Buying or starting boring businesses

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

Our collection holds only 3 tweets on this scheme¹. Two come from one account. The third comes from an account below the size at which we name people, so we describe it without quoting it. Because the collection is so small, this page rests mostly on how the method is promoted generally: on the pages of those who teach it, and on public data. View counts are as collected on 6 October 2026. Dates are worked out from each tweet’s ID number. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

“Boring businesses are undefeated. These are the top 10 income streams that will set you financially free (bookmark this): 1) Vending Machines” (truncated: the stored text ends at a link)

@benkellyone, 17 May 2024, 18,173,006 views¹

“7 levels of boring businesses, from virtually no capital to hundreds of thousands: Level 1: Vending machines and newsletters. - A used vending machine is hundreds of dollars to $2k. - Newsletters for sale are mostly $5k to $15k. - You can flip one a year later for 2 to 4x.” (truncated: the stored text stops after Level 1)

@benkellyone, 30 September 2026, 8,406 views¹

The third tweet, from April 2024, has 200,278 views. Its author says that boring businesses, and not marketing agencies, crypto or tech, made the author a millionaire by their mid-twenties¹. The stored text ends at a link.

The first tweet holds about 99% of the views in the collection (18.17 million of 18.38 million, our sum)¹. We read the stored text of the tweets, not X itself. We did not view their images, videos or threads, so the full lists may hold figures we have not seen. In the text we have, the tweets give entry prices and a result (“financially free”, or becoming a millionaire). They do not give revenue or profit per machine or per business, hours worked, debt, the down payment, or how the million was measured¹.

What the scheme is

“Boring businesses” means small, unglamorous firms that already have customers: a pool service, a landscaping company, a laundromat, a delivery route, a row of vending machines. The pitch has two halves.

Buying. Many owners are retiring. In one broker survey, 45% of owners planning to sell gave retirement as the reason². The idea is to buy such a business, mostly with a bank loan, and live on its profit. In business schools this is called “entrepreneurship through acquisition” (ETA). When investors pay a person to search for one company to buy and run, the vehicle is called a “search fund”.

Starting small. The cheaper version is to start a local service such as lawn care or cleaning, or to begin with something that costs hundreds or a few thousand dollars, such as a used vending machine or a small email newsletter, and build up or resell (“flip”) it.

Both halves are ordinary commerce, and both are legal. The question is what the income requires, and who ends up with it.

The arithmetic

Step 1: what a small business that sells looks like

BizBuySell is the largest US website listing businesses for sale. Brokers report closed sales to it. In the second quarter of 2026 they reported 2,117 sales². “Median” means the middle one: half are higher, half lower.

The report says: “the median sale price slipped just 1% year-over-year to $349,250” and “Median cash flow fell 3% year-over-year to $155,921”². The average price was 2.7 times a year’s cash flow². Service businesses were 40% of sales, at a median price of $350,000 and a median 155 days on the market².

Two cautions. First, the reports are voluntary and unaudited, and they cover businesses that sold, not how buyers did afterwards². Second, “cash flow” here is not spare cash. BizBuySell’s own guide says: “In business-for-sale advertisements, business brokers talk about ‘cash flow’ but it isn’t really cash flow. It is normalized seller’s discretionary earnings SDE”, and “SDE equals EBITDA plus the normalized salary of one working owner”⁶². EBITDA is profit before interest, tax and wear on equipment. So $155,921 is the pay for one full-time owner plus the profit, on the seller’s own adjusted figures. It is not passive income.

Step 2: the loan

Most buyers borrow. In the same report, 78% of surveyed buyers expected to use a loan backed by the US Small Business Administration (SBA)². The programme is called 7(a). The government promises the bank most of its money back if the borrower fails, which makes banks willing to lend. SBA says: “The maximum loan amount for a 7(a) loan is $5 million”, and it lists “changes of ownership” as a permitted use³⁴. Loans not tied to property run 10 years or less³.

The costs we could source:

• Money down. Brokers in the BizBuySell report describe “the strict 10% equity injection” rule². An equity injection is money put in that is not part of the bank loan. A blog’s summary of SBA’s new rulebook says it is 10% of the total project cost (the price plus fees and working capital), and that up to half may come from a seller loan on which no payments are made for a time, or from minority investors¹⁰. If so, the buyer’s own cash could be nearer 5%. The same summary says the business must have earned 1.25 times its loan payments on past results, not forecasts¹⁰. SBA lists the new rulebook, SOP 50 10 8.1, as effective 1 October 2026, but the file would not open, so treat these details as unconfirmed⁹.
• Interest. SBA says rates “are negotiated between the borrower and the lender, but are subject to SBA maximums”. For variable-rate loans: “$50,000 or less Base rate plus 6.5%; $50,001 to $250,000 Base rate plus 6.0%; $250,001 to $350,000 Base rate plus 4.5%; Greater than $350,000 Base rate plus 3.0%”³. The usual base is the bank prime rate, which was 7.00% on 2 October 2026⁵. So the ceiling today is 10.0% to 13.5% (our sum). Maximums for fixed-rate loans are published elsewhere and were not checked. Banks may charge less. A loan broker’s count of SBA files puts the average rate on 8,678 purchase loans approved in fiscal 2025 to 2026 at 9.31%, with a median of 9.50%; those loans averaged $1,175,340, far larger than the one below⁶⁵. (A fiscal year is the government’s accounting year, October to September.)
• Fee. For loans approved to 30 September 2026, SBA charged an upfront fee of 3% of the guaranteed part on loans of $150,001 to $700,000, and 2% on loans of $150,000 or less⁶. We did not find the notice for the year that began on 1 October 2026.
• Personal guarantee. The federal rule says: “Holders of at least a 20 percent ownership interest generally must guarantee the loan.”⁷ If the business fails, the bank can pursue the owner’s own assets. This covers the whole loan, however the down payment was found. In a Federal Reserve Banks survey of 6,525 small employers, 59% of firms with debt had given a personal guarantee⁴⁶.

