Real Estate Makes Millionaires, but THIS Makes Billionaires

When Jeremy Harbour couldn't scrape together £15,000 for his first business acquisition nearly 30 years ago, he made a discovery that would eventually lead him to complete over 300 deals across 12 countries.

That discovery?

Real estate makes millionaires, but acquisition deals make billionaires.

"If you look at the Forbes list and examine the top 10, top 20, top 30 people," Harbour explains, "they're not there from real estate—they're there from doing deals. They're there predominantly from taking their companies public and using those public companies as a platform to grow."

It's a contrarian view that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Most entrepreneurs are taught that property investment is the path to wealth. But Harbour's experience tells a different story.

The Acquisition Advantage Over Startups

Before becoming a globally renowned M&A expert with nearly 3,000 members in his acquisition community, Harbour was grinding it out as a traditional entrepreneur. He built a telecoms company the hard way—through sales, marketing, and leveraging his team.

"I think we do startups because it's kind of a rite of passage," he reflects. "But the thing that gets you to do it is this desire for freedom—financial freedom or time freedom. Then you start a business, and it takes away all of your time and all of your money."

The contrast with acquisition entrepreneurship couldn't be starker:

• Startups: 90% failure rate, years of struggle, constant cash flow pressure

• Acquisitions: Immediate cash flow, established customers, proven business models

"When you're running a business, all you can really do is increase your income," Harbour notes. "Your income just increases your lifestyle—bigger house, faster car, nicer holidays. But you don't really create wealth."

The Capital Event Difference

Here's where acquisition entrepreneurship shows its true power:

Capital events.

"When you create capital events, you get these chunks of money in one go," Harbour explains. "Those are typically deployed into assets that generate income. And it's those assets that generate income that really give you financial freedom—that's the money that comes in when you're asleep."

This is the fundamental difference between trading time for money and creating wealth. While traditional business owners increase their monthly income, acquisition entrepreneurs create lump sums that can be invested to generate passive income.

Finding Your First Deal: The Research Project Approach

So how do you find businesses to acquire? Harbour's advice flies in the face of conventional deal-sourcing wisdom.

Don't start by Googling "businesses for sale."

Instead, treat it like a research project:

1. Choose an industry you understand - Rapport is crucial, and you need to hold competent conversations

2. Shortlist target companies in your geographic area

3. Make conversations your goal - Aim for 10-15 minute chats with as many owners as possible

4. Ask the right questions:

   • Where are they in the business journey?

   • What are their future ambitions?

   • What industry challenges are they facing?

   • What business challenges would they share?

"If you set out with the idea that every call has to turn into a transaction, you put pressure on yourself," Harbour warns. "That pressure creates anxiety, and that anxiety is visible to the person on the other side of the table."

The Sweet Spot: Blue Collar Business Services

After 300+ deals, Harbour has identified what's working right now. His community is seeing significant activity in blue collar business services—think mechanical engineering, electrical contractors, elevator servicing, plumbing companies.

Why these businesses are ripe for acquisition:

• Baby boomer ownership - Owners in their 70s and 80s facing retirement pressure

• Unsexy for next generation - Younger people don't want to get their hands dirty

• Recurring revenue streams - Maintenance contracts and captive customers

• Unsophisticated systems - Still using paper processes, making them unattractive to institutional buyers

• Reasonable scale - Often $10-20M companies run in old-fashioned ways

"You have to service your elevators. You have to do these things, so you've got kind of captive customers," Harbour explains. "These businesses make money, but they're not particularly sophisticated."

The No-Money-Down Reality

Perhaps most remarkably, Harbour has completed all but two of his 300+ deals without putting his own money upfront. This wasn't by choice initially—it was necessity.

"I even couldn't use a lawyer because I couldn't afford to hire one," he admits. "I was growing a bootstrapped telecoms company, and every dollar that came in, we'd already spent three times over."

This constraint forced incredible creativity and persistence:

• Focus on seller motivations rather than just purchase price

• Structure deals to mitigate seller fears without requiring upfront cash

• Recognize when you're the only option - many sellers don't have queues of buyers

The key insight? Most sellers don't actually have other buyers lined up. Your lack of immediate cash might not be the deal-killer you think it is.

The Perfect Size Business

Harbour's community focuses on two categories:

Bolt-on acquisitions: $1-5M revenue

• Too small for institutional buyers

• Too big for opportunistic entrepreneurs

• Limited natural buyers create opportunity

Strategic acquisitions: Up to $50M revenue

• Still owner-managed (crucial for rapport-based deals)

• Not yet overwhelmed by advisors and institutional interest

• Maximum 3-4 shareholders for simpler negotiations

The Great Wealth Transfer Opportunity

Despite growing interest in acquisition entrepreneurship, Harbour isn't worried about increased competition. The reason? The Great Wealth Transfer.

Baby boomers own 40% of all small businesses and are now in their 70s and 80s. "Their pressure to move their business on is getting much higher because they're literally running out of time," Harbour observes.

The scale is staggering—trillions of dollars in business assets must transfer from this generation to someone else. Some businesses are even shutting down rather than selling because owners can't find buyers.

"We saw a company doing $10 million a year in revenue literally just let their URL expire and lock the doors," Harbour shares. "They just didn't renew it and walked away."

The Missionary vs. Mercenary Mindset

For newcomers to acquisition entrepreneurship, Harbour offers one crucial piece of advice:

"Be a missionary, not a mercenary."

"Don't look at how you can make a quick buck. Look at how you can change your life, change people's lives, have a passion beyond the money," he explains. "Go out and try to solve problems for people. The money will naturally follow missionaries more than it follows mercenaries."

This mindset shift is crucial because successful acquisitions are relationship-based transactions, not procurement exercises. "Deals are collaborative, not combative," Harbour emphasizes.

The Right Time to Sell (Spoiler: It's Now)

Finally, for current business owners reading this, Harbour has a controversial opinion: The best time to sell your business is now.

"The reason people don't sell now is because they believe next year is going to be their best year ever," he explains. "If next year is going to be your best year ever, that's the perfect thing to tell a potential buyer."

The mathematics are compelling. A business generating £500,000 EBITDA might sell for £1.5 million. After tax and working capital, the owner might only extract £200,000 annually. But that £1.5 million invested passively could generate the same £200,000 annually without staff, customers, or business risk.

"You're de-risking and deploying that capital into passive investments that generate real income while you're asleep," Harbour notes. "That's much smarter than clinging on to something just because you think next year will be the best year ever."

The WAR Strategy

Harbour closes with a simple acronym that summarizes the path forward: WAR

• Wisdom: Know what you're supposed to be doing

• Action: Get off your backside and do it

• Repetition: Do it again and again and again

"Everything you want in life is on the other side of this WAR acronym," he concludes.

One member of his community set a challenge to speak with a business owner every day for 100 days. "If you do that, you will have endless deal flow," Harbour promises. "That's typically what somebody would do in a year, compressed into 100 days."

The opportunity is there. The sellers exist. The question is: Will you choose the billionaire's path of deal-making, or remain stuck in the millionaire's game of traditional wealth building?

Your first conversation could be the beginning of everything.

Jeremy Harbour runs The Harbour Club, a global community of nearly 3,000 acquisition entrepreneurs. He has been involved in over 300 deals across 12 countries and speaks at M&A events worldwide. Check out his new book launched in 2025, “WAR: How to Do Everything (Wisdom, Action, Repetition)”

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