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Grok Bot+18 agentsThesis Builder
Turn a rough 'I want to buy a business' into a sharp, testable acquisition thesis with hard criteria and disqualifiers.
$5
Thesis Builder
Example session with this skill installed
Use the Thesis Builder skill. I want to buy a business and my idea is still rough, so here are my answers to your intake questions up front.
- Capital and structure: $750,000 of my own equity, plus a senior bank loan and a seller note if the seller will take one.
- Target size: revenue $4M to $10M, EBITDA $1.0M to $2.0M.
- Sectors I understand: commercial facilities services. I ran field operations at a building-services company for 12 years.
- Geography: one US state, within a two-hour drive of where I live.
- Owner situation: founder retiring, no family successor.
- My edge as a buyer: I know how to run dispatch, scheduling and technician teams, and I can work in the business full time.
Give me the thesis, the criteria and disqualifiers, and push back where I am too broad or unrealistic.
- Read your context and instructions
- Compiled the thesis builder
Acquisition thesis: recurring, code-driven field services
Pushback first. Two things in your intake need fixing before this is actionable.
- "Revenue $4M to $10M, EBITDA $1.0M to $2.0M" is a 2x range on size. At an illustrative 4.0x EBITDA (my assumption for sizing, not a market quote) the price runs from $4.0M to $8.0M. Your $750,000 equity is 18.8% of the low end ($750k / $4.0M) and 9.4% of the high end ($750k / $8.0M). The top half of your range is not realistic without a large seller note. Narrow it to EBITDA $1.0M to $1.5M.
- "Commercial facilities services" is a category, not a thesis. It covers cleaning, HVAC, elevators, landscaping and more, with very different customer stickiness.
1. Thesis statement
I will buy one owner-run commercial field-services company with $1.0M to $1.5M of EBITDA, where most revenue comes from code-mandated inspection or maintenance agreements, within a two-hour drive of home, from a founder who wants to retire. I will run it full time and use my dispatch and technician-management experience as the edge.
2. Hard criteria and disqualifiers
| Must have | Instant pass |
|---|---|
| Majority of revenue from written, multi-year or auto-renewing agreements, with a definition of "recurring" I can check | Recurring figure that cannot be tied to contracts |
| Demand driven by a code or regulation, not discretionary spend | Largest customer above 25% of revenue |
| Seller willing to stay 6 to 12 months and carry a seller note | Business depends on a licence or certification that cannot transfer to me or be replaced |
| At least one employee below the owner who runs daily operations | Owner is the only person customers deal with |
| Financials I can reconcile to a tax return | Unreconciled revenue between statements and tax filings |
3. What would make a business a great fit for you specifically
- Technician-heavy work that rewards your dispatch and scheduling skills.
- Records stored in a legacy system, where better scheduling is an obvious first improvement.
- A founder with no successor, so the sale is about retirement, not a bad year.
- Customers split across several building types, so one sector downturn does not hurt.
4. Riskiest assumption and the cheap test
Riskiest assumption: that a seller's "recurring revenue" is contracted revenue. Sellers often define it broadly.
Cheap test: before any call, ask for one line: "How is recurring revenue defined, and what share is fixed inspection fees alone?" The answer costs nothing and filters most of the wrong targets.
Illustration with a synthetic deal
Project Sentinel (CIM p.6, p.7, p.14, p.22) would pass the first screen on sector and owner situation, with TTM revenue of $6.21M. It would leave two of your tests unresolved until answered: its 78% recurring figure is defined to include repair and call-out work (CIM p.22), and all work is performed under the founder's personal licence (CIM p.14), with no stated way to transfer or replace the licence. Its largest account is about 22% (CIM p.9), under your 25% line but close enough to test. That is the thesis doing its job.
This is an analytical aid and not investment, legal, tax or accounting advice. The Project Sentinel documents are synthetic test data.
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About this skill
Turn a rough 'I want to buy a business' into a sharp, testable acquisition thesis with hard criteria and disqualifiers. Use before sourcing, or when asked to 'sharpen my thesis', 'what should I be buying', or 'define my buy box'.
Works with
Any agent that reads the SKILL.md standard and can read attached documents. No scripts, no network access, no installs.
Known limitations
It works only from the documents you provide and cannot verify anything outside them. Analysis, not investment, legal, tax or accounting advice; check the output against the source documents.
About the author
Original work, listed by its author: part of the free, MIT-licensed open-deal-kit,
https://github.com/MariusGithub13/open-deal-kit
The hosted version that writes a fully cited diligence brief across a whole data room is Deal OS:
https://getdealos.tech/sandbox?utm_source=agensi&utm_medium=marketplace&utm_campaign=thesis-builder
How to use
Skills on Agensi run inside your AI agent. Copy the prompt, paste it into your agent, and it connects to Agensi and installs this skill for you. If a payment is needed, your agent shows it to you first.
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