Step 3: what is left (our estimate)

Take the median business and assume its median price and median cash flow describe one firm. That is an assumption: they are the middles of two separate lists. This price is about 2.2 times the cash flow; the report’s 2.7 is the average across sales, a different measure².

At 9.5%, the broker’s median for purchase loans, the payment is about $4,070 a month and about $107,000 a year is left⁶⁵. All of this is our estimate, built from sources²,³,⁵,⁶ and⁶⁵. It leaves out legal and checking costs, cash to run the business, repairs and new equipment, and the pay of a manager if the owner does not work there. It assumes the seller’s adjusted figure is true and that sales hold after the old owner leaves. At the report’s average of 2.7 times cash flow, the price and the debt would be higher.

The same ratios give the size of business needed for a target income:

These rows are our estimate at an 11.5% rate. The smaller loans have higher ceilings today, 13.5% for row 1 and 13.0% for row 2, so those rows are a little optimistic; the loan in row 3 is above $350,000, where the ceiling is 10.0%³⁵. The fee is also different for loans of $150,000 or less⁶. A business with $18,000 of cash flow does not pay anyone a wage.

Step 4: the vending machine version

The tweet says “A used vending machine is hundreds of dollars to $2k”¹. That is consistent with an article in The Hustle, which surveyed 23 vending operators and wrote: “An operator can find a decent machine and buy inventory for <$2k.”²⁰ The page now shows the date 24 June 2024, but the article was first published in October 2020: the Internet Archive holds a copy from 4 October 2020, and the text speaks of “the midst of the pandemic”²⁰⁶³. So the survey is six years old, and it was taken in a year when, the article says, most vendors saw “a 10-50% dip in revenue”²⁰. Prices and costs have risen since.

The same 2020 survey gives the income side. “The average operator in our sample owned 13 machines that gross $309 per machine per month”, with a range of $75 to $650²⁰. Gross means sales before any costs. About half goes on the products, the site owner takes a commission of 5% to 25%, and card fees take about 5% to 6%. The article concludes: “All costs considered, an operator who makes $5k per month in revenue might take home something like $2k in profit”, which is 40%²⁰. That is one illustrative sentence, before the operator’s own time. The sample is small, and the operators chose to take part.

At 40% kept, machines needed (our estimate from the 2020 survey²⁰, rounded up):

At under $2,000 each, 9 machines cost up to about $18,000 and 81 machines up to about $162,000 (our estimate from²⁰). Each machine also needs a site; the article says winning one can take more than 100 calls²⁰.

One operator published a week of figures in April 2022: 8 machines took $1,157.20, stock cost $718.70, filling took about 3 hours, and “Free Cash Flow per Machine on Average: $54.81”²¹. Free cash flow here means sales less the cost of stock. That is about $237 a month per machine before commission, repairs, card fees and tax (our sum), which is better than the survey average. It is one week from one operator, with no payment proof.

The sums are small because the sales are small. Cantaloupe, one large maker of card readers for machines, reports from its own network: “In 2025, the average vending transaction was $2.01”, with a “$2.45 average cashless ticket vs. $1.57 cash”²³. At $2.01 a sale, $309 a month is roughly 150 sales per machine (our estimate).

In a YouTube experiment described in a news article, Codie Sanchez, who runs the company Contrarian Thinking, put just over $8,000 into three machines. The article reports $1,084 over two weeks (it says profit, without showing costs) and quotes her scaling that to $26,015 a year; 26 fortnights at $1,084 would be $28,184 (our sum). The stated upfront cost, with stock, was $9,358, about $3,100 a machine²⁴. At that price the capital sums above would be about half as much again. We did not watch the video. Two weeks at three sites is not a year.

Step 5: the newsletter flip

The tweet says “Newsletters for sale are mostly $5k to $15k” and “You can flip one a year later for 2 to 4x”¹. On 10 October 2026 the home page of Duuce, a newsletter marketplace now branded LetterTrader, showed nine featured listings asking $3,600 to $30,000 for lists of 2,400 to 173,000 subscribers. Three, asking $3,600, $8,000 and $13,000, were marked sold²⁵. That is partly consistent with the tweet’s range for small lists. These are asking prices, not sale prices. The listing pages did not load for us, so we do not know what these newsletters earn. We found no data on resale prices. The “2 to 4x” claim is neither supported nor refuted.

Step 6: starting a local service, or reselling a business

We found no income data for newcomers who start a lawn care, cleaning or similar service. Two figures give the scale. A statistics site, citing the Census Bureau’s 2023 count of businesses with no employees, reports 516,572 solo landscapers with “an average of $36,041 per solo business per year” in receipts, which is sales before costs⁶⁷. We could not open the Census data itself. And the official survival tables by sector show that of locations opened in the year to March 2020, 60.0% of “Other services” (repair, laundry, personal services) were open five years later, and 51.5% of administrative and waste services, the group that holds landscaping and cleaning, against 51.4% for all industries¹²⁶⁶. These count firms with employees.

On reselling a bought business, the only figure we hold is the median 155 days on the market for service businesses that did sell². We did not find a current figure for the share of listed businesses that sell.

Step 7: becoming a millionaire in your twenties

At 2.7 times cash flow, a business with no debt must earn about $370,000 a year to be worth $1,000,000 (our sum: $1,000,000 / 2.7)². That is about 2.4 times the cash flow of the median business sold². The tweet gives no revenue, debt or valuation, so the claim cannot be checked¹.

