The Exit Ramp #003 — July 17, 2026

Somewhere between the last round of layoffs and the next reorg announcement, a certain kind of professional starts doing the math differently. This week Ko, our AI analyst, scanned 4 states and surfaced 42 businesses actively trading hands, averaging $292,602 — well within SBA territory for a buyer putting 10% down. Florida led the deal flow, and one listing out of Atlanta caught our eye: a logistics franchise in the $179,000 range, in an industry that tends to keep moving even when consumer spending doesn't. If you've been wondering what it would take to stop building someone else's asset and start owning one, this issue is a decent place to start the calculation.

8 deals cleared our filters. Ranked by score.

GA · Logistics & Transport

Asking: $179,000  |  Revenue: $500K - $1M  |  Cash Flow: $100K - $250K Rev Multiple: 0.24x  |  CF Multiple: 1.02x  |  Score: 8.7/10

Green Flags:

A freight brokerage franchise in Atlanta priced at 1.02x cash flow — effectively a sub-12-month payback at asking. The franchise structure here does real work: lenders recognize the brand, the operations playbook is pre-built, and the recurring B2B contract revenue means you're not rebuilding a customer base from scratch. At 0.24x revenue with no lease obligation, the fixed cost floor is low enough that even a modest revenue dip doesn't threaten debt service. For someone coming out of a logistics, supply chain, or account management background, the relationship-driven model is a genuine edge rather than a learning curve.

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TX · Automotive

Asking: $550,000  |  Revenue: $1,100,000  |  Cash Flow: $250K - $500K Rev Multiple: 0.50x  |  CF Multiple: 1.47x  |  Score: 8.2/10

Green Flags:

A franchise auto repair center in Houston clearing somewhere in the $250K–$500K cash flow range on $1.1M in revenue — at 1.47x earnings on the midpoint estimate, you're looking at a sub-18-month payback before financing costs enter the picture (verify the actual cash flow figure in due diligence, as the seller has disclosed a range rather than a precise number). The franchise wrapper matters here: national brand recognition, an established operations playbook, and a lender-friendly structure that makes SBA 7(a) underwriting substantially cleaner than an independent shop. Monday through Friday hours with a half-day Saturday isn't a lifestyle detail — it's a staffing and retention advantage that most independent repair operations can't match. At 0.5x revenue and a DSCR that clears standard thresholds nearly four times over, the numbers are doing the heavy lifting.

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GA · Home Services

Asking: $239,999  |  Revenue: $1,076,500  |  Cash Flow: $189,000 Rev Multiple: 0.22x  |  CF Multiple: 1.27x  |  Score: 7.5/10

Green Flags:

A Johns Creek lawn and landscape operation running on a subscription model — residential and commercial clients enrolled in ongoing maintenance programs, not one-off jobs. At 0.22x revenue and 1.27x cash flow, the numbers are hard to argue with: you're buying $1M+ in recurring revenue for under $240K, and debt service on an SBA deal clears by a wide margin. The outdoor services category in a wealthy Atlanta suburb like Johns Creek means the client base trends toward high-retention homeowners who don't cancel when gas prices tick up. The only real due diligence question is how many of those contracts are transferable to a new owner — verify assignment clauses before closing.

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GA · Cleaning

Asking: $319,000  |  Revenue: $1M - $5M  |  Cash Flow: $250K - $500K Rev Multiple: 0.11x  |  CF Multiple: 0.85x  |  Score: 7.5/10

A cash-flow multiple under 1.0x means the ask is less than a single year of stated earnings — treat it as a flag to verify the numbers, not a confirmed steal.

Green Flags:

Aircraft detailing for private jets and corporate fleets out of Athens, Georgia — priced at 0.11x revenue with $375K in cash flow against a $319K ask. At that multiple, you are buying the business for less than a single year of earnings, and the debt service math on an SBA 7(a) barely registers against what the business throws off. Twenty-plus years of operation in a client category (private jet owners, corporate flight departments) that does not shop on price is the kind of customer base that keeps a new owner's renewal rate high if the service quality holds.

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FL · E-commerce

Asking: $500,000  |  Revenue: $501,511  |  Cash Flow: $243,490 Rev Multiple: 1.00x  |  CF Multiple: 2.05x  |  Score: 7.1/10

Green Flags:

A decade-old DTC jewelry subscription brand out of Florida — custom-designed products, a Shopify backend, and an audience spanning TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest. At exactly 1.0x revenue and 2.05x cash flow, you're paying a fair price for a business with a 49% margin and recurring subscription revenue that derisk year one meaningfully. The multi-platform social footprint is either a genuine asset or a maintenance burden depending on how well any one channel is actually converting — that's the first question for diligence.

