How a cybersecurity pro bought a $6M delivery tech company

Happy Monday!

Today you’re going to hear a story about Alex, a cybersecurity professional working a full-time W2 job who stumbled across a niche delivery technology business on BizBuySell.

A year later - after a bank jumping ship at the last minute and a nearly impossible deal structure - he closed at $6M and is projecting $500K in cash flow in year one…

And all this while still working his day job!

Community Spotlight

Before we explore Alex’s story, here’s a great success spotlight from the Acquisition Ace community!

Adam bought a $1.85M stucco company while keeping his full-time W2 job…

And he’s on track to make over $300K in cash flow this year while working just 5-10 hours per week.

He structured the deal with 80% SBA, 10% seller note on full 10-year standby, and brought just $250K to close.

The previous owner had done zero marketing for 20 years and ran everything on paper.

Adam brought on a business development manager, implemented new systems, and is already lining up enough work to double last year’s revenue, all while keeping his day job.

👉 Want to buy a business without needing to quit your W2? Book a call with our team here.

Before the Deal

Alex had been searching across several industries:

• Accounting firms

• Laundromats

• Car washes

When a listing caught his eye.

It described a last-mile delivery platform with integrations across every major delivery aggregator: Uber Eats, DoorDash, GrubHub, Instacart, and more.

That kind of multi-platform reach is rare, and the competitive moat was exactly what he’d been taught to look for.

Finding the Deal

When Alex reached out, the seller told him a private equity firm was prepared to make a cash offer and invited him to meet in person the next morning.

Alex drove 90 minutes at 7am on a Sunday to meet the seller at what turned out to be a penthouse hotel suite.

The meeting boiled down to being a character interview.

The seller and his wife had built seven businesses from scratch and wanted to make sure whoever took this one over was worthy of the team they’d built and the legacy they were leaving behind.

Alex earned their trust, and signed the LOI that day.

(Inside Acquisition Ace, members learn that seller relationships often matter more than offer price, especially with founders who care deeply about what happens to their business after they leave. To learn more about the Acquisition Ace community, and see if it’s a good fit for you, book a call with our team here.)

The Deal Breakdown

Original asking price: $7M

Final purchase price: $6M

SDE/EBITDA: $1.2M

SBA loan: $4.4M

Seller note: $1.2M (suspended for full loan term, and currently being negotiated for forgiveness in exchange for a domain purchase valued at $200-300K)

Total out of pocket: $300K

Projected cash flow after debt service: $500K annually

Cash-on-cash return: ~167% in year one

What He’s Doing Now

Alex is still working his cybersecurity W2 job - four 10-hour days with Fridays free for in-person business development.

He walks into restaurants in his area, demonstrates the platform on his laptop, and shows owners how to cut delivery costs and expand their radius beyond the five miles Uber typically allows.

The pitch practically closes itself!

His GM - a jack-of-all-trades who’s been with the business for years - runs daily operations.

A trained backup GM and a team of IT admins handle 24/7 chat support, so Alex’s day-to-day involvement is minimal:

• A weekly check-in

• The occasional 15-minute Zoom demo squeezed between W2 meetings

• And Friday field visits

He’s currently focused on building a Florida footprint, hiring a social media manager, and expanding the customer base that’s been growing entirely on word-of-mouth.

The Key Lesson

“Show up. Drive the hour and a half. Meet them in person. The sellers who built something real want to hand it to someone real, and you can’t show that over email.”

Alex won a deal that a private equity firm was prepared to take with cash, because he showed up, built genuine trust, and gave the sellers confidence that he was the right person to carry their legacy forward.

Ready to find and close your first acquisition?

Join the Acquisition Ace community with 2,000+ members who are learning to find, finance, and close deals just like Darwin.

👉 Book a call with our team here to see if it’s a good fit.