The Federal Reserve’s survey of family finances shows how unusual it would be. In 2022, families headed by someone under 35 had a median net worth of $39,000. Among the 14.6% of families that own a business, the median value of their stake was $90,000¹¹. It does not give the share of under-35s above $1 million.

What people who tried it report

Starting from nothing

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics follows every new private business location. Of those opened in the year to March 2020, 80.9% were open a year later and 51.4% five years later. Of those opened in the year to March 2015, 34.7% were open after ten years¹². This covers all industries, not only “boring” ones. A closure is not always a loss; a location can also close because it was sold or the owner retired (from memory, not from the table).

Buying with an SBA loan

SBA’s Inspector General, its internal watchdog, looked at 7(a) loans made in fiscal years 2016 to 2023. By 31 March 2025, 9.79% of those from ordinary lenders had defaulted, and 14.97% of those from one group of licensed lenders that are not banks¹⁴. That covers all 7(a) loans, not only purchases.

For purchases only, the one figure we found comes from CT Acquisitions, a firm that advises buyers, working from SBA’s loan files. Of purchase loans made in fiscal 2018 and 2019 that had ended by September 2025, either paid off or written off, 6.88% were written off (381 of 5,536), against 9.83% for all other loans of those years¹³. A written-off loan, or charge-off, is one the bank gives up collecting after the borrower fails. That is about 1 in 15 of the loans that had ended, not of all purchase loans: the firm says 27.3% of loans from those years were still being repaid. It also says “part of the acquisition advantage is a size effect”, because purchase loans are larger¹³. The average SBA purchase loan in fiscal 2025 was $1,177,666, nearly four times the loan in step 3, so the figure describes much larger deals than the median one¹³.

For all 7(a) loans by industry (not only purchases), made in 2010 to 2019, the same firm gives 2.31% for veterinary practices, 4.65% for laundromats and drycleaners, 5.12% for pest control, 6.95% for landscaping, 7.00% for plumbing and heating contractors, about 10% to 11% for restaurants and roofing, and 11.00% for janitorial services¹³. We could not recompute any of this: the SBA data page it cites returned “Page not found” today. The firm earns from acquisitions. The measure also misses owners who kept paying while earning little.

A loan broker’s count shows 0.71% for purchase loans made in 2020 to 2025, but those loans are young¹⁶. A late July 2026 article on an analysis by Lumos Data says the default rate on all 7(a) loans over the previous twelve months “reached 4.8% in March 2026, the highest since 2013”¹⁵.

Investor-backed buyers

The best long-run data is about search funds. These are mostly business school graduates, paid by investors, buying companies with a median price of $16 million¹⁷. That is far from a vending route, but it shows the pattern.

• Stanford’s business school, in its article on its 2026 study of more than 850 funds: “Since the first report in 1996, the aggregate acquisition rate for search funds has been 58%.” Of funds launched in 2021 to 2024, about half bought a company. A purchase takes about 20 months¹⁷.
• A 2025 Yale study used the real records of 12 investors. Of 1,192 investor bets on searchers (the same searcher can appear more than once), 768 (64%) led to a purchase. It concludes: “For aspiring entrepreneurs entering this tournament, there is only a 51% chance they will make any money at all.” That is measured by whether investors got back at least what they put in. About 20% of all bets ended with more than three times the money invested. The median completed deal returned 1.6 times; the average was 2.78 times¹⁸. These multiples are investors’ returns before fees, not what the searcher earned.
• Among purchases that closed, about three in ten lost investors money in both the Yale data and Stanford’s 2024 study as Yale quotes it (32% and 31%)¹⁸. A secondary summary of the Stanford study gives 20.5% partial losses and 10.5% total losses¹⁹.

Cheaper businesses

We found no dataset of results for newcomers in vending, laundromats, car washes or routes. Reddit’s vending forums were closed to our tools. What we did find:

• A property blogger who bought two laundromats wrote that starting a small one would have cost close to $500,000, and of the first one he bought: “I will be totally honest and admit the business is not making money yet but I think it will eventually.”⁴⁴ He has capital and an audience, and no accounts are shown.
• On delivery routes, a 2022 news report said: “Higher costs for fuel, trucks and driver pay have as many as 30% of those contractors losing money, according to an estimate from Deutsche Bank.” It concerned FedEx Ground contractors. FedEx said then that “since January, only 10% of contractors had sought relief” and that “We remain committed to working with service provider businesses individually”⁴². The estimate is four years old and we found nothing newer.

When a purchase fails, and when it works

A podcast that interviews buyers, Acquiring Minds, has run several episodes on SBA-financed purchases that ended in closure, according to a trade site’s summaries, including a $2.1 million heating and cooling company⁴⁰. Most episodes listed on the podcast’s own site are with buyers still running their businesses or who sold them⁶⁹. Guests are chosen by the host, so neither set is a sample. We did not listen to the episodes, and we do not name the buyers.

An author who says he has interviewed more than 30 buyers whose businesses failed writes: “most of the failed buyers I’ve spoken to say over-leverage was the biggest mistake they made.” Over-leverage means borrowing too large a share of the price. He suggests 10% to 20% of the buyer’s own money and 55% to 65% bank debt⁴¹. He is promoting a book, and his count is not a sample.

What the rules allow now

Nothing here is banned. The limits are in the financing, the contracts and the licences. Everything below is US law. The regulator cases concern only the companies named in them.

Citizenship. From 1 March 2026, every owner of a business taking an SBA loan must be a US citizen or US national. The SBA notice says: “Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) will not be eligible to own any percentage interest”⁸. We read a copy hosted by a trade publisher, not on sba.gov.

Seller loans. “While 90% of buyers expect seller financing to be part of their acquisition strategy, only 29% of business owners plan to offer it.”² Seller financing means the seller accepts part of the price later.