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CA · Trades

Asking: $699,000  |  Revenue: $4,158,053  |  Cash Flow: $420,000 Rev Multiple: 0.17x  |  CF Multiple: 1.66x  |  Score: 6.9/10

Green Flags:

A Los Angeles glass and mirror contractor doing $4.1M in revenue, priced at 0.17x — a multiple you'd expect on a distressed asset, not a business the listing describes as one of the county's leading operators in its category. At 1.66x cash flow and a DSCR that clears SBA 7(a) thresholds by a wide margin, the debt math is almost offensively favorable. The retiring owner is offering a transition period, which matters in a trade where contractor relationships and job site reputation take years to build. The gap between that revenue figure and the $420K in cash flow deserves a hard look at owner comp, subcontractor costs, and whether the margins are structural or cyclical — but at $699K, you have room to stress-test it.

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TX · Trades

Asking: $335,500  |  Revenue: $1,203,119  |  Cash Flow: $213,279 Rev Multiple: 0.28x  |  CF Multiple: 1.57x  |  Score: 6.4/10

Green Flags:

Insulation contractor in Austin doing $1.2M in revenue at a 0.28x multiple — that pricing reflects a motivated seller, not a broken business. With $213K in cash flow and DSCR clearance at 3.5x, SBA debt service is well-covered from day one. Austin's construction and remodel market keeps the pipeline full, and insulation is one of those unglamorous services that homeowners don't defer when the energy bill arrives. The 1.57x cash flow multiple is genuinely cheap for a skilled-trades business with this revenue base.

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FL · Trades

Asking: $429,999  |  Revenue: $1,184,391  |  Cash Flow: $222,760 Rev Multiple: 0.36x  |  CF Multiple: 1.93x  |  Score: 6.4/10

Green Flags:

A custom glass shop in Orlando doing $1.18M in revenue — frameless shower enclosures, glass railings, commercial partitions, storefronts — priced at 0.36x revenue and under 2x cash flow. At $430K, an SBA 7(a) deal structures cleanly: the business clears DSCR thresholds by nearly 3x, meaning debt service is covered with room to spare. Custom glass sits at a useful intersection of residential remodel and commercial buildout, giving a buyer exposure to two demand streams without needing to pick one. No red flags surfaced in the scoring — the main underwriting job here is verifying how concentrated the commercial revenue is and whether key installer relationships transfer with the sale.

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42 listings scanned across 4 states this week. Here's what the market looked like:

The inventory:

Where the deals are:

Deal quality this week:

One thing to watch: Three of the eight featured deals this week are trades businesses — a luxury glass contractor in LA, an insulation business in Austin, and a custom glass shop in Orlando — and they share a structural quirk worth flagging: trades businesses with residential and commercial revenue splits frequently present blended margins that look stronger than either segment actually is on its own. Before you model cash flow on any of these, ask the seller to break out residential versus commercial revenue separately, along with the associated labor costs for each. Commercial contracts often carry better margins but come with slower payment cycles and higher client concentration risk; residential is more stable but thinner. The blended number in the listing is accurate in the aggregate and misleading in the detail. If a trades deal can't give you that segmentation, treat the financials as a starting point, not a basis for an offer.

FL · Trades

This week we dissect one deal in depth — chosen for what it teaches, not its rank in this week's list — Score: 6.4/10. Here's everything you need to decide if it's worth pursuing: the numbers, the financing structure, what to verify in due diligence, and the bull and bear cases.

The numbers at a glance:

The SBA financing structure:

Screening criteria:

Verdict: Worth Pursuing — solid fundamentals; verify the top red flag before submitting LOI.

What's working for this deal:

Quality of earnings — normalize before you trust the number:

The bull case: At 0.29x revenue and 1.73x cash flow, the entry price is low enough that a buyer with SBA financing is purchasing $1.2M in annual revenue for roughly the cost of a mid-tier SUV as a down payment. The business serves both residential and commercial clients across a diversified service line — insulation, air sealing, duct cleaning, attic fans — which means revenue isn't tied to a single job type or a single customer segment. Orlando's sustained population growth keeps the residential pipeline active, and the commercial side adds accounts that tend to produce larger tickets. The listing's own framing that ninety percent of U.S. homes are under-insulated is a real structural point: demand generation here is less about creating awareness and more about converting an already-motivated homeowner.

The bear case: The phrase 'recurring revenue' is doing a lot of work in this listing title and deserves direct scrutiny. True recurring revenue in a trades business requires documented service contracts, maintenance agreements, or repeat-client data — not just repeat market demand. Before close, a buyer should request a full client list with revenue by customer for the past two to three years, and specifically ask what percentage of cash flow came from accounts with signed ongoing agreements versus one-time project work. If the 'recurring' claim rests on market conditions rather than contracted relationships, it should adjust the buyer's valuation framework and the earnout structure accordingly.

