.avif)
Join My Community
Join 10,000+ entrepreneurs receiving proven strategies and the best opportunities delivered straight to their inbox.
Happy Monday!
Today I’m sharing a story about Zach.
He spent eight to ten years across sales, marketing, and management consulting.
Ten months after joining Acquisition Ace, he closed on a 70-year-old sheet metal fabrication company in Los Angeles for $1.15M…
And he’s projecting 200%+ cash-on-cash return in year one.
Before sharing Zach’s case study, here’s another success story from the Acquisition Ace community.
Garrett bought a $1.7M accounting firm and is now making $264K/year in profit.
“You taught me how to get the financials, how to read financials, have a general idea as far as the direction of the company, and if all that makes sense then setting up the phone call with the seller.”
He went from not knowing how to evaluate deals to confidently closing on a million-dollar business.
👉 Want to learn how to read financials and evaluate deals like a pro? Book a call with our team here.
Before the deal
Zach had been thinking about acquisitions for years but didn’t have a structured path forward.
Joining Acquisition Ace was the commitment that made it real, and the framework that kept him moving through ten months of consistent one-hour-a-day searching.
Finding the deal
The deal was actually posted in the Acquisition Ace community by coach Josh Wilson.
Multiple members inquired on it, but Zach moved decisively, and the business checked every box:
Recession-resistant
AI-resistant
Recurring revenue from customers who had been buying from the same shop for 30+ years
And a genuine barrier to entry: you can’t just open a machining shop overnight
The sellers were second-generation owners in their mid-60s with no succession plan, and wanted someone local who would carry on the family legacy rather than sell to private equity.
(Inside Acquisition Ace, members get access to deals shared directly by coaches and fellow members, opportunities that never hit the public listing sites. If you’d like to learn more, book a call with our team here and let’s talk.)
The deal breakdown
Original listing price: $1.155M
Under contract price: $1.275M
Final purchase price: $1.155M (after QoE renegotiation)
SDE (trailing 12 months): ~$560K
Multiple: ~2x
Financing: 90% SBA loan, 10% personal equity injection
Projected year-one cash flow after debt service: $300K+
Projected cash-on-cash return year one: 200%+
What he’s doing now
Two weeks in, Zach is working near full-time in the shop.
The business has an 8-9 person team with a tenured GM and foreman who runs daily operations.
His immediate focus is learning everything he can firsthand - digitizing paper-based systems, understanding the shop floor, and identifying efficiency gains before pursuing any revenue growth.
The shop currently runs Monday through Thursday, leaving meaningful capacity on the table.
There are also customer inquiries the team hasn’t been able to entertain due to capacity constraints.
The key lesson
“It certainly is possible. I can say firsthand.”
Zach worked full-time at an intensive consulting job for ten months, put in one hour a day, used every community resource available, and closed a deal that most people in his social circle didn’t even know was a category you could invest in.
He’s probably the only person his friends know who owns a sheet metal fabrication plant, and he’s setting himself up for tremendous success.
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 Zach.
👉 Book a call with our team here to see if it's a good fit.
 | Onward, Ben Kelly PS: Check out our latest YouTube video. We reveal how one entrepreneur built a multi-million dollar pool company from scratch with no industry experience. |
