He Acquired 50 Saas Businesses & Warns You Of What Brokers Won’t Tell You with Kevin Peterson
Buying Online Businesses PodcastShow Notes
Most people think buying a business is just about finding a “good deal.” Kevin Peterson has done over 50 acquisitions - and he’ll tell you that’s exactly how people lose money. Because what brokers don’t tell you… is that the real risk isn’t the numbers? It’s what’s missing behind them. Like the SaaS deal that looked perfect on paper… until the entire team walked out right after closing. Or the “growth opportunity” that was actually just an audience no one had ever monetized. Or the biggest trap of all - buying a business without a clear thesis… and hoping it works out later. In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Kevin - founder of Webfolio Management - who’s spent the last 12+ years acquiring, operating, and scaling digital businesses across SaaS, content, and eCommerce. And this one goes deep. Into the real due diligence signals most buyers miss. Into how AI is quietly changing what businesses are worth buying - and which ones are becoming obsolete. Into the hidden risks inside “easy wins” like audience monetization and roll-ups. But more importantly… Kevin breaks down the exact thinking behind building a portfolio that doesn’t just grow - but actually survives. No hype. No shortcuts. No theory. Just hard-earned lessons from someone who’s done the deals, made the mistakes… and kept going anyway. 🎧 Hit play - this is what buying businesses really looks like.
Episode Highlights 02:27 The Career Pivot That Changed Everything – From 20 Years in Consulting to Buying Online Businesses 03:36 From $50K Deals to 7-Figure Acquisitions – How Kevin Built a 50+ Deal Track Record 06:08 The Hidden Value Most Buyers Miss – Untapped Audiences That Can Instantly Increase Revenue 09:22 The Deal That Looked Perfect… Until the Entire Team Walked Out After Closing 11:36 SaaS Due Diligence Simplified – The 4 Metrics That Actually Matter 17:01 The KPI That Signals It’s Time to Sell (Before the Business Declines) 22:14 What NOT to Buy in the Age of AI – And Where the Real Moats Still Exist
Key Takeaways ➥ The best deals aren’t found - they’re filtered. Without a clear acquisition thesis, you’ll chase instead of build. ➥ If the business can’t run without the founder, you didn’t buy an asset - you bought a job. ➥ The real cost isn’t the purchase price. It’s the capital required to grow the business after you own it. ➥ Conversion rate and churn will tell you the truth before revenue ever does - watch them closely. ➥ AI is lowering the barrier to entry. If your business can be easily copied, it’s already at risk. ➥ The biggest hidden upside in acquisitions is often an under-monetized audience. ➥ Most founders sell too late. The right time to exit is before growth starts getting harder.
About Kevin Peterson Kevin Petersen is a serial entrepreneur and founder of WebFolio Management, a portfolio vehicle that acquires and operates small SaaS companies on behalf of investors and himself. Since getting started in the web-business market he has acquired dozens of internet businesses (including Picreel) and refined a deliberate, metrics-driven approach to sourcing, cleaning financials, and scaling recurring-revenue products. Kevin focuses on building investor-grade units with clean books and repeatable growth processes, then deciding whether to hold, scale, or exit. He frequently coaches other buyers and investors on building SaaS portfolios, and his playbook centers on deliberate deal selection, clean financial segmentation, and operational systems that allow multiple assets to be managed without chaos.
Connect with Kevin Peterson ➥ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinpetersen1/
➥saastermind.net
Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause
➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/
➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/se
More from Buying Online Businesses Podcast
In this episode of the Buying Online Businesses podcast, host Jaryd Krause interviews Lisa Williams, CEO of Hello Again, a women’s wellness e-commerce brand. Lisa shares her journey of transitioning from running a marketing agency to acquiring a brand in 2024 with zero prior M&A experience and no outside capital. She dives into how she discovered the product during her own menopause journey, structured the deal to finance it herself, navigated complex legal challenges, reformulated and rebranded the products, and scaled the business through organic growth and content creation. If you're looking to buy your first business without relying on outside investors, this episode is a masterclass in creative deal-making. Click the ‘Play’ button to get started!
