A win-win business model
The problem
Each year, 70% - 80% of listed businesses, fail to find a solution to sell their business.
Small businesses are supposed to be the backbone of the economy but when their owners retire, due to lack of owner knowledge and bank objections, most of them fail to find a solution. That forces retiring owners to shut their doors or sell their assets. Retiring owners then loose their retirement income and legacy, while the employees lose their jobs and the community loses a valuable resource. We believe that each individual owner's entrepreneurial story was epic and that they deserve to exit with dignity and preserve their legacy.
Our solution
A long-term plan for the businesses that we buy
Epic works directly with retiring owners to buy their business, without a bank, and run it for the next thirty years. We add their business to our network and work out how to pay them monthly to ensure their retirement. Then we align the employees with the success of the business. By ensuring that their business is passed on to competent operators, the retiring owners, employees and the local economy all win together. The retiring owner made the initial sacrifices; Epic will ensure their reward.
When small business owners are finally ready to sell their business, they typically have never sold a business before. The years they spent in business ownership have been used for minimizing operational expenses, decreasing taxes and improving their processes. Most owners haven’t spent 2-5 years to prepare their business for a buyer, didn't know how to build their business for a sale or even what Buyers want. What they know is that they want their epic journey to end in a dignified exit.
How It Works
1
Retiring Owners
2
What Buyers Want
Retiring Owners often struggle to understand that most Buyers aren't just looking for revenue. Buyers want to make sure that the business runs like an actual business without the presence of the owner. Here are the top items Buyers are typically looking for in the businesses they are interested in buying: 1) predictable, recurring revenue, 2) strong, consistent profitability, 3) clean, transparent financials, 4) low to no owner dependance, 5) scalable, systemized operations, and 6) diverse customer base.
3
Becoming Sellers
When Retiring Owners initially decide to sell their business, many often just figure they list their business "as-is" online or with a broker. 70-80% fail to sell typically because of one or more of these four failure reasons: 1] unrealistic valuations (35% of seller failures), 2] poor financial documentation (25% of seller failures), 3] the businesses have excessive owner dependency (20%), 4] and general seller unreadiness/ poor systems (20%). On a case-by-case basis, Epic will consult with Sellers to address each these areas so that Retiring Owners can beat the odds.
4
Banking Dilemmas
Once Sellers have addressed their selling issues, they soon learn that its banks, not buyers, who drive most buying decisions. The banks want 2-3 years worth of trailing business financials after the seller has addressed their selling issues and made operational improvements. As Bank's continue to find ways to reduce their own risk, they have made it much more challenging for owners to sell businesses by increased lending rates, decreasing approval rates and requiring a much larger amount of seller financing than even before. As such, bank approval has become the bane of everyone's existence.
5
Negotiation Solutions
At the end of the day, Buyers are simply trying to acquire what Seller’s claim they built, but with financing. It’s the financing, or banks, that complicate most sales. Epic is a buyer who doesn’t work with banks but negotiates directly with the Seller. This means our negotiations don’t end with a bank rejection letter, but either a "pass" or with an offer for a seller "pension." Eliminate the bank and the chances of a successful sale jump way up. Then it just comes down to a Seller being able to eliminate their four reasons for failure. This way, negotiations can succeed, Sellers beat the odds to earn their "pension" and protect their legacy.
6
Maintaining Operations
Upon closing, Epic takes over the day-to-day operations with the intention of running the business for the long haul. Following the initial leadership meetings, much of the initial focus post-acquisition will be to document best practices, remedy any extreme pain-points in the operation, smoothing out any customer service concerns, improve the sales funnel, expand marketing and potentially promote existing employees. As each industry is different, much will depend on the current threats and opportunities that exist and developing a long-term road map for where the company wants to be in 10 years and how it believes it can get there.
7
Employee Opportunities
Employees who remain with the business during the transition will often receive new opportunities for their continued contributions to the business. Many will be given more detail in their responsibilities, and some potentially could grow into new roles as leadership shifts to adapt to the departure of its founder. These opportunities could lead to a new upside from the company’s potential growth where each employee could be rewarded for their efforts, just like an owner.
Clients & Partners
Industries we are currently considering
Light Manufacturing
Medical Services
Professional Services
Niche Distribution
Automotive Services
Technical Services
Consumer Goods
Building Products
Food & Beverage
Financial Services
Personal Services
Construction Services
Key criteria for an Epic Acquisition
Retiring owner
An owner, preferably just one, who is actually retiring from the industry. If there are a number of retiring owners, we will consider case-by-case.
Location & longevity
Located within the Pacific Northwest, in an industry we have listed below and the type of business that we believe can be operated for the next 20 years.
Seller Discretionary Earnings
Seller Discretionary Earnings (Seller's stated Net Income over 36 months, plus owner compensation) needs to be from $500K to $5M, supported by tax-returns
Management & Staff Count
When we acquire, we are looking to maintain the current business as it is. Therefore we look for a minimum headcount of 8 staff and 2 managers. Other options are reviewed case-by-case.
Forget Banks
Epic is a buyer who doesn't work with banks for its acquisitions. As such we work with retiring owners to negotiate fair terms for both parties. Owners need to be open to creative financing.
Owner transition period
Since we will be building a new leadership system, the owner needs to be open to a transition period, with mutually agreeable compensation, of possibly six (6) months.
Our Team
Riley LeBrun
Jeannette Rizzi
Patrick McNamee
Gabriela Sanchez
Akari Endo
Founder & Negotiations
Operations & HR
Due Diligence & Tech
Admin & Support
Marketing & Advertising
Beat the odds
Sell Successfully
Retire Epic-ly