Key questions for the first call:

Next steps if you're interested:

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Four of this week's eight deals are trades or home services businesses — two glass contractors, an insulation company, a lawn care operation — and three of the eight are in Georgia alone. That's not random. It reflects where the deal flow actually lives right now, and it's worth understanding why.

For acquisition purposes, the trades cluster covers residential and commercial service businesses where the core value is skilled labor plus a customer list: landscaping, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, glass and glazing, insulation, painting, cleaning, pest control, and similar. The common thread is that someone calls when something needs doing, not when they feel like shopping.

1. Recession-resistant demand. Pipes don't stop leaking in a downturn. Lawns still need mowing. The insulation business in Austin and the two glass contractors in Orlando and Los Angeles exist because commercial and residential maintenance doesn't pause when the economy slows — it's non-discretionary once the problem is visible.

2. Low customer concentration. A 200-customer landscaping route doesn't collapse if two clients cancel. Compare that to a B2B services firm where three clients are 60% of revenue.

3. SBA-friendly collateral profile. Equipment, vehicles, and real customer lists underwrite better than a software tool or a brand. Lenders understand what a service van is worth.

4. Operational transferability. The owner-operator model is familiar. Systems are simple. A new buyer isn't inheriting a black-box algorithm — they're inheriting a phone number, a truck, and a schedule.

The Lawn and Landscape Services Business in Johns Creek this week explicitly markets itself on recurring revenue — and that's exactly the label that needs stress-testing before you close.

Verify 1: What type of contract is it? There's a wide spectrum between "customers who come back every year" and "customers with signed annual agreements with cancellation penalties." The former is repeat business — valuable but fragile. The latter is contracted recurring revenue — what you're actually paying for at 1.2–1.7x cash flow. Ask for the actual contract templates. Ask what percentage of revenue in the prior twelve months came from signed contracts versus one-time or informal arrangements.

Verify 2: What's the trailing churn? Pull the customer list from three years back and count who's still there. A healthy lawn care or pest control route retains 80–90% of residential accounts year over year. If the seller can't or won't provide this breakdown, the recurring revenue story has no foundation.

Trades businesses are labor businesses. The value walks out the door every night. Key-employee risk is real — if the master glazier or lead crew supervisor leaves post-close, you have a customer list and no production capacity. Before signing anything, map the org chart and identify who is actually irreplaceable. Then decide whether the deal is priced for a business or a job.

Pull the last three years of customer lists from the Johns Creek lawn care deal or either glass contractor, count the returns, and you'll know within an hour whether "recurring revenue" is a business feature or a marketing phrase.

Most sellers of owner-operated trades businesses present you with an SDE number. Your job is to figure out how much of that number survives contact with a replacement manager — and a lender's underwriter.

In plain English: Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) is net income plus the owner's compensation plus non-recurring and personal expenses added back. The theory is sound: strip out everything that's specific to this owner so you can evaluate the true earning power of the business. The problem is that sellers — and some brokers — have a creative definition of "add-back."

The Austin insulation business this week lists $213,279 in cash flow against a $335,500 ask. Before you size an SBA 7(a) loan against that figure, you need to reconstruct it line by line.

Take the SDE the seller gives you. Then run it through two adjustments before you hand it to an SBA lender:

1. Replace owner comp at market rate. If the current owner is running crew on insulation jobs and the SDE assumes no manager replacement, subtract what a working supervisor or operations manager would actually cost in Austin — typically $65,000–$85,000 for a hands-on trades role. SDE that doesn't account for this will fail DSCR underwriting.

2. Normalize rent. If the owner holds the real estate separately and charges the business below-market rent, lenders will recast the lease at market rate. They've seen this movie. You should price it in before they do.

After both adjustments, the SBA wants to see a Debt Service Coverage Ratio of at least 1.25x — meaning your normalized SDE needs to be at least 1.25x your annual loan payment. On a $335,500 acquisition with 10% down and a 10-year SBA term, you're carrying roughly $38,000–$42,000 in annual debt service. Run the math after normalization, not before.

What to do this week: Pull the Schedule C or 1120S from the last two tax years. Ask for a detailed add-back schedule — line item by line item, not a summary figure. Then rebuild the SDE yourself from the tax return up. If the broker's SDE number and your reconstructed number diverge by more than 10–15%, you've found your negotiation.

Disclaimer: Nothing here is financial or legal advice. Always do your own due diligence. Verify all financial data with sellers and your advisors before making any offers.

The Exit Ramp is a weekly deal curation service for professionals exploring small business acquisition. We scan hundreds of listings so you don't have to.

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