Grow By Acquisitions is where buyers learn to source, price and close acquisitions on real deals — alongside an M&A advisor, an active private equity sponsor, and a room of people already doing it.
First acquisition or tenth. You bring the target. We put it on the screen.
Ten minutes to apply. Submit your first target in the same sitting and a written valuation comes back within 24 hours.
Every founder eventually runs the same arithmetic. Another year of grinding organic growth, another hire, another channel that might work — or one signature on a business that already has customers, staff, systems and cash flow.
Acquisition is not the shortcut version of entrepreneurship. It is the version where the risk sits in a different place: not in whether anyone wants the product, but in whether you priced it correctly and structured it so the debt does not strangle you.
That last line is the whole game. Because a bank will lend against documented, transferable cash flow, the buyer’s job is not to find the cheapest business. It is to find the most financeable one — and to know the difference before making an offer.
“A buyer finds a business, likes the owner, agrees on a number over coffee, signs a letter of intent — and then takes it to a lender who says no. Not because the business is bad. Because the price was built on what the seller hoped, not on what a lender will finance.”
— FM Buyer Playbook, opening page
By then you have spent the legal fees, burned the diligence budget, used up the exclusivity window, and lost a seller who will never take your call again. Late-stage deaths are the expensive kind.
None of them is about wanting it badly enough.
Listing sites and nothing proprietary, so you are looking at what a hundred other buyers already passed on.
Owner-operated businesses are run for tax efficiency, not for sale. The P&L in front of you is not the business.
Seller notes, third-party debt, partner capital, rollover equity. Each one changes the price you can actually pay.
You are pitching your first lender at the exact moment you can least afford to hear no.
You have run numbers your whole career. You have never once run the numbers a lender runs. That is not a character flaw — it is an information asymmetry, and it is the most expensive one in this business.
“3x SDE” is shorthand, and shorthand is where buyers overpay. The Capital Access Model is our valuation method: a range anchored to what a bank will actually finance, rather than what a seller hopes or what a rule of thumb implies.
All valuations are provided for informational purposes only. CAM is not an appraisal, a fairness opinion, or a financing commitment.
Most buyers have never run a single one of them before making an offer.
Adjusted earnings over annual debt service. Lenders want visible headroom, not a number that only works if nothing goes wrong.
Documented in tax returns and financials — or asserted in a spreadsheet. Those are not the same thing, and a credit committee knows it.
What happens to revenue when the owner stops answering the phone. If the business is the owner, there is nothing to buy.
Hard assets, and how much of your own money is in the deal. Skin in the game is a lending term, not a slogan.
The specific ratio varies by lender, industry and structure, and is worth asking about early. Anyone who quotes you one universal number has not spoken to enough lenders.
What remains is cash after close. If it is thin at the asking price, you have not found a bad business — you have found your negotiating position.
Could a third party verify it, and will it truly not recur?
Your $5 application includes one CAM valuation on a real target of yours. Financials do not need to be perfect — send what you have.
The method is the same. The starting line is not. Tell us which one you are on and the room works your actual situation, not a generic case study.
You have operating skill and no acquisition experience. The work is a buy-box tight enough to say no in ninety seconds, a pipeline that is yours rather than a listing site’s, and a first offer priced the way a lender reads it.
Operators · Executives · Post-exit foundersYou already run a business and organic growth has flattened. Buying a competitor, a supplier or an adjacent book of customers is usually cheaper than winning them one at a time — and you are the most financeable buyer at the table.
Existing owners · Bolt-onsOne platform, then add-ons around it. The discipline is a repeatable buy-box, a sourcing engine that runs continuously, and a structure that survives the second and third deal — not just the first.
Portfolio builders · Multi-dealSome deals are too big, too specialised, or too good to run alone. Members bring targets to the room, pressure-test them together, and sometimes decide to work on them jointly. Those conversations happen here. They are never promised.
Co-investing · Partner dealsYou do not need to know which one you are on. Bring a target and the buy-box work usually settles it inside the first two days.
Most acquisition education is somebody explaining a framework to a camera. This is a small room of buyers putting real deals on the screen in front of people who price businesses for a living.
On capital, plainly: if a deal fits the criteria of FM’s capital relationships, we will make introductions. That is never promised as part of the program, and no one here is a broker, a lender, or an investment advisor.
Every block ends in something you can put in front of a seller or a lender.
The one-page criteria capital partners actually respond to. A buy-box is a filter, not a wish list — its job is to let you say no in ninety seconds. If yours doesn’t do that, it is too vague.
Sourcing lists, outreach scripts, and the seller approach — live from day three, not homework for later. Real targets in motion by the end of week one, including if you walked in with none.
Add-backs, normalisation, red flags, and the specific things that kill a deal at the bank. On your financials, not a case study’s.
Know what a bank will fund before you offer. Then the LOI framework and template vault, and the crescendo: a ready-to-send letter of intent on your best target. Have counsel review any LOI before you send it.
Format: 8 hours live over two weeks, weekdays at 11:00 AM Central, plus recordings and a private member channel between sessions. Bring up to six targets and we value every one of them — including the ones we tell you to walk away from.
