Jared Johnson sits down with Jaryd Krause, founder of Buying Online Businesses, to talk about how Jaryd went from working as a plumber in Australia to buying three businesses in three years and eventually building a career helping other entrepreneurs acquire companies. Jaryd shares how buying his first businesses allowed him to replace his income, leave plumbing, and build the lifestyle he wanted, while also learning that owning more businesses does not necessarily create more freedom. They walk through Jaryd’s approach to helping buyers evaluate and acquire businesses, from establishing acquisition criteria and financing to finding deals, submitting an LOI, completing due diligence, negotiating terms, and supporting the buyer after closing. Jaryd explains why he looks closely at single-source dependencies, including reliance on one supplier, marketing channel, customer acquisition source, owner, or key employee, and why financial, marketing, and legal diligence can look very different from one transaction to the next. The conversation also gets into the emotional side of acquisitions and why buyers sometimes struggle to walk away after investing months and thousands of dollars into a deal. Jaryd shares an example of a business where declining organic traffic was being offset by substantially higher advertising spend, information that ultimately led his client to walk away rather than inherit what Jaryd described as a potential million-dollar problem. Jared and Jaryd also discuss seller relationships, post-close growth, AI, changing marketing channels, and why listening to customers remains critical as businesses evolve.