In this episode of the Buying Online Businesses podcast, Jaryd Krause interviews David Barnett, an author, educator, and former business broker with over 20 years of experience buying, selling, financing, and managing small businesses. They explore concepts from David's 11th book, Business and Asset Values, diving into how opinions, personal situations, and emotions influence how people value businesses. The discussion highlights strategies for becoming an "unfocused" buyer to avoid costly emotional mistakes, objectively assessing a business's build-versus-buy replacement costs, navigating competition from strategic buyers or private equity firms, and using a sales mindset to help buyers secure better terms. Check out this video to learn how to win deals without overpaying! Link here: _____
What actually keeps someone in the game when the business fails, the money disappears, and the strategy stops working? Joe Burrell knows that feeling. His first business cost him $700 and didn’t work out. Years later, he’s been involved in 300+ transactions worth nearly $7 million. But the interesting part isn’t the acquisitions. It’s what happened in between them. In this episode, Joe and Jaryd unpack the mindset behind staying the course - why the hardest part of entrepreneurship is often the dip, how belief is built through action rather than motivation, and why constantly chasing the next opportunity can quietly destroy the compounding effect of sticking with one thing. They also break down a simple but powerful progression: desire → vision → courage → belief. Because you don't need to feel confident before you start. Sometimes confidence is what you earn by refusing to stop. 🎧 Hit play — this one is about what happens when you stay in the game long enough to get good at it.
He bought a SaaS business for $3,000. It had zero revenue. No payment gateway. Barely any real traffic. And some of the traffic being reported? It was basically the founder testing his own site. 18 months later, that same business was doing $3,000 a month in revenue. So what changed? Steven Macdonald didn't throw money at ads or try to monetize everything on day one. He knew the market, listened to customers, went all-in on SEO, and turned original research into a growth engine. He surveyed 200+ startups. Published the data. Started ranking for major OKR keywords. Built backlinks. Generated thousands of monthly visits. And kept improving the product based on what customers actually wanted. But the most interesting part might be what he didn't do. He didn't rush. Steven gave himself eight to ten years to build the business. That long-term mindset completely changed how he approached growth, product decisions, and even monetization. In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Steven to break down the $3K acquisition, how he took a zero-revenue SaaS to $3K/month, why knowing the market can matter more than the size of the deal, and how original research and AI are helping him compound organic growth. If you're thinking about buying a small SaaS, or wondering what can happen when you give a tiny business enough time to grow, this one is worth hearing. 🎧 Hit play. The acquisition cost $3K. The lessons are worth a lot more.
Buying your first business is exciting. Buying six more before you’ve figured out how to run the first one is where things get interesting. Dev Shah discovered acquisitions through Acquire.com and quickly went from being fascinated by the idea of buying businesses to actually building a portfolio of them. His first deal was Sourcely AI, a student research tool he bought for just $4,000 while it was making around $500 a month. A year and a half later, he had grown it to more than $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue and sold it for a low six-figure exit. But along the way, Dev acquired six other micro-businesses, all for less than $10,000 each, using the cash flow from his original acquisition. And that's where he learned one of the biggest lessons of his acquisition journey: just because you can buy another business doesn't mean you should. He couldn't integrate them as effectively as he expected. Some were sold. Some were shut down. Others continued running. Today, Dev has taken those lessons into a much bigger world of acquisitions. He runs a buy-side advisory firm helping search funds, startups, and other buyers source deals, conduct due diligence, negotiate, and get acquisitions across the finish line. And he's seen plenty go wrong. Sellers who disappear after an LOI. Businesses with information that turns out to be fake. Owners claiming revenue that can't actually be verified. Deals that look attractive until you start pulling apart the numbers. In this episode, Jaryd sits down with Dev to unpack what buying seven businesses taught him about moving too fast, how to build a buy box around your own skills and competitive advantages, and why serious buyers need to spend time in the market before they ever make an offer. Dev also breaks down his approach to due diligence, why you should treat those 30 days as if you're already taking over the business, how to avoid becoming emotionally attached to a deal, and why your relationship with the seller can be just as important as the numbers on the spreadsheet. From $4,000 micro-acquisitions to sourcing deals for buyers with millions of dollars behind them, Dev has seen both sides of the acquisition process. If you're thinking about buying an online business, especially for $100K or less, this conversation is full of lessons that could save you from making the same mistakes. 🎧 Hit play to hear what Dev would do differently if he could go back to his first acquisition.