Two Off-Market Acquisitions, Two Completely Different Seller Experiences | Matt Stevenson

Matt Stevenson started his career in Big Four M&A before moving into banking — watching businesses fail not because they were bad, but because their owners couldn't manage them. That became his thesis for buying his own. He's now Managing Director of Bizstats, a monopoly SME sales data provider, and NZ BizBuySell, New Zealand's leading business-for-sale platform — both acquired off-market from sellers who weren't looking to sell.The two deals couldn't be more different. Bizstats came from a deceased founder's children who had no idea what the business did; Matt fired the operator after one week. NZ BizBuySell was chalk and cheese — a founder who stayed on, taught him everything, and genuinely wanted him to succeed.In this episode Matt gets honest about twelve months of persistence on two separate proprietary deals, how he funded them, why vendor trust beats any financial metric, and why most people in ETA over-analyse everything and never actually buy anything.IN THIS EPISODE:The year-long search for Bizstats — and why the sellers' ignorance of their own business was the biggest riskHow he transformed a Microsoft Access-era business into an automated platform and grew revenue 50%Why he fired the operator after one week — and ran the business alone at 4:30am before his day jobWhy vendor trust is his #1 green flag — above anything in the financialsHow COVID house prices unlocked his first acquisition — and why funding is the real bottleneck for most buyers in their 30sWhy he took vendor finance on the second deal even though he didn't need itAdvice to his younger self: partner up, buy bigger, move fasterCONNECT WITH MATT:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-stevenson-53208493TIMESTAMPS:0:00 - Matt's path from Big Four M&A to business ownership 2:55 - Discovering Bizstats: data gold behind a 70-year-old's inbox 4:24 - Settlement date vs. C-section date 4:57 - What Bizstats is and why it was worth buying 7:17 - Multiple and deal structure for Bizstats 8:18 - Proprietary search: wearing a seller down over 12 months 10:06 - Funding the deal: COVID house equity, cash, and bank debt 11:51 - Transforming Bizstats: from Microsoft Access to automated SaaS 14:18 - How AI changed the economics of small business tech 15:38 - Discovering ETA after already doing ETA 18:00 - Finding NZ BizBuySell the same way he found Bizstats 19:31 - Comparing the two deals: size, staff, sophistication 20:28 - Deal structure for NZ BizBuySell 22:16 - Going full time: the first Christmas break he didn't dread 23:20 - Crap moments: misrepresentations and firing the operator 25:37 - Owner trust: the #1 green flag in any acquisition 26:23 - Vendor finance as post-settlement protection 27:13 - How the NZ BizBuySell deal was funded 29:02 - Monopoly positions and why they made both deals easier to back 30:08 - On over-analysers in ETA who never buy anything 31:44 - Synergies between Bizstats and NZ BizBuySell 33:07 - What comes next 34:53 - Advice to younger self: partner up, buy bigger, move fasterDeals Down Under is the podcast about buying, selling, and growing businesses in Australia. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.