No Money? No Problem. Here's How I Acquired a Business Anyway

Shine Star

No cash? No credit? No problem.  Here’s how I got my first business deal without spending a single dollar — and how you can too.  I didn’t have savings, loans, or a rich family. Still,  I bought a real business — legally and ethically  #BusinessAcquisition  #Entrepreneurship  #PassiveIncome  #BuyABusiness  #WealthHacks  #FinancialFreedom  #ZeroDownDeals  #NoMoneyDown #StartupHacks  #CashflowBusiness  #InvestSmart  #UKEntrepreneurs  #CanadaBusiness  💬 Drop a comment if you’d ever buy a business instead of starting one. 🔍 Want the full step-by-step guide? Comment “OWN” and I’ll send it. 🚀 This works in 2025 and beyond — don’t miss the final tip. 🔔 Follow for more business strategies that don’t require startup capital. ✅ Like | Share to learn the exact playbooks the wealthy use to build empires quietly.

Transcript

00:00This is the richest guy in India. This guy's the richest guy in Latin America. And this,

00:04the richest man in the world. What do they all have in common? They've bought businesses to

00:08build their empires. But you guys are probably thinking, I don't have cash. How could I buy a

00:11ton of businesses? That's what we're going to break down for you. How do you buy a business

00:14for zero dollars in one week? I spent the last more than 10 years on Wall Street at Goldman

00:19Sachs, getting an MBA from Georgetown, all obsessing on really two things, finance and

00:24making money. And what I realized is there was one skill set that changed my life more than

00:27anything else. And that was the ability to figure out how to get other people's money

00:30to make me money or what's called creative financing. That's what we're going to break

00:35down in this video. This is what I'm calling the Venmo challenge. Oh, but before that,

00:40we're almost at a million subscribers. We've been obsessing on making you videos that actually make

00:44you money, not just entertain you. Although I cringe looking back at our very first ones.

00:49So do me a solid. Subscribe to the channel, help us hit a million, help you make a million.

00:53And that's the goal. I so appreciate you guys. So the question you have to ask yourself always

00:58starts with, if you want to buy something, what do you have to do first? You have to figure out

01:01where do I go to buy it? And the answer to that is where you're going to buy is where you spend.

01:07You're going to pull up your Venmo or PayPal. You can really use either. And you're going to look

01:11at where are you spending cash consistently with small businesses that you can get to the owner

01:18of. And then I put it in an Excel spreadsheet and I list who do spend revenue value add.

01:25What do I mean by that? But if you look at the spreadsheet, this who column here,

01:29Griselle, Susanna, Oscar tells me who they are. Then the, what do they do? Tells me, well,

01:34one's my cleaning lady. One's my handyman. One's a property manager. The next is my monthly spend.

01:39How much do I spend with them a month? My cleaning lady, cause I'm a dirty girl. I spent about 2k

01:43property manager, 6,500 a month and Oscar the handyman about 500 bucks a month fixing random

01:49things. Then I list the total revenue of their businesses. How much money do they make? You can

01:53see Griselle makes 150 all the way to Oscar. It makes 1.1. Now I list my value add all the way to

01:59the right. What are all the things that I could add to their business? If theoretically I bought

02:04Griselle's cleaning business or part of it or Oscar's handyman business? Well, Griselle doesn't have a

02:09website, employees, a name for her company. She doesn't market it. She doesn't have social media.

02:15All of these things I could add to their individual businesses or you could add. Now you're not going

02:20to know all this upfront and I'm going to tell you how you're going to speak to these people about it.

02:24This is Renan. I wanted to show you guys someone who has actually bought a business using this exact

02:28same process. This time last year, you were an employee. Then you came into unconventional

02:34acquisitions. And for some reason, you got this crazy idea to buy a business, right? Your story of

02:40the business that you bought is pretty wild. So why don't you tell people first, what was your deal

02:44and how did you structure it? The first deal was I was looking at frozen yogurt. I was looking at

02:49music and arts. I got real serious about a dry cleaner. While I was going through that process, I had a

02:53VA going off market for me. They found an $8 million business doing $2 million in cash flow, EBITDA.