Retirement money. Using a retirement account to fund the purchase (called ROBS) is legal. The IRS, the US tax agency, found in a review that “most ROBS businesses either failed or were on the road to failure”⁴⁹. The review is from about 2009 to 2010; the page is current.

Taxes and permits. California’s tax agency says “buyers can be held responsible for a seller’s unpaid taxes unless a tax clearance certificate is obtained”, and that a seller’s permit is generally needed for vending sales⁵²⁵³. We checked one state. Federal rules require calorie labels from anyone “owning or operating 20 or more vending machines”⁵³.

Being sold a business package. If a company sells you machines and promises to “provide locations”, a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule applies: you must get a written disclosure at least seven days before paying, and any income claim must be backed in writing⁵⁰. Courses and coaching are not covered. In January 2025 the FTC proposed to cover “money-making opportunities, such as business coaching and investment opportunities”⁵¹. We found no sign in the Federal Register that the proposal went further.

Newsletters. Substack’s terms say: “You may not transfer your account to anyone else without our prior written permission.” beehiiv’s licence is also “non-transferable”⁵⁴. Neither says a newsletter cannot be sold. We did not check how sales are done in practice.

Routes. A delivery route exists by contract with the carrier. In August 2022 FedEx ended the contracts of a large contractor who had led a public campaign for better terms, and sued his consultancy. FedEx’s complaint disputed his account of contractors’ finances, and FedEx said his routes were “less than 0.5% of the roughly 60,000 total routes” in its network⁴²⁴³. FedEx has closed more than 200 stations and plans over 475 closures by the end of 2027⁴³.

Other people’s money. Raising money from investors to buy a business is selling securities. Under the usual exemption the deal may not be advertised publicly, and “securities may not be sold to more than 35 non-accredited investors in any 90-calendar day period”⁵⁵. Non-accredited investors are people below the legal wealth or income level for private deals.

Hands-off versions. One news report says that in September 2025 the US securities regulator, the SEC, sued over a programme that sold shares in cash machines (ATMs) and raised more than $770 million⁵⁶. This is alleged, not proven. We read only that report, could not re-open it today, and did not open the SEC’s papers, so we do not know the case’s status.

Packaged businesses. The next three cases are not about buying an existing local firm. They show how regulators treat income claims for businesses sold as packages. In January 2026 a court entered a default judgment (one given because the defendants did not contest the case) of $8.39 million against RivX Automation Corp. and related defendants. The FTC’s complaint alleged that buyers paid $75,000 or more for a truck RivX would run for them. The FTC’s release speaks of “an operation that allegedly defrauded consumers”⁵⁷. In October 2026 the franchisor of Premier Martial Arts and its former franchise sales organisation agreed to proposed settlements totalling $1.85 million ($650,000 and $1.2 million) over claims that owners could work “less than 15 hours a week”; those were allegations settled without a court finding⁵⁸. A franchisor is a company that licenses its brand and system to local owners. Xponential Fitness agreed to a proposed $17 million judgment in March 2026 over alleged franchise disclosure violations⁵⁹. In 1998 the FTC and ten states brought 40 actions against sellers of vending packages; the FTC wrote: “Every year, thousands of consumers literally end up broke after investing in purportedly lucrative vending opportunities.”⁶⁰ We found no regulator or court action against a course that teaches buying existing businesses, including the ones named below⁶¹. That may be a limit of our search.

Who makes money from it

The teachers

The account behind two of the three tweets is tagged in our collection as pointing to a “newsletter/community on buying businesses”¹. We could not open the X profile. A newsletter called Acquisition Ace is signed Ben Kelly. Its sign-up page says: “Learn how 75,000+ investors are buying boring businesses that fund their freedom”²⁷. The newsletter’s pages link to the X account @benkellyone²⁶²⁷, and the group’s page on Skool, a community platform, is headed “By Ben Kelly”²⁸.

Acquisition Ace also has a paid programme. Its Skool page says “This community is NOT free” and shows 2.9k members today; the same page also carries a “Free” label, so the member count may not equal paying members²⁸. No price is published. Its terms say paid programmes are “enrolled in and paid for separately, under a written agreement you sign at that time, which governs pricing, payment, refunds, and cancellation”²⁸. Third parties give prices: a newsletter writer calls it “a $10k program”, and one Trustpilot reviewer who joined cites $12,800 and also writes “I believe Ben truly wants to help people”³¹³².

The programme’s own figures: “200+ members closed”, “$101M+ paid for businesses”, “$1.66M average deal size”, plus “32 more owners who’ve quietly closed and keep their numbers off the record”²⁹. The three figures do not reconcile: $101 million at a $1.66 million average is about 61 deals (our sum), so the dollar figures seem to cover only deals with a disclosed price. The firm says member figures “are self-reported, have not been independently verified, and are not typical”²⁹. Set against 2.9k members, somewhere under one in ten has a reported purchase so far (our estimate). This is a rough guide only: the member count includes staff and recent joiners who have not had time to buy, and leaves out people who left²⁸²⁹. Its earnings disclaimer says: “many people who join educational programs, including ours, never complete a business acquisition and achieve no financial result.”³⁰

It is rated 4.8 from 127 reviews on Trustpilot³². One reviewer, who describes only a sales call and did not join, wrote that the “zero-out-of-pocket” promise typically needs $20,000 to $30,000 in cash, citing Reddit users; we saw no company reply³². The company’s own pages say “Roughly 10% down” and “Most deals close with 10% down or less”²⁹. Its newsletter says “you’ll need at least $20,000 in liquid capital”, and its disclaimer says “‘10% down’ refers to the cash injection, it does not limit your liability”²⁶³⁰.

