Every Special Forces mission starts the same way: someone briefs the terrain. Who's there, what they're doing, why the window is open right now.
The baby boomer business exit is the most important terrain brief in American business history. And most operators aren't reading it.
Here's what the numbers show.
What's actually on the table
2.34 million small businesses in the United States are owned by baby boomers. Those businesses employ more than 25 million workers. Boomers represent roughly 40% of all small business owners in the country, according to Guidant Financial's 2026 Small Business Trends report.
Right now, 10,000 to 11,400 of those owners are turning 65 every single day, the highest rate in U.S. history, according to Pew Research and U.S. Census projections.
By 2035, an estimated 6 million small and midsize businesses will face ownership transitions as boomers leave, per McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility analysis published in 2024. More than 1 million of those firms are considered viable sale candidates, representing up to $5 trillion in enterprise value. The broader figure cited by the Exit Planning Institute: an estimated $10 trillion in business assets expected to change hands over the next decade.
That is not abstract. That is a market with willing sellers, real businesses, and real cash flow. The only question is whether qualified buyers step forward to meet it.
The succession gap is the opportunity
Most of these owners are not ready to sell. That's not a crisis for sellers. It's an opportunity for buyers who know what they're looking at.
The data is stark.
According to the Exit Planning Institute's 2023 National State of Owner Readiness survey of more than 1,200 business owners, 78% lack a formal transition team. Only 27% of boomer owners have completed a formal business valuation. Only 9% have an estate plan that addresses their business ownership.
Gallup's Fall 2024 survey of 1,264 full-time business owners found that approximately 55% lack a clear succession path. Among owners 55 and older, just 17% plan to sell or transfer within five years.
A U.S. Bank Small Business Survey published in May 2025 found that 62% of owners say succession planning feels "overwhelming." 62% report their retirement timeline has accelerated over the past five years. Only 54% have a formal succession plan in place.
What this means in practice: the majority of boomer business owners will either close their doors, hand over an unprepared business to a family member, or discover far too late that no one is ready to buy what they built.
For an operator who runs a disciplined process, this is a clear path through a door most people walk past.
What the deal market shows
The IBBA Market Pulse Q4 2024 report, which surveys business brokers and M&A advisors quarterly, gives a working map of what businesses are trading for right now:
| Revenue / Earnings Range | Typical Multiple |
|---|---|
| Under $500K SDE | 3.0x SDE |
| $500K to $1M SDE | 4.0x SDE |
| $1M to $2M SDE | 4.1x SDE |
| $2M to $5M EBITDA | 5.3x EBITDA |
| $5M to $50M EBITDA | 6.0x EBITDA |
The lower middle market, $2M to $10M in EBITDA, is where the math tends to work best for operators coming in to buy and run a business. Larger PE funds pass on deals this size. That leaves a less competitive field for buyers who can operate, not just model.
BizBuySell reported 2,368 businesses sold in Q1 2025, up 2% from the prior quarter. Retirement was the number one stated reason to sell, cited by 42% of sellers. That number is not slowing down.
Why veterans are built for this
Special Forces taught a specific lesson: the most dangerous mistakes come from moving before you understand the terrain.
Boomer business acquisitions require exactly what military service builds. You are evaluating a business where the owner IS the system. The processes are in the owner's head. The customer relationships run through the owner's phone. The employees take their cues from someone who has run this operation for 20 or 30 years.
Walking into that environment and stabilizing it requires pattern recognition under pressure. It requires managing people who do not want to be managed by an outsider. It requires identifying which processes to preserve and which to rebuild. It requires making decisions with incomplete information, because that is always the situation.
Veterans who spent time in austere environments executing complex missions with minimal resources have practiced this under real consequence. They know how to build trust fast, document what needs to be documented, and run a team toward a defined outcome.
That is not a soft argument. That is a structural advantage in exactly the type of acquisition most operators avoid because the business feels too dependent on the departing owner. The "key man" problem is a real risk. It is also manageable by someone trained to take over a team in transition and keep it functional.
Patriot Growth Capital's 60-month operator development pipeline exists specifically to bridge military precision with business ownership. The boomer succession market is why that pipeline matters. You can read more about how we approach small business succession planning and what buyers actually check when evaluating these opportunities.
What the window looks like
This market is not going to be this large, this open, and this underserved forever.
The next decade is where the transition accelerates. Boomers are aging past the point where they can delay. Families are increasingly unable or unwilling to take over businesses that require full-time presence. And private equity, while active in the $10M and above EBITDA range, is not resourced to work deals in the $2M to $5M range with the kind of operator attention those businesses need.
That gap is real. You can see it in the IBBA multiples, in the Gallup survey data, in the 78% of owners who have no transition team in place. The businesses are there. The sellers are motivated. The deal flow exists.
What is missing is the trained operator who can walk in, earn trust with the existing team, document the institutional knowledge, and run the business through a stable transition.
That description fits a veteran. Every time.
The mission brief, summarized
Here is the terrain:
- 2.34 million boomer-owned businesses in the U.S., 40% of small business ownership
- 6 million transitions projected by 2035 (McKinsey)
- 78% of sellers have no formal transition team (EPI, 2023)
- Deals trading at 3x to 6x depending on size and earnings level
- Retirement is the number one stated reason sellers are moving (42%, BizBuySell)
- 10,000 to 11,400 boomers turning 65 every single day in 2025
If you are a veteran operator considering entrepreneurship through acquisition, or a business owner thinking through what an exit to a veteran-led buyer looks like, this is the market. Understanding how search funds and private equity fit into this picture is where the planning starts.
The demographics are moving in one direction. The deal market is open. The only variable is whether you are positioned to execute when the right opportunity appears.
Get on the terrain before someone else does.
Zack Knight is a partner at Patriot Growth Capital. He is a U.S. Army veteran and Special Forces operator. Patriot Growth Capital is a veteran-founded private equity firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. 5% of revenue is donated to the veteran community. PGC is affiliated with ATLVets. This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any security.
