Startup Acquisition Stories With Eric Pacifici of SMB Law Group

Startup Acquisition Stories With Eric Pacifici of SMB Law Group

Author: Acquire.com June 26, 2024 Duration: 17:46

What are the three biggest mistakes SME buyers make when choosing an M&A lawyer?


M&A professional Eric Pacifici says new buyers often pick lawyers who:

  1. Aren’t entrepreneurial
  2. Bill hourly rather than flat rate
  3. Don’t have M&A experience


After years of cementing billion-dollar deals at Kirkland & Ellis (the largest firm in the world by revenue), Eric decided he liked smaller deals better. He decided to jump into the world of small business acquisitions.


Eric is well-known on the internet for his Twitter account (@smb_attorney) and for coining the term “silver tsunami” i.e.the coming wealth transfer between baby boomers and their offspring. He realized a few years ago that many of these boomers’ small businesses would be put up for sale in the coming years.


To confront this coming wave of small acquisitions, Eric teamed up with a team of fellow lawyers from large firms with a passion for smaller deals to create SMB Law Group. 


SMB Law today specializes specifically in entrepreneurship-by-acquisition deals. Those are deals where aspiring entrepreneurs get a running start by purchasing a fully functioning business.


Business has been heating up. The firm did $950 million in closings just last year. Eric and SMB Law are fast becoming the go-to lawyers for people trying to buy small and medium-sized businesses in the US.


This week, Eric hopped on the SASP with Andrew Gazdecki to discuss:

  • Where Eric thinks most deals go wrong
  • Why you need a good lawyer when buying a business for $1 million+
  • Andrew’s lawyer billing horror story


Eric is just getting started and you can contact and follow him below:


Behind every successful startup acquisition, there's a story-a complex mix of strategy, emotion, and paperwork that rarely gets discussed openly. Startup Acquisition Stories, from the team at Acquire.com, pulls back the curtain on those real-world transactions. Each episode features founders and entrepreneurs who have personally navigated the process of selling or buying a business through their platform. You'll hear them recount the nuanced decisions that don't make it into press releases: the challenging conversations around valuation, the subtle art of vetting the opposite party, and the critical, often overlooked, steps after the handshake. This podcast digs into the practicalities of due diligence, structuring terms, and managing the transfer of assets, all the way through to escrow and the crucial post-deal transition. It’s a grounded, detail-oriented look at the mechanics of a business exit or expansion, straight from the people who’ve lived it. For anyone curious about the actual path to a deal, beyond the theory, this series offers a rare archive of lived experience and hard-won advice.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Startup Acquisition Stories
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