Itemised, with what each piece costs when it is engaged on its own.
| CAM valuations on up to 6 of your targetsThe Capital Access Model, run on your real deals. $400 per valuation, engaged individually. | $2,400 |
| 8 hours live with Fadi Malouf & AssociatesWorking sessions with an M&A advisor, an active PE sponsor and the CAM team in the room — including your deal on the screen, torn apart before you commit. | $2,000 |
| Your buy-box and acquisition thesis, built with youThe one-page criteria capital partners actually respond to. | $750 |
| The deal-flow engineSourcing lists, outreach scripts, seller approach. Live sourcing from day three. | $750 |
| The LOI framework and template vaultStructure, terms and language for a ready-to-send LOI on your best target. | $500 |
| Total value of what is delivered | $6,400 |
Values reflect comparable market rates for these services engaged individually. All valuations are provided for informational purposes only. Have counsel review any LOI or contract language before you send it.
And the room itself. An active PE sponsor, family office and HNW participants, and the private channel where deals get picked apart between sessions. We don’t put a price on that.
The arithmetic
$6,400 → $500
$5 to apply today. A $495 balance only if you are selected. Nothing else to participate.
Because the cohort is not the business — it is how we meet serious buyers. We would rather sit in a room with twenty people who own real targets than sell a course to two thousand who don’t.
That is also why it is application-only and capped at 20 seats: we price it low and select hard, instead of pricing it high and taking everyone.
Some members will want hands-on advisory help on a deal afterwards. That is the whole model, out loud — optional, never pushed.
You see what the model does with a deal of your own before you ever pay for a seat. And we only want verified buyers in the room — the fee tells us there is a real person on the other side of the application, working on a real deal, rather than someone collecting free downloads.
Ten minutes. Reviewed within 48 hours. Decision by email either way.
Twenty seats, selected from applications. If that reads as a filter, it is one.
Everyone else — first deal or tenth — we want to see your target.
Not because you need it defined — because you need to know what a lender does with each one.
Write to a lender the way you would write to a partner: plainly, with the paper trail attached. Never disparage the business to justify a number — use the debt math. And explain your funding structure plainly and early, without overstating it.
Because we only want verified buyers in the room. The fee tells us there is a real person on the other side of the application — someone working on a deal, not someone collecting free downloads. And because we are asking you to pay to apply, you get back more than you put in: the Playbook and a CAM valuation on your first target, whether or not you are selected.
You need to be able to fund diligence and a down payment, or to have a credible path to partner capital. If you have neither, this is not the right time — and we will say so.
No. You build your own pipeline with our engine and templates, and we pressure-test what you bring. That is what makes it stick.
Sometimes. If a deal fits the criteria of FM’s capital relationships, we will make introductions. That is never promised as part of the program.
No. Roughly half the work of a first acquisition is building the buy-box and the pipeline, which is where days one to four go. What you need is operating judgement and a real intent to own — not prior deal experience.
Then bring your hardest live deal. The value for experienced buyers is not the curriculum — it is an M&A advisor, a PE sponsor and the CAM team pricing your actual target against what a lender will fund, in the same week you need the answer.
Even better. Come with an add-on strategy and we will work your roll-up thesis. Existing owners are usually the most financeable buyers in the room.
Days three and four are live sourcing — the engine, the lists, the outreach scripts, the seller approach. Members who arrive with nothing start building the pipeline in the first week and bring what they find into the valuation days.
A written valuation range anchored to what a bank will finance, rather than to a multiple or a seller’s asking price. Turnaround is within 24 hours of submission. It is provided for informational purposes only — it is not an appraisal, a fairness opinion, or a financing commitment.
No. Financials do not need to be perfect — send what you have. If all you have is a listing sheet and a revenue figure, send that.
The application and your first deal submission take about ten minutes together. Your written CAM valuation comes back within 24 hours. Your cohort decision follows within 48 hours.
Most members continue: another cohort with new targets, or hands-on advisory support on the deal they’ve chosen. Both are optional, never pushed.
Ten minutes and $5 to apply. Submit your first target in the same sitting, and the Playbook plus your CAM valuation are yours straight away — whether or not you get a seat.
P.S. — If you are waiting until you have found the perfect target before you apply: the pipeline is what days three and four build. Waiting for deal flow to appear on its own is the most common way a nine-month search turns into a three-year one.
P.P.S. — The worst outcome available to you here is finding out, within 24 hours and for $5, what a lender would actually do to the number you were about to offer. Most buyers find that out after the legal bill.
Grow By Acquisitions is a brand of FM Enterprise, LLC. Atlanta, GA. © 2026 FM Enterprise, LLC. All rights reserved.
FM Enterprise, LLC and its affiliates provide education and advisory services only. Nothing on this page is an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security, an offer of financing, investment advice, legal advice, or tax advice. FM is not a licensed broker or broker-dealer. Business acquisition involves risk, including loss of capital. Results are not typical or guaranteed and depend on your own effort, capital, and market conditions. All valuations are provided for informational purposes only.
Questions: [email protected] · Apply for the next cohort