The newsletter also gives risk figures: “businesses acquired through SBA loans have a 95% success rate after 5 years. Compare that to startups (which have a 95% failure rate within 5 years)”²⁶. The Skool page repeats the pair²⁸. No source is given. The first figure is not far from the one loan-file count we found, in which about 93% of ended purchase loans were not written off¹³; a loan that is not written off is not proof the owner did well. The second figure conflicts with the official count that 51.4% of new locations are still open after five years¹². The same page is plain about the guarantee: “The bank can come after your house, car, and 401k.”²⁶ (A 401k is a US retirement savings account.)

Other sellers:

Acquisition Ace publishes neither price nor refund terms²⁸. For Contrarian Thinking, the third-party review gives course prices from $150 to $10,000 and “800+ members” of the $10,000 community in November 2023³⁶. The “10,000 members taught” therefore includes cheaper courses, and we could not work out revenue from these figures.

Everyone else who is paid

Some parties are paid when a deal closes, whatever happens later. Loan brokers are paid by the bank: “SBA lenders pay a referral fee to brokers after your loan closes”³⁹. One such broker calls itself “the preferred SBA lending partner for Acquisition Ace members” and has published a favourable review of the programme³⁹. Flippa, a marketplace, shows a 10% success fee on its smallest sales³⁹.

Others are paid regardless. Skool charges community owners $9 a month plus 10% of payments, or $99 a month plus 2.9%; we do not know whether Acquisition Ace takes payment there³⁹. BizBuySell sells buyers a membership from $20 a month³⁹. We did not find a sourced figure for business brokers’ commissions.

The upside

The best documented outcomes

• Search funds as a whole. Stanford reports that to the end of 2025 “all search funds generated an aggregate IRR of 33.9% and a ROI of 4.75x”¹⁷. IRR is the yearly rate of return; ROI here means investors got back 4.75 times their money. These are measured from records, for investors, and are pulled up by a few large wins.
• The top tenth. Yale found 3% of completed deals returned more than 10 times, and quotes 11% for Stanford’s data. In Yale’s records 31% of completed deals returned more than 3 times¹⁸.
• Self-funded buyers. A 2023 study of people who bought a business with their own and borrowed money (the summaries we read give no sample size) found: “53% of searchers reported net equity proceeds of over $1m.” 24% reported $4 million or more, 68% had put in under $200,000 and 24% under $50,000⁴⁵. These are the owners’ own estimates of what their stake is worth, not money received, and “most respondents had acquired within the last 3 years”, so they are early paper values⁴⁵. People who never bought, or whose business failed, are mostly missing. We could not open the study.
• A seller’s case study. Acquisition Ace describes a former school superintendent who bought a pool company with $400,000 of yearly cash flow for $995,000, with an “SBA loan covering 90%”, and is said to keep about $300,000 a year³³. On the stated figures, a 10-year loan of $895,500 at 10% to 11.5% costs about $142,000 to $151,000 a year, which would leave about $250,000, not $300,000 (our estimate; the post gives no rate or term). The $400,000 is described on the seller’s site as SDE, which includes the owner’s pay²⁹. The account says she put down 10%, about $100,000 (our sum), had no pool experience and works about 30 hours a week³³. This is the seller’s own account with no documents.
• Owner accounts on a podcast. Recent and upcoming Acquiring Minds episode summaries describe a buyer of four telecom companies with no outside investors, and four friends who bought a dog daycare that now has six locations⁶⁹. These are self-reported and chosen by the host; we did not listen.
• Vending at scale. In the 2020 article, one US operator says he owns 35 machines that gross $10,000 a month, and a couple say they grew to 250 machines and $500,000 of yearly revenue before selling²⁰. A UK operator is reported to have 27 machines at 18 sites taking more than £7,000 a month in revenue, about $8,900, three years after buying her first machine²⁴⁶⁴. That is about $330 a machine a month (our sum), in line with the survey. All are the operators’ own statements, and all are sales, not profit. The UK case is the only non-US figure on this page.

What supports the idea

The market is real. About 7,000 SBA loans funded purchases in fiscal 2025, a record, worth about $8.3 billion, by one firm’s count of SBA files¹³. Purchase loans were written off less often than other SBA loans (6.88% against 9.83% of ended loans), though part of that gap is loan size¹³. Half of new businesses are still open after five years¹². The one academic comparison we found, of French firms, reports that “business takeovers have a higher survival rate than new venture start-ups”, and that the gap shrinks once the owner’s and the firm’s traits are taken into account⁶⁸. Few methods promoted on X have this much behind them.

A realistic good result (our estimate)

For a capable person buying one business near the median: many months to find and close a deal, with a real chance of never closing; $35,000 to $100,000 of their own cash; a personally guaranteed 10-year loan; and about $100,000 a year before tax for full-time work, if the seller’s figures and sales hold. The basis is the sums in step 3². We found no figure for how long ordinary buyers search or how many give up, and no independent account of what an ordinary SBA buyer takes home a few years in.

For vending, a good first year or two is 9 to 13 machines keeping about $1,100 to $1,600 a month at the 2020 survey average, for several hours a week of filling and driving (our estimate from²⁰ and²¹).

What it takes to compete

What those who succeed have

• Cash they can lose. Ten percent of the project cost, plus fees and running cash²¹⁰. Most self-funded buyers in the one study put in under $200,000⁴⁵.
• Good credit and a clean record with banks. Brokers say the market favours sellers for strong businesses². One is quoted: “stop listening to social media influencers who make it seem like buyers have the power, they don’t, not for good opportunities”².
• Experience running people or a trade. A University of Virginia business school article says of small firms: “there may be no one else to delegate the work to.” It names three things to check: reliance on a few customers, reliance on the seller, and one-off revenue⁴⁷.
• The skill to read accounts and walk away. One buyer in a seller’s testimonials describes reviewing about 200 deals and making 5 written offers before one closed³⁴.
• Time. Buyers are mostly people leaving jobs: 46% of surveyed buyers were “corporate refugees”². Business press describes a search of about two years⁴⁸.

