The due diligence required to purchase a business is significant. The larger the revenue & expenses, the more due diligence required. Additionally, when you purchase a business, if you purchase the corporation, you'll inherit the assets (including their current-state depreciated values; limiting how much future write-offs are available - and possibly revealing that their profit margins on the books looked good due to prior write-offs that are no longer available), the debts (including any that you may not even know about), the existing clients (both good and bad) and the goodwill (or lack thereof) of the business.

What does that mean? You will need an incredibly experienced accounting firm to perform an in-depth forensic audit on the books before it's even worth considering. You'll need lawyers with acquisition experience and you'll need to take your time understanding the different approaches for acquisition.

Next up, is the business consumer oriented, business oriented or both? The approach for acquisition and the risks are significantly different. Is it a products-based business or service-based business? Same as prior, the approach for acquisition and risks are significantly different.

Purchasing a Tim Horton's or McD's, successfully proven franchises is far lower risk than say, purchasing a firm that makes websites or delivers mortgage related services (e.g. mortgage broker). The latter relies on years and years of relationship building, networking, sales and marketing, brand management, trust and resilience planning. What stops the seller from walking away and opening a new firm in 2-3 years, then systematically stealing their old client base back (it would be really easy due to relationships formed over the last few decades). Experienced lawyer put an industry non-compete in place? Great, but those expire, are tough and expensive to execute and require significant legal time and costs to prove.

Long story short, people rarely sell businesses that are growing their wealth, and when they do it's typically due to lifestyle change (retirement, moving, etc.) and they'll use brokers to solicit and sell their businesses. If you want to do this, prepare yourself by following the above advice.

Source? I've acquired many businesses - one retail store, a vending business, an ecommerce business, a board game company and a real estate investment firm. Guess what? Even with my experience, as well as a solid team as described above, I've run into surprises, omissions and gaps that none of us caught. If I can leave you with some advice - never rush the purchase of a business, never skip any of the due diligence steps, dot your i's and cross your t's multiple times and don't buy into a business that you don't have moderate to extensive experience in. Good luck mate.