beginning to fall into place. With my husband’s job situation, my general discontent in my full time role, having this sudden possibility of securing a future for ourselves and maybe the ability to create some generational wealth for our kids, the decision suddenly became obvious. The universe was basically telling me, “Hey! Now is the time!! Go do that thing you’ve always wanted to do. Go be your own boss.”

I heard it, and I answered.