oday's story is about 2 acquisitions.

The first business that Joe Soelberg bought was small, a shop that provided graphical renderings for real estate and eventually home goods sellers like Wayfair.

It did about $400k in SDE.

A big part of Joe's decision to buy on the smaller size was, simply, it's what he could afford.

He was in that business as its operator for 4 years, and today he's got someone else operating it, and the business generates about $200k a year for him for just a few hours per week of his attention.

Not huge dollars, but also a pretty great outcome.

Among other reasons, that first experience allowed Joe to get into his second acquisition.

In August of 2024, Joe acquired Plan B Communications, a branding agency doing over $9m in revenue and $1m in SDE. Headcount: 27.

A much larger business, and all the benefits that come with that. Namely, Joe has a president that runs the business while he is free to work on strategic projects like building a sales engine.

We're often told that bigger is better when buying a business. And Joe's story does seem to support that argument.

But there is also something to be said for stair-stepping into a larger business.

Joe sees his trajectory from small to larger as quite natural. That first acquisition taught him a lot, including exactly what he wanted in a second acquisition.

It also enabled him to afford that second, larger acquisition.

Joe is not alone.

I see many scrappy searchers who buy quite small at first, with the idea that they'll build and buy million-dollar SDE business after they have some experience and some cash flow. That larger size doesn't need to be their first acquisition.

See what you think of the pattern. It seems to have worked well for Joe.

Here he is, Joe Soelberg, owner of Point B Communications and SONNY+ASH.