02:59And that was way beyond my mindset, way beyond my scope. I was like, no way. But curiosity,

03:05you want to see what a $20 million home looks like? You do the open house. This is free. I get

03:10to go in and see what an $8 million business looks like for free. I went in and I fell in love. I was

03:14like, this is awesome. Profit margins are great. So I saw nothing but opportunity. And that's when I

03:19realized I need to figure out a way to purchase this. It would have required 20% down, which is 2.4

03:24million. Didn't have that. That's where my dumb deal calculator came up because I got to do

03:31sensitivity analysis and see what works, what doesn't and came up with a hundred percent seller

03:35financing. Presented it to him after I built the relationship. I didn't hit him with that day one.

03:40This was like two months into it. And he saw the vision. He saw the vision. We signed and we're

03:44about to hit a year with that company and we're growing it and everything's wonderful.

03:47So basically the conversation goes like this. I go, Grisel, how's it going? Normal first intro to a

03:53conversation. And then I'm like, Grisel, you know, I've never talked to you about this before. You

03:57have a cleaning business, obviously. Do you clean other people's houses? Oh yeah, you do. Okay, cool.

04:01Do you have other employees? Uh, yeah, you know, I do or I don't. And then I said something like,

04:07Grisel, I was wondering, I actually sometimes invest and help small businesses grow. And what that

04:14might look like is for instance, right now, I don't know if you have like a website, social media. No,

04:18no. Do you want to grow your business at all? Well, I don't know. Well, what I kind of do is I come in

04:22and I help people like you grow their business and I take a piece of the business. I take some

04:26equity and I also get a distribution, AKA part of the total sales you do each month in the business.

04:31Would you have an interest in growing your business and kind of talking about something

04:34like that? At which point normally, cause these people work for you, they're going to say like,

04:37yeah, okay. I'd be open to having a conversation on something like that. And as you tease out the

04:42conversation, you're really curious about their goals and their desires. And eventually you say,

04:46I know this is kind of a personal question, but how much money do you make in this business year?

04:50What's the total revenue of the business? And Grisel might say, well, I make $150,000 a year.

04:55And I go, cool. Let's look at this. Let's write down some numbers and see how much you charge per

05:00hour, how many clients you have right now, what your capacity is in your business to take on more

05:05clients. And if I can help you get more clients, maybe I get a percentage of the business only if I

05:12grow it. So for instance, let's say her business right now makes $150,000. Let's say that she charges

05:17$1,000 an hour. So she's working 150 hours a year to make $150,000. Spoiler, she's not.

05:23But again, this is YouTube math. If she does 150 hours with $1,000 an hour, and I can double her

05:30hours for her to end up working 300 hours a year, then she has a business that's doing $300,000

05:36roughly a year. Let's say that that means she's only working at 50% capacity. So in any given week,

05:42she has half of her days filled and not the other half. Without her adding any employees,

05:48anything else, I could take her business from $150,000 to $300,000 if I increased her clients

05:53to X. So then I'd go, well, how many new people would I have to refer Grisel to for her to get

05:58those another 150 hours? Well, maybe it's, I need to refer her two clients a week. And can I come up

06:04with a process to refer her for two clients a week? Oh yeah, I think I could. So if I am right,

06:09what I would say to Grisel is, why don't you keep all of the revenue on your first $150,000

06:16that you already make this year? As long as I can look at like your payments, I could even just look

06:20at your Venmo or your tax return and make sure you really make that. And then everything you make

06:23over $150,000, I want to own 25% of. And what that means is if I help you get another $150,000

06:30that you're not making right now this year at all, I keep 25% of that $150,000. So that means

06:36that I keep $37,500 of $150,000 for work that I do once in the beginning to set up Grisel because

