How Baton helped a food stand owner find an ideal buyer and keep more from the sale
Aubree Munar
January 23, 2024 ⋅ 4 min read
About the business
🗂️ Industry: Restaurant
📍 Location: Denver, CO
💰 Revenue: $227,869
🏢 Size: 0-10 employees
The challenges
Charles Scarcériaux initially tried to sell his Denver business, The Crêpe Outdoors, himself to save money. It made sense: his business was small (a beloved seasonal crêpe stand) and traditional brokers would take an outsized chunk (10%-15%) of his sales proceeds.
Charles said he wished he’d known that selling a business was a full-time job when he started. He also felt overwhelmed with the amount of work he had to do while still running the business.
With a tight timeline to move to the East Coast, Charles was motivated to sell his 4-year-old business, but he wasn’t willing to sell to just anyone. His successor would need to share his vision and positive attitude. He told Baton: "If I come back to Denver in five years, I want to see [the business] thrive.”
Why Baton?
When Charles met Baton, he was hopeful but also a bit skeptical: “Selling a business is not putting a piece of clothing on Facebook's marketplace. It takes a lot of time and trust and communication, organization. So that was my biggest stress factor, for sure.”
Still, Charles couldn’t justify giving away 10%-15% of his sale proceeds to a traditional broker.
"I felt like Baton is the only one that offers a fair price percentage of the sale. And if I had known that earlier, I would have considered selling the business that way a year before.”
Baton covered every detail of the selling process with Charles ahead of time, shared other niche businesses we’d helped sell, and assured him we’d do what it took to find him the ideal buyer for his food stand.
From “hello” to close
Charles came aboard in mid-April of 2023. Here’s what his Baton journey looked like:
Charles received our proprietary, data-backed valuation of The Crêpe Outdoors.
He was introduced to his Acquisition Advisor, Dylan, who talked him through the process of selling with Baton.
Baton presented Charles with a pricing structure that made sense for the size of his business.
We launched buyer outreach to multiple marketplaces, our own qualified buyer pool, and local competitors, leaving no stone unturned. All potential buyers received calls, texts, and emails.
Charles appreciated that Baton was able to do the heavy lifting so he could focus on running the business. He also appreciated that he could be in contact with potential buyers but knew that they were all prescreened by Baton and not “fishing for information” as they’d done when Charles was attempting to sell the business himself.
When an offer came in that was higher than the asking price, Charles appreciated the honest conversation he was able to have with Dylan who didn’t push Charles to consider proceeds only but encouraged Charles to go with his instincts.
Baton was happy to help Charles find Kim, a buyer who shared Charles’s vision and positivity, and who offered a price for the business that Charles was happy with.
Baton was hands-on in introducing Kim to both a small business lender and counsel, ensuring that financing and closing could move along efficiently and end in success.
By November, the paperwork was complete on the sale of the business, and Kim was the new owner of The Crêpe Outdoors.
Baton collected 1/3 of the fees that a traditional broker would have, so Charles was left with more show from his hard work building a business people loved — something to invest into his next chapter.
Now settled on The East Coast, Charles is off to pursue other passions: a documentary film, a new restaurant, and a joint glamping project in Maine. We wish him good luck.
“Especially if you're in a very niche business, finding those potential buyers is extremely hard, and having good connections is important. It's a full-time job, and we can only do so much. Having [Baton] doing all the heavy lifts is priceless."
- Charles Scarcériaux, Former Owner, The Crêpe Outdoors
Thinking about selling your business? Learn about our process and your business’s worth today.
