buying a business Archives

By Daria Shaposhnikova, Edited by Kara McIntyre

Buying a ready-made business isn’t “cheating;” it’s the smarter, faster and more sustainable way to win.

Key Takeaways

Buying an established online business can leapfrog the trial-and-error phase of starting from scratch, sparing time and money.
Despite popular belief, acquiring an existing ecommerce business offers the advantage of a proven model, allowing for more confident decision-making and less psychological stress.

There’s something romantic about the idea of building a business from the ground up. You picture yourself hunched over a laptop at 2 a.m., tweaking product descriptions, obsessing over logo fonts and testing 15 different shades of blue for your checkout button. You’re not just launching a store — you’re birthing a vision.

But here’s what that romantic notion usually leaves out: the 18 months of throwing money at Facebook ads that go nowhere, the suppliers who ghost you after taking your deposit and the soul-crushing realization that nobody wants to buy hand-poured candles in vintage teacups, no matter how perfect your Instagram aesthetic is.

Starting an online business from nothing isn’t just hard. It’s expensive, time-consuming and statistically speaking, likely to fail. According to various industry reports, somewhere between 80-90% of ecommerce startups don’t make it past their first year. Those aren’t odds most people would accept anywhere else in life, yet we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that starting from absolute zero is the only legitimate path to business ownership.

What if there was a different way?

The case for buying what already works

Imagine walking into a fully functioning business on day one. The website is built. The product suppliers are vetted and reliable. The advertising campaigns have been tested, refined and actually generate sales. Real customers have already voted with their wallets, proving that yes, people do want this thing you’re now selling.

This isn’t some fantasy scenario. It’s exactly what happens when you buy an established online business instead of starting from zero.

The appeal is straightforward: You’re skipping the part where most businesses struggle and fail. You’re not guessing whether your niche has potential or whether your marketing angle works. Someone else already figured that out, spent the money proving it and now you get to walk in and take over a machine that’s already running.

Time is the real currency

Money matters, but time might matter more.

Starting an ecommerce business from scratch doesn’t just cost you capital — it costs you months or years of your life. Six months of testing products that don’t sell. Another six months figuring out why your conversion rate is terrible. A year of learning that your target audience isn’t who you thought it was.

When you buy an established business, you’re buying back all that time. The learning curve still exists — you need to understand how the business operates — but you’re not starting from absolute zero. The store has a track record. The ads have performance data. You can see what works and what doesn’t because someone already ran those experiments.

The psychological advantage

There’s an underrated psychological component to buying versus building.

When you start a business from nothing, every setback feels existential. A slow week feels like failure. A bad month makes you question everything. You’re constantly wondering whether the problem is temporary bad luck or fundamental proof that your idea doesn’t work.

When you buy an established business, you have evidence that it works. A slow week is just a slow week — variance, not verdict. You can troubleshoot with confidence because you know the underlying model is sound. That psychological foundation changes everything about how you operate.

You make better decisions when you’re not constantly second-guessing whether the entire enterprise is viable. You experiment more freely because you’re optimizing something proven rather than validating something uncertain. The difference in stress levels alone might be worth the premium you pay upfront.

What you’re really buying

When you purchase an established online business, you’re not just buying a website and some sales history. You’re buying infrastructure.

You’re getting supplier relationships that took months to establish and vet. You’re getting customer email lists of people who’ve already bought once and might buy again. You’re getting advertising creative that’s been tested against real audiences. You’re getting product descriptions written by someone who figured out which features actually matter to buyers.

All of this exists as intellectual property and operational knowledge that has real value. Starting from zero means you’re paying for all of that education through time, mistakes and money spent on things that don’t work. Buying an established business means someone else already paid that tuition and you’re getting the degree.

The practical path forward

Here’s the best part: You don’t need to become an ecommerce expert overnight. The store is already running. The systems are in place. The money is already flowing.

The beauty of an established store is that it’s already proven it can generate profit with minimal hands-on involvement. The advertising campaigns are optimized and running. The supplier relationships are established. Customer service can be handled through simple systems that are already in place. You’re monitoring a machine that’s already humming along, not building one from spare parts.

You don’t need to master the intricacies of ecommerce logistics or become a marketing guru. The business comes with everything working — your role is more like an owner who checks in regularly rather than someone who needs to understand every technical detail. With support and clear metrics, you can oversee everything confidently without drowning in complexity.

