How To Buy A Business With Little To No Money w/ Shakil Prasla #TheOnePercent

11 Dec 2025 · 42 min
Episode

11 Dec 2025 · 42 min

0:00

This podcast (recorded Jan 21, 2019) features Ryan Daniel Moran interviewing Shakil Prasla about acquiring and scaling online/physical-product businesses with little upfront capital. Shakil describes his background (retail, convenience stores, then online cufflinks), his acquisition criteria (evergreen products, good cash flow, underserved markets), and operational playbook: learn the business month one, aggressively grow months 2–12 (often reinvesting ~50% of profits), then automate and hand to a manager. He emphasizes hiring virtual managers/contractors, tools (Hubstaff, Slack, Mailchimp, heatmaps), and simple growth levers (hire VAs, increase conversions, email campaigns, add product variations). Financing and deal mechanics: banks/SBA loans (up to 85% financing), owner financing/earnouts, and brokers/buybyssell/FE International/Quiet Light for deal flow. Valuation norms: e-commerce multiples ~2–3× seller’s annual profit (Shakil's sweet spot ~2.5×; he paid 2.8× for a socks business). Key risks: Google deranking and Amazon suspensions; mitigation is diversifying traffic and channels (content, ads, email).

Questions this episode answers

January 21, 2019

Roughly 2–3× annual profit (sweet spot ≈2.5×)

Approximately 2.8×

Up to 85% of the acquisition (down payment as low as 15%)

Reviewed ~1,000 deals and bought 2

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