06:45people usually use their cleaning people every single week. And I get to cashflow on throughout

06:49the rest of the year. Now it's a win-win for Grisel because she's not making that money right

06:53now. And it's a win-win for you because you've used $0 to acquire 25% of the business. And that's

06:59how this works. It's what's called a sweat equity deal and a distributing equity deal. Sweat equity

07:05means you're going to do some work. You're going to help by telling all of your friends,

07:09Hey, I have this incredible cleaning company I use. Oh, by the way, I created a website for

07:13her. So here it is. Here's her website. Here's what she charges because you're probably going

07:16to just increase the cost a little bit on an hourly basis. Most small businesses are underpriced

07:22by anywhere from 30% to 3X. So 300%. So you're probably going to increase the prices. You're

07:28going to go find her some new clients and you're going to increase her business by 2X and you're

07:31going to take 25% of that. I remember being deathly afraid to sign the paper for that business.

07:38I didn't want to go. My business partner, I called him that morning. We're driving in to sign the

07:42paperwork. And he's like, how do you feel? I said, I don't feel good. He goes, neither do I. It's

07:47the weird, it's paradoxical. I wasn't expecting that because if I'm going to do something, I'm going

07:52to do it right. So I'm in there learning the business, learning the people, just kind of understanding

07:56what it is that I'm doing. There were a lot of scary nights, you know, where are you like, what do I do next?

08:00Where's payroll going to come from? Even though we're doing all right, I don't have that safety

08:06net of corporate anymore. And then once I started getting comfortable with the uncomfortableness of

08:11everything, it is joyful in a weird way. I work a lot of hours, but it's all, like I said, for

08:15a purpose, for a mission. Here's the Venmo challenge in five steps. Step one, you're going to go to your

08:20Venmo. You're going to look at what you spend on. Step two, you're going to take the ones that aren't

08:24Amazon, Walmart, big companies, and you're going to put them in a list where you can get to the owner.

08:29You actually know them and you know, it's a small business. Step three, desire to own. Do you

08:33actually want to help Grisel increase her cleaning business? Do you maybe want to instead help Oscar

08:38increase his handyman business? Oh, it's your daughter's ballet studio that you pay. Would

08:44you want to own part of that ballet studio? This is where you gut check. Then it goes to owner

08:48conversation. That's where you shake hands and kiss babies and have that conversation I just told you

08:52about with Grisel. And then finally you make an offer, which is what we were doing at the end.

08:55How about now that I know how much revenue you make, what your goals are, aka to increase your

09:00revenue and what I can deliver to you, you deliver an offer to them. Five steps to buy a business with

09:07$0 in one week. And the only risk is your time. As long as you do this a few times, I found that the

09:13Venmo challenge works. In fact, check out this clip of me speaking to a group of random strangers where

09:17I had told them about this exact same thing. And one guy bought a business that does exactly this.

09:21What is the business that you might buy based on what you spend on Venmo or PayPal?

09:25Five star sitters. Great. And this is a babysitting company for your kids?

09:30Yeah, it's at home babysitting, nanny, placement service, and you can do drop-off childcare.

09:36First, we want to make sure a couple things. Do you know the owner of this business?

09:40Yes. I'm smiling so big because I learned about this in one of your posts and I did it the very next

09:45day for this person. So yes, I know her. So it works. Success. Okay. We have a quantitative

09:51analysis of one that says statistically this works every time. Here's where people are going to have

09:56some naysaying on the Venmo challenge. You might be asking yourself, why would they give me part of

10:00a business? This is where you need to make sure you understand their desires. Desires usually fall

10:04in three buckets. They want to make more money. They want to do less stuff. They want to do the things

10:10they do smarter. So can you help them make more money, aka bring in more revenue, increase prices?

10:16Could you help them do less stuff, which might be hire more employees, or maybe you actually operate

10:20the business? And the third is they don't like their business. They don't think it's a very good

10:23business model. So you're going to come in and say, huh, what if instead of offering cleaning services,

10:27we actually use third-party contractors to come in and cleanse? Those are the three things that are

10:31going to help you drive value for you to get part of a company without actually giving them any money.