What it costs

For a median purchase: about $35,000 down, about $7,100 in SBA fees, and a debt of about $314,000 that follows the owner personally (our estimate from²,⁶ and⁷). One course seller’s newsletter adds at least $20,000 in ready cash²⁶. A course adds about $10,000 to $12,500 where prices are known³¹³⁷. For vending: under $2,000 per machine with stock in the 2020 survey, about $3,100 in one 2025 test, plus a card reader with a monthly fee; one large reader maker publishes no prices²⁰²²²⁴.

How to tell early which side you are on

• Before a purchase: can you put in 10% and still have reserves? Would a bank approve you? If not, what remains is a deal financed almost entirely by debt, the pattern failed buyers in one author’s interviews blame⁴¹. Have you managed staff or worked in the trade? If not, the risk is different: brokers say sellers of good businesses can choose their buyers².
• During a search: many reviewed deals and few offers is normal³⁴. Among investor-backed searchers, about four in ten to half never buy a company, and a purchase takes about 20 months¹⁷. We found no equivalent figure for people buying smaller businesses with their own money.
• After a purchase: the first test is whether sales hold once the seller has gone, and whether cash flow covers the loan with room to spare (our view).
• For vending: after two or three months, compare each machine’s monthly sales with the 2020 survey’s $75 to $650 range²⁰. A machine near the bottom needs a new site, not more machines.
• For any course: ask for the price and refund terms in writing before a call, and ask how many members bought a business and how those businesses did. Of the four sellers we read, one publishes its price³⁷.

What we did not verify

• The tweets on X. We read the stored text of 3 tweets. Their images, videos and threads were not viewed, and x.com refused our tools. The third tweet’s claim about becoming a millionaire has no proof we could find.
• What the X profile of the account behind two tweets links to today. Acquisition Ace’s price, refund terms and income are not published; our figures are third parties’ statements.
• The text of SBA’s rulebook SOP 50 10 8.1. The 10% injection, the share that may come from a seller or investors, and the 1.25 times rule rest on a broker’s quote and a blog. The SBA fee for the year from 1 October 2026 and the maximum fixed rates were not found.
• Whether the seller’s adjusted earnings figure in any listing is true. Closing, legal and running-cash costs. Interest rates on loans of the median size; the one average we cite is a broker’s sum for much larger loans.
• The SBA charge-off figures. They are one advisory firm’s sums; SBA’s data page was not found today. The firm’s two pages give slightly different loan counts for 2025 (7,039 and about 7,003).
• Stanford’s study itself. We read Stanford’s article about it; the study file would not download. The self-funded buyers’ study was also read only in summaries.
• Any current, industry-wide figure for vending sales or profit per machine. The survey we rely on is from 2020, a pandemic year, and has 23 operators. Current machine and card-reader prices.
• Income for people who start a local service. The receipts figure for solo landscapers is a secondary site’s reading of Census data. How often a bought business can be resold, and at what price.
• Newsletter sale prices, earnings and marketplace fees, and whether platforms consent to sales.
• Results for laundromats, car washes and routes; FedEx’s contractor agreement.
• All member results published by course sellers. None is audited, and none says how the bought businesses performed. The podcast episodes were not listened to.
• The status of the FTC’s 2025 coaching proposal, and the SEC cash-machine case, which rests on one news report we could not re-open. State cases and private lawsuits against course sellers were not searched in depth.
• Anything outside the United States, apart from one UK vending example and one French study.
• Sites that refused a direct visit and were read through a reader service (r.jina.ai): bizbuysell.com, bls.gov, ecfr.gov, ftc.gov, trustpilot.com, duuce.com and others. Quotes from the FTC 2025 release⁵¹, the SEC page⁵⁵ and California’s vending guide⁵³ came through a summarising tool and should be re-opened before publication.

