HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business (Ruback & Yudkoff)
At a Glance
Read it with Buy Then Build as the standard on-ramp pairing; it teaches judgment rather than current rules, so its age costs less than you'd think.
- Pricing
- One-Time, Paperback $21.95 from the publisher (store.hbr.org, July 2026); widely available in all formats at standard retail prices. Published February 2017.
- Best For
- The rigor-first reader who wants the academic-practitioner version of the on-ramp, and anyone drawn to smaller, enduringly profitable businesses rather than growth stories
- Roadmap Stages
- 1. Learn & Choose Your Path4. Source & Screen Deals
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Written by the HBS professors (Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff) whose course shaped modern ETA teaching
- Unusually concrete for an introduction: valuation math, financing structures, and a realistic search calendar
- Short, structured, and checklist-driven, so it holds up as a mid-search reference
Cons
- Published in 2017, so nothing on post-2023 SBA rule changes, current multiples, or today's marketplaces and tools
- Leans toward the funded-search worldview; self-funded SBA mechanics get lighter treatment than in newer material
What Searchers Say
A fixture on ETA reading lists alongside Buy Then Build, and the book searchers cite for the enduringly-profitable-business framing. Recommendations remain steady year after year; the recurring caveat is content age, not quality.