10:37The next thing I'll say is what's your hit rate? So how often is this going to work? You probably

10:41need to go to 20 different providers, go through this process, get your pitch really dialed. And

10:46after you do that 20 times, my guess is you will likely be able to execute on this, but comment below

10:51and let me know if that's reasonable or unreasonable. You went from a W-2 making six figures, smart,

10:56capable, top performer in your field, top performer in military as well, to a year in buying a business

11:03that did $2 million in EBITDA for an $8 million valuation without using your money, but instead

11:10using seller financing. Fast forward one year later, it's been a win for both you and the small

11:15business owner. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. He loves the partnership. It's great synergy. I did it again.

11:20Also, we're signing this week, $12 million business in Pennsylvania.

11:24Where's my term sheet, Renan? How am I getting into these deals? And you have your operator for that

11:30one too. It's the previous owner. So he's staying on selling contracts and getting the business,

11:36running it. And he's added to the portfolio as of this week. I thought I'd go over one more way to

11:41do this with you guys. How did I buy nearly 50% of a podcast production company called Strike Fire

11:47Productions for $10,000 when that business was doing more than $150,000 a year in revenue? The process is

11:53damn similar to the Venmo challenge. This is just a 2.0 to the 1.0. I call it the personal P&L review.

11:59This is step four in Cody's hierarchy of deal structures. So what does this mean? It's really

12:04easy for you to open Venmo and look at what you've spent. The next level is you open up your credit

12:08card, your debit card, and your bank account. Then I want you to download the transaction report on all

12:12of them, where you can pull all of the transactions you've had, start easy the first time and go the

12:16last 30 days, and put it into an Excel spreadsheet. I know, YouTube, Excel spreadsheets. But I want you to

12:22put it into an Excel spreadsheet. Then once you have your list over the past 30 days, you're going to get

12:27rid of all the big boys. So Amazon, Walmart, Target, you're going to need to look for businesses that

12:33are small, that you know the owner could get to the owner, and that you have the ability to actually

12:39be valuable to them. So now you've got your list. This is all the places you spend on. The next step

12:46is I want you to think about desire in a different way. The first time for the Venmo challenge, I just

12:50said, would you want to help Grizel grow her cleaning company? That was it. Now I want you to take it to

12:55the next level, and I want you to have what I call the desire trifecta. You basically have talents,

12:59skills, strengths, and in the middle is your zone of genius. You're looking for businesses that align

13:04to your zone of genius, because now we want to go from a business that might be able to make you

13:08five figures, six figures, to a business that could make you seven figures, if you do it right.

13:12Every single business has six components to the business. They are this. Sales and marketing,

13:18finance and accounting, operations and IT, product, distribution and logistics, customer service.

13:23Those are the six components of every single business. You're going to think of those like

13:27the six skill sets. Let's say that you are an accountant. You're really good at accounting.

13:32You love it. Then you might want a business in which finance and accounting could be really

13:35useful for them. You're going to find your zones of genius, plus the things you like to do. And

13:40you're going to start looking for businesses, not just based on, could you get to the owner,

13:44but are they aligned for you? Now you're going to go back to that Excel spreadsheet I talked about,

13:48and you're going to list it just like we did last time. Who, what do they do,

13:51monthly spend, total revenue, value add, same process. This time your businesses are probably

13:56a little bit bigger because these businesses, you can't pay on Venmo or PayPal. Usually those

14:00are for smaller businesses, not always, but gross generalization. So here I have Strike Fire

14:05Productions, that podcast production company that I told you about. I was spending something like,

14:09let's call it three to five K on them a month. And when I got to the owner of the business,

14:13I realized they were doing $350,000 in revenue, but like $150,000 in profit. At that time,

14:18back then I had this podcast. Don't listen to it. It was awful. It was costing me, I don't know,

14:22$3,000 to run this podcast a month. I also was running a private equity portfolio at the time

14:27where a bunch of our companies wanted to have podcasts. And so I went to the owner, Jonathan,

14:31and I was like, Jonathan, you know, what's your biggest challenge right now in business? Like,

14:35what's really hard for you? And as most business owners would say, he said, it's just sales. Like,

14:40I hate sales. I hate selling. I hate calling people. I hate trying to close. And I was like,

14:45turns out I'm really good at sales. And I know a lot of people, Jonathan, that would like a podcast.

