Could this business be replicated with "$100k and a website"?
April 04, 2025
by a searcher from University of Virginia in Troy, VA 22974, USA
I was listening to a recent episode of the Acquisitions Anonymous podcast, and one of the hosts questioned whether the business they were analyzing could be replicated with "$100k and a website."
It sounded like he was saying there's a certain type of business that's cheap and relatively easy to start up, and that type of business would be a less desirable acquisition (barring some unique proposition, of course).
Has anyone heard this term before, and what are some businesses that would fit in this category? Thanks.
It sounded like he was saying there's a certain type of business that's cheap and relatively easy to start up, and that type of business would be a less desirable acquisition (barring some unique proposition, of course).
Has anyone heard this term before, and what are some businesses that would fit in this category? Thanks.
in Asheville, NC, USA
Essentially, we only want to invest in deals that we consider a “real” business with a barrier to entry versus just a hustle combined with a marketing hack.
Hustles are *great* to start, but can be easily disrupted and are generally based on the owners' skills.
We don’t want to invest in that, and you don't want to buy that.
When a company can be recreated with some grit, good marketing, and 30x less capital, then it shouldn’t be valued the same, and it’s prone to more skilled competitors and industry disruption.
On average, the harder it is to scale, the stickier it will be over time.
For reference, here is the conversation mentioned (Timestamp 26:15) https://open.spotify.com/episode/6YVRPhYYulkqqXEFkx1oY4
^redacted you asked for a specific example, so here are a couple:
1) Imagine a "roofing company" where it's really just an SEO website that brings in leads and delegates to a list of random subcontractors. Maybe in brings in $1mil/yr, but you don't want to pay $3mil for that. You want to invest $100k in good SEO and find good subcontractors.
*Of course* this is easier said than done, I'm generalizing, and not everyone has that skillset. But it's worth looking at a deal from this perspective.
2) The example from the AquaAnon episode. Imagine that, as we hypothesized, this is a "payment processor for yoga studios using ACME scheduling app" type of software.
The app itself is probably relatively simple based on what we saw on the listing teaser. Scrape all the yoga studios with "Powered by ACME" in the footer, offer a better deal or handhold onboarding for them, spend $100k on this instead of the $7million asking price.
Obviously I'm oversimplifying a complicated process, but I'm sure you get the general thesis. Of course, you cannot get any sort of debt funding for such a task, so capital and grit is required, but if it works then you save millions.
from University of North Texas in San Antonio, TX, USA
Great question — I’ve heard that phrase too, usually in the context of evaluating how defensible or replicable a business really is. If something can be recreated with "$100k and a website," it's often seen as less desirable — unless there's something special: brand equity, customer stickiness, proprietary IP, etc.
But let me take a step back and get a little personal here.
My path hasn't been the traditional M&A route. I didn’t come from banking or PE. Instead, I’ve lived it from the inside out — I bought into a company I worked for, built brick-and-mortar startups, launched multiple ventures from scratch. Somewhere along the way, through the soul-searching that comes with those highs and lows, I became a certified coach, a business consultant, and even a best-selling author.
What I’ve realized is… it’s never a straight line.
Someone once told me, “We’re all searching.” That hit home. I see it across the board — whether you're running a $20M business or launching something from your garage, the questions are the same: Is this worth it? Should I build or buy? Am I enough to do this?
So yes — there are businesses that can be built with "$100k and a website." And maybe that makes them less attractive to institutional buyers. But here’s the real question I’d ask (and I’m really asking myself too):
If I told you that whatever you’re looking for could absolutely work — that you could start from scratch, or buy something modest, or build with what you’ve got — would you keep searching for the “perfect deal”? Or would you just start where you are and do you?
Sometimes we don’t need more information. We just need to trust what we already know.