Show HN: Venturu – Zillow for the market of local businesses

Show HN: Venturu – Zillow for the market of local businesses(venturu.com)

36 points by lifenautjoe 234 days ago | 36 comments

Hey HN, Joel here, co-founder of Venturu.

Imagine trying to buy a house before Zillow. That’s what buying a local business is like today. It's a massive market, but it's completely