14:51What if I helped you grow that podcast? Do you think I could earn like 49% of this company through

14:55making a small investment and then also bringing you a bunch of additional clients? And he was like,

15:00I don't know. Let me think about that. And then the next day he called me up and said,

15:03I might be open to it. I was like, Jonathan, how about I do this? I'll put down $10,000

15:08to own 49% of your company. I can have the $10,000 straight. So $10,000 as a percentage of

15:17what we value your company at, which at that point we valued it at 1x. So $150,000, 1x the profits of

15:23the business. My $10,000 would be worth about, let's call it 7% of $150,000 business. That means,

15:30Jonathan, that I would have 10% equity in your business. And also I would take a distribution

15:35of 10% of the profits of the business. So if Jonathan pays himself $150,000, I get 7% of the

15:43$150,000. You with me? That's just straight. No matter what you get that, that's the current value

15:49of the business today. But what I'd like to do is if I can double your business, triple your business,

15:54I want to earn into that next 49% of the company. Would you be open to that? And he said, yes. And so

16:00we structured a deal. If I took his business from $150,000 to $300,000, I would earn 49%

16:05of the company because I double his profit level. And I already gave him the $10,000 as about down

16:11payment. Now that was cool. And we ran that for like two years. Then at a certain point,

16:15that business was making me probably $8,000 to $15,000 a month. I'd given all the other ways I

16:20was making money that wasn't that meaningful to me as a business. So we decided we could have an

16:24option for him to buy back the business. And the cool part about that is what that means for you is the

16:28deal that you do today. As long as you structure it right, you don't put down a bunch of cash. You don't

16:34get in a situation in which the business could bankrupt you and the business cash flows. The

16:38first deal you do does not have to be the last deal you do. And that's how the personal P&L

16:42review works. If you could go back to corporate Renan, the peak of your career, but not fulfilled,

16:49what would you tell him now? The message wouldn't be received by corporate Renan because corporate

16:54Renan didn't believe it was possible. The mindset wasn't there. So the first thing I would try to have

16:58to unlock is the mindset and really say, Hey, look, man, you're doing really good in corporate,

17:03but why? What are you trying to achieve? What is it that you're looking for? And then once I realized

17:08that, then the mind is unlocked. I could sit there and tell a corporate Renan, Hey, look,

17:13you're going to run a private equity fund. You're going to do this. It doesn't mean anything because

17:16it's like, Oh yeah, that's not for me. I have to unlock the mind, get him to understand what is he

17:22doing and why? And that's, that's it. So true. Definitely starts with you believing in yourself,

17:27which is so funny because everybody always thinks that that's the touchy feely, squishy part.

17:31And it's not, it's so important. And the tactics we can teach you, but if you don't believe in you,

17:36nobody can do the hard work for you. So it's so good. Here's the truth. The only thing nobody can

17:40take from you is ownership. The rich speak in contracts. They speak in the things they own,

17:46not the things they rent. Now you guys are probably realizing by now what you need to know,

17:51how to ask these questions after you find these people and what your unfair advantage is.

17:57Also, we have an entire world of resources on contrarianthinking.co, including a newsletter

18:03called the Boring Business Newsletter that has a bunch of strategies on this. And of course,

18:07if you want to learn how to buy businesses. Also, if you need to build that foundation,

18:10hit up this video, how to get rich in 2023.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended