Entries by Apex Business Advisors

Case Study #5: Don’t Be Lopsided

In 1994 Rick Day founded Daycom Systems.  It started by selling used telecom equipment, but over a 17-year period it became the largest Avaya-authorized telephone equipment dealer and installer on the US West Coast.  It did $23M in annual revenue, between 4 locations, with over 55 employees. It was late 2007 when Rick decided to […]

Book Club #4: Small Giants, by Bo Burlingham

We review books you should read in preparation to buy or sell a business, as well as how to build a company to sell one day. You can see other books we’ve reviewed in our archive.   What’s the premise? Bo Burlingham, who is one of the editors-at-large for Inc. Magazine, wrote a book in […]

Case Study #4: The Phantom Buyer

Years ago Trent Dyrsmid was one of the principals of Dyrand Systems, a Vancouver-based IT firm. He managed to build the company to $1.2M in revenue before a series of events forced a sale…and to a party he never expected. Where they started Like many IT firms “back in the day,” Trent was running a […]

What You Need to Know About the SBA

Here at Apex, the majority of our deals are related to the Small Business Administration (SBA) in one way or another. Many people know that it’s a government agency, and they know it’s supposed to help small businesses, but from there it usually gets hazy. What we want to share are some of the things […]

Case Study #3: The Boomerang Sale

In 1986 David Phelps started a dental practice called the Gentle Dental. 20 years later, for a number of reasons, he decided to sell. But before six months had passed, he was in litigation to reacquire the business, and 24 months after that, he sold the business again…this time, successfully. “Boomerang” Sale? This was a […]