Buying Businesses With Zero Money Down

Excerpt From the Book

How I Acquired 5 Businesses in 18 Months — and How You Can Too

When I first began my acquisition journey, I didn’t have millions in the bank, I didn’t have a team of Wall Street financiers behind me, and I certainly didn’t have any formal M&A training. What I did have was ambition, persistence, and the willingness to think differently about how businesses could be bought.

Over an 18-month period, I acquired five very different businesses — all without spending a single dollar of my own money. Here’s what that portfolio looked like:

• A self-serve car wash
• Two e-commerce stores, each generating over $600,000 per year in sales
• A merchant services business
• A short-term rentals business

These weren’t paper acquisitions or inflated startup valuations. They were real, operating businesses with customers, employees, and consistent cash flow. Each one was acquired using creative deal structures that eliminated the need for me to risk my personal money. In fact, many of these acquisitions paid me upfront — putting money in my pocket on day one. Beyond that, each one went on to add a minimum of $100,000 in annual profit to my bottom line.

Fast Forward: Scaling Further

What I’m sharing with you in this book isn’t a “one-off lucky story.” It’s a repeatable system. Since those first five acquisitions, I’ve scaled even further, especially in the industries where I found the most opportunity and synergy: self-serve car washes and e-commerce stores. I’ve bought multiple additional businesses in both verticals using the exact same methods. The system doesn’t just work once — it works again and again, as long as you know how to find motivated sellers, structure deals correctly, and manage growth with discipline.