Sources

1. Does It Pay collection of 3 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06. Stored text read on 2026-10-10; X itself not opened.
2. BizBuySell, Insight Report, Q2 2026. https://www.bizbuysell.com/insight-report/ . Q2 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (direct visit refused; read through r.jina.ai). Broker-reported figures.
3. US Small Business Administration, “Terms, conditions, and eligibility” for 7(a) loans. https://www.sba.gov/partners/lenders/7a-loan-program/terms-conditions-eligibility . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (direct visit).
4. US Small Business Administration, “7(a) loans”. https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/7a-loans . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
5. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED, bank prime loan rate (series DPRIME). https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=DPRIME&cosd=2026-08-01 . Value for 2026-10-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
6. SBA Information Notice 5000-872051, 7(a) fees for fiscal year 2026, copy hosted by the lender association NAGGL. https://www.naggl.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/SBA-Info-5000-872051.7aFees.8.28.25.pdf . 2025-08-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
7. Code of Federal Regulations, 13 CFR 120.160. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-13/section-120.160 . Current as of 2026-10-07. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
8. SBA Policy Notice 5000-876441, citizenship and residency requirements, copy hosted by the Coleman Report. https://colemanreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Policy-Notice-5000-876441-Update-to-SOP-50-10-8-Citizenship-and-Residency-Requirements.pdf . 2026-02-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (a hosted copy, through r.jina.ai).
9. US Small Business Administration, SOP 50 10 version list. https://www.sba.gov/document/sop-50-10-lender-development-company-loan-programs . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10; the rulebook file itself did not open.
10. Beancount.io, guide to SOP 50 10 8.1 changes of ownership. https://beancount.io/blog/2026/09/23/sba-sop-50-10-8-1-change-of-ownership-equity-dscr-qoe-guide . 2026-09-23. Secondary.
11. Federal Reserve Board, “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022” (Survey of Consumer Finances). https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf . October 2023. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
12. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, table 7, survival of private sector establishments. https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_00_table7.txt . 2026-01-06, data to March 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
13. CT Acquisitions, analyses of SBA loan files. https://ctacquisitions.com/?p=56495 and https://ctacquisitions.com/?p=57466 . July 2026. Secondary: an advisory firm’s own sums, not recomputed.
14. SBA Office of Inspector General, Report 26-14. https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2026-09/SBA%20OIG%20Report%2026-14%20-%20Small%20Business%20Lending%20Companies%E2%80%99%20Performance%20in%20the%207%28a%29%20Loan%20Program%20and%20SBA%E2%80%99s%20Oversight.pdf . 2026-09-17. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
15. Cobalt Intelligence, “SBA pushes $10M loans as defaults hit a 12-year high”. https://blog.cobaltintelligence.com/post/sba-pushes-10m-loans-as-defaults-hit-a-12-year-high . Late July 2026 (the page shows 26 and 29 July). Secondary (about an analysis by Lumos Data).
16. GoSBA Loans, SBA loan default rates by loan use. https://gosbaloans.com/guide/sba-loan-default-rates-by-loan-use/ . 2026-03-01. Secondary; a loan broker’s count.
17. Stanford Graduate School of Business, “Search Funds Keep Offering a Proven Path to Ownership”. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/search-funds-keep-offering-proven-path-ownership . 2026-07-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Stanford’s article about its 2026 study; the study file was not opened.
18. Lazier, Thomas and Wasserstein, “How are Search Fund Investors Really Faring?”, Yale School of Management. https://som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2025-10/How%20are%20Search%20Fund%20Investors%20Really%20Faring.pdf . 2025-10-27. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Its Stanford figures are secondary.
19. Smash.vc, search fund statistics. https://smash.vc/search-fund-statistics/ . 2025-04-14. Secondary.
20. The Hustle, “The economics of vending machines”. https://thehustle.co/the-economics-of-vending-machines . First published October 2020 (the page is re-dated 2024-06-24). Secondary: a journalist’s survey of 23 operators. Read on 2026-10-10.
21. Money Behind the Munchies, “Our financials and other KPIs 4/11/22”. https://moneybehindthemunchies.substack.com/p/our-financials-and-other-kpis-41122 . 2022-04-11. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The operator’s own statement.
22. Cantaloupe, pricing page. https://www.cantaloupe.com/pricing/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
23. Cantaloupe, Micropayment Trends Report 2026 (summary page). https://www.cantaloupe.com/resource-center/micropayment-trends-report-2026/ . 2026, data for 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The company’s own network data.
24. realcommercial.com.au, “Surprise way to make $100k from a vending machine”. https://www.realcommercial.com.au/news/surprise-way-to-make-100k-from-a-vending-machine . 2025-05-19. Secondary; an Australian site, currencies not always stated.
25. Duuce (now branded LetterTrader), newsletter marketplace home page. https://duuce.com/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
26. Acquisition Ace newsletter, “Read this before you apply for an SBA loan”. https://acquisitionace.beehiiv.com/p/read-this-before-you-apply-for-an-sba-loan . 2025-09-18. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
27. Acquisition Ace newsletter, sign-up page. https://acquisitionace.beehiiv.com/subscribe . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
28. Acquisition Ace, terms, and its Skool page. https://www.acquisitionace.io/terms (updated August 2026) and https://www.skool.com/acquisition-ace . Read at source on 2026-10-10.
29. Acquisition Ace, home page and deal board. https://www.acquisitionace.io/ and https://www.acquisitionace.io/deal-board . 2026-10-09. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The company’s own figures.
30. Acquisition Ace, earnings disclaimer. https://www.acquisitionace.io/earnings-disclaimer . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
31. Newsletter Growth Memo, “This newsletter makes $1M/month”. https://newslettergrowthmemo.beehiiv.com/p/this-newsletter-makes-1m-month . 2025-12-10. Secondary; unverified statements by a third party.
32. Trustpilot, reviews of Acquisition Ace. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/acquisitionace.io . Reviews dated 2024-11-28 and 2025-06-03. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai, with the one-star filter). Reviewers’ opinions.
33. Acquisition Ace newsletter, “How a school superintendent bought a $995K pool company”. https://acquisitionace.beehiiv.com/p/how-a-school-superintendent-bought-a-995k-pool-company-for-half-its-value . 2026-03-02. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The seller’s own account.
34. Contrarian Thinking, home page and reviews. https://contrarianthinking.co/ and https://contrarianthinking.co/reviews . Undated pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
35. Contrarian Thinking, Contrarian Academy. https://contrarianthinking.co/contrarian-academy . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
36. Ippei.com, review of Contrarian Thinking. https://ippei.com/contrarian-thinking/ . Marked updated 2023-07-07 but mentions 2025; date unclear. Secondary; the reviewer promotes his own, different programme.