Making the decision

The traditional entrepreneurship narrative says you should start from nothing because struggle builds character or proves commitment or whatever. But that’s just narrative. It’s not a strategy.

If your goal is to own a profitable online business, buying one that already works is often the most direct path there. You’re trading some upfront capital for a massive reduction in risk and time. For most people, that’s an excellent trade.

You don’t need to reinvent ecommerce. You don’t need a revolutionary product idea. You don’t need to risk your savings on an unproven concept. You can just buy something that works, learn how it operates and take it from there.

That might not be as romantic as the founder mythology we’ve all absorbed, but it’s quite possibly smarter. And in business, smart beats romantic every time.

By Daria Shaposhnikova

Daria Shaposhnikova is a marketing executive with 15 years of experience leading teams and driving for complex IT and B2B products. As CMO, she brings expertise in brand strategy, market positioning and a proven track record in launching new products and scaling brands.

Edited by Kara McIntyre

Sourced from Entrepreneur

The many benefits of buying a business

With that being said, though, I think that the notion of buying an existing business may be a much better option both from a fiscal responsibility standpoint (and pragmatically, for that matter). When you buy a business, you’re acquiring a customer base, established systems and processes, potential assets (physical and digital) and much, much more!

Another reason buying a business makes sense is that you can usually get it at a discount. This is because businesses often sell for less than their actual value, since the owner(s) may be motivated to sell quickly due to personal or financial reasons. And lastly, an existing business comes with an established reputation and goodwill, which can save you a lot of time and money in marketing and advertising costs.

These factors alone can give you a significant advantage over businesses that are starting from scratch. But the key to success in purchasing a business is finding “the right business” to purchase. It’s subjective, I know, but there are some general frameworks that you can use to guide you and aid in your journey to evaluating and eventually closing on your first business acquisition.

There are more businesses for sale today than there are buyers

As you may or may not know, businesses for sale have grown exponentially in the last decade. There are many reasons for this, including the current state of the economy, retirement and quite a few others.

Business owners are facing financial difficulties in some instances and are unable to continue operating their businesses. While it may not seem like a good thing, in a down economy, there is an opportunity for those looking to purchase a business. I’m not suggesting that it’s a time to take advantage of someone, but I am saying that you can acquire businesses for fair prices, in some cases, well under market value.

There’s a significant cohort of business owners who are about to enter or seeking to enter retirement. They may not have family members or children to pass their business on to, so in some cases, businesses simply go out of business or cease to exist. Herein lies an opportunity, for you, as someone seeking to become a business owner.

It’s easier for existing businesses to generate cash flow

Simply put, cash flow is the lifeblood of any business, big or small. It’s the money coming in and going out, and it needs to be managed carefully to ensure the business is healthy and profitable.

It is generally easier for an existing business to generate cash flow than for a startup business or brand-new company. This is because an existing business typically has revenue streams from customers and other sources, while a startup or new company may not yet have any of those things. An existing business should be generating income through existing channels or specific sources that it currently employs.

Increasing cash flow is just as important as reducing expenses when it comes to boosting profitability. A business can only grow if it has enough cash on hand to invest in new opportunities. Remember: Increasing cash flow is essential for long-term success in any business.

You’re purchasing a proven model

When you’re starting a business, one of the inevitable questions that you’ll be asking yourself is “How am I (or how are we) going to make money?” Fortunately, this isn’t necessarily one that you’re going to have to answer if you’re buying an existing business. Existing companies typically have proven revenue models. This means that they’ve successfully sold and continue to sell its products or services. The repeatability of this model is what you’re looking for when you’re purchasing a company.

A startup business, on the other hand, may not have a proven revenue model because it has not yet sold its products or services. This can be due to a variety of reasons, such as the company being new and therefore having no track record, or because the products or services are not yet ready for market. Either way, a lack of a proven revenue model can be a major obstacle for a startup business.

There are many reasons to buy an existing business instead of starting one from scratch. Perhaps (as I’ve mentioned), the most compelling reason is that you’re buying a proven business model. The riskiest part of starting a new business is figuring out whether your business model will actually work and be profitable. With an existing business, you know that the business model works and that the business can be profitable.

Hopefully, I’ve inspired you to jump-start your journey toward acquiring your first existing business! Remember, you need to completely educate yourself in business before you start trying to acquire them. There are inherent, built-in risks associated with business ownership that so many fail to recognize or understand. This isn’t meant to discourage you, it’s simply to let you know that the details really do matter in business, so don’t overlook them!