Hi, new to this, so sure I’ll maybe break some rules, go easy on me.

I’m leaving my company at end of next year and will have £1m in savings. I’ve operated at 2 below the CEO in a FTSE 100 company for 10 years (15 years in more junior roles before that), so I know how to run a business, albeit I’ve never ran my own.

Early days, but thinking that rather than go back into the corporate rat race I might fancy buying a business for income and growing it. Would probably spend up to £500k

Just looking for ideas/experience on what sort of business to look at/avoid? And any tips as I start my research.

I know the obvious question would be what sort of business would you want to own? The honest answer is I don’t know, but I have good General Management and P&L commercial management skills so I could probably turn my hand to most that don’t require specialist skills (ie not IT).

Thanks in advance for any advice or experience you can offer

Uk based btw.

  • warbuspie@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Growing is all about sales.

    You appear to have experience in managing costs.

    A business that sells for $500k has $1M turnover or less.

    Applying what you did at megacorp to small business isn’t going to work.

  • Rov_Rov1@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Read: “Buy Then Build” - Walker Deibel

    This helped me a ton in buying my first business. There a bunch of great Acquisition Entrepreneurship podcasts that give some great guidance as well. “Quiet Light Podcast”, “Let’s Buy a Business Podcast” to name a couple.

    Note: These are all US based resources, but a lot of the info translates pretty well to the UK.

  • Even_Delivery_8688@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I have an option for you. Searching for funding in inventory of spare parts of farm machinary.

    I Will run suport services.

    Investors has lower risk comparing To buying a business.

    Please let me know if you want To talk about it!

  • Foresight12345@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Please don’t take this the wrong way. I don’t think you should buy a business. Your experience in the corporate world will not translate to the small businesses you could potentially afford. You’ll be stress out banging your head against a brick wall wondering why it’s not working.

    I’d say if you’re passionate just start something yourself without the big financial outlay. If it grows organically then you can look to invest capital later on once it’s proved viability.

    £1m is nice, it’s more than I have tbh but it could quickly get eaten if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you want to run a company as an ego trip to prove something to your old peers then this isn’t the right mindset to have.

    My advice , go on a nice holiday and get another high paying cushy job. Much easier, less stress and you don’t have to risk any capital.

  • thatdude391@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    You know how to operate under budgets orders of magnitude larger than you have to spend, achieving good growth on far less money is much much harder.