37. Acquisition Lab, pricing and home page. https://www.acquisitionlab.com/the-lab/pricing/ and https://www.acquisitionlab.com/ . Undated pages. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
38. Vendingpreneurs. https://vendingpreneurs.com/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
39. Fee pages: https://www.skool.com/pricing , https://flippa.com/pricing , https://www.bizbuysell.com/sell-a-business/ , https://gosbaloans.com/ and https://gosbaloans.com/acquisition-ace-review/ (2026-02-14). Read at source on 2026-10-10.
40. Business Brokerage Press, summaries of Acquiring Minds podcast episodes. https://businessbrokeragepress.com/?p=34047 (2026-07-30) and https://businessbrokeragepress.com/?p=33637 (2026-04-30). Secondary.
41. Still Searching newsletter, “If I knew then what I know now”. https://stillsearching.beehiiv.com/p/if-i-knew-then-what-i-know-now . 2025-04-08. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The author’s own statement.
42. ABC7 News (CNN Business story), FedEx contractors. https://abc7news.com/fedex-express-contractors-holiday-deliveries/12169140/ . 2022-08-26. Secondary.
43. Supply Chain Dive, FedEx station closures, https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/fedex-network-2-station-closures-2026/812251/ (2026-02-13); Retail Dive, FedEx Ground ends a contractor’s agreements, https://www.retaildive.com/news/fedex-ground-terminates-delivery-agreements-spencer-patton-contractor-lawsuit/630828 (2022-08-30). Secondary.
44. InvestFourMore, laundromat purchase account. https://investfourmore.com/?p=80510 . 2023-09-21, updated 2024-06-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10. The author’s own statement.
45. Searchfunder posts on the 2023 self-funded search study. https://searchfunder.com/post/the-wealth-potential-of-self-funded-search and https://www.searchfunder.com/post/2023-self-funded-search-report-is-out-now-72-pages-of-data-link-below . 2023. Secondary; the study itself was blocked.
46. Federal Reserve Banks, 2026 Report on Employer Firms (Small Business Credit Survey). https://www.fedsmallbusiness.org/reports/survey/2026/2026-report-on-employer-firms . 2026-03-03. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (summary page).
47. University of Virginia Darden School of Business, “Buying blue-collar businesses”. https://news.darden.virginia.edu/buying-blue-collar-businesses . 2026-07-24. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
48. 21 Hats, “MBAs are making more on Main Street”. https://21hats.substack.com/p/mbas-are-making-more-on-main-street . 2025-11-20. Secondary (quotes an Inc. article that refused our tools).
49. Internal Revenue Service, “Rollovers as business start-ups compliance project”. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/rollovers-as-business-start-ups-compliance-project . Updated 2025-11-16. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
50. Code of Federal Regulations, 16 CFR Part 437, Business Opportunity Rule. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-437 . Current October 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
51. Federal Trade Commission, press release on proposed rule changes. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-proposes-rule-changes-new-rule-deter-deceptive-earnings-claims-multilevel-marketers-money-making . 2025-01-13. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
52. California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, Publication 74. https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub74/ . April 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
53. California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, Publication 118, https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub118/ (June 2023); 21 CFR 101.8, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/section-101.8 . Read at source on 2026-10-10.
54. Substack terms of use, https://substack.com/tos ; beehiiv terms of use, https://www.beehiiv.com/tou . Both last changed 2026-10-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
55. US Securities and Exchange Commission, “Private placements - Rule 506(b)”. https://www.sec.gov/resources-small-businesses/exempt-offerings/private-placements-rule-506b . Updated 2026-09-21. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
56. Investment Executive, report on an SEC complaint about a cash-machine investment programme. https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/atm-venture-a-ponzi-scheme-sec-alleges/ . 2025-09-04. Secondary; could not be re-opened on a second visit.
57. Federal Trade Commission, “Federal Court Permanently Shuts Down Deceptive Trucking Business Opportunity”. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/01/federal-court-permanently-shuts-down-deceptive-trucking-business-opportunity . 2026-01-28. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
58. Federal Trade Commission, Premier Martial Arts proposed settlements. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/10/premier-martial-arts-franchisor-its-former-franchise-sales-organization-settle-ftc-charges-companies . 2026-10-05. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
59. Federal Trade Commission, Xponential Fitness settlement. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/03/ftc-secures-settlement-against-xponential-fitness-franchise-rule-violations . 2026-03-18. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
60. Federal Trade Commission, “Operation Vend Up Broke”. https://www.ftc.gov/node/39939 . 1998-09-03. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
61. Federal Trade Commission, franchises, business opportunities and investments page. https://www.ftc.gov/industry/franchises-business-opportunities-investments . Latest item 2026-10-05. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (first 20 items).
62. BizBuySell learning centre, “Should buyers use cash flow, SDE or EBITDA to decide what to pay”. https://www.bizbuysell.com/learning-center/article/cash-flow-sde-ebitda-what-business-buyers-should-use-to-decide-what-to-pay . 2022-11-07. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
63. Internet Archive, list of saved copies of The Hustle’s vending article. https://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=thehustle.co/the-economics-of-vending-machines*&limit=3 . First copy 2020-10-04. Read at source on 2026-10-10.
64. Vending Times, “Former finance worker turns vending machine side hustle into $8,900/month business”. https://www.vendingtimes.com/news/former-finance-worker-turns-vending-machine-side-hustle-into-8900month-business/ . 2025-03-10. Secondary (reports a newspaper story).
65. GoSBA Loans, “SBA loan rates today”. https://gosbaloans.com/sba-loan-rates-today/ . Published 2026-02-15, changed 2026-06-10. Secondary; a loan broker’s count of SBA files.
66. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, table 7 by sector: other services, https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_81_table7.txt ; administrative and waste services, https://www.bls.gov/bdm/us_age_naics_56_table7.txt . 2026-01-06. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (through r.jina.ai).
67. Start Business By State, landscaping industry statistics. https://startbusinessbystate.com/landscaping-industry-statistics/ . Undated page, citing 2023 Census data. Secondary.
68. Xi, Block, Lasch, Robert and Thurik, “The survival of business takeovers and new venture start-ups”, Industrial and Corporate Change, 2020 (abstract). https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/indcch/v29y2020i3p797-826..html . 2020. Read at source on 2026-10-10 (abstract only; French data).
69. Acquiring Minds, podcast home page. https://acquiringminds.co/ . Episodes dated to 2026-10-12. Read at source on 2026-10-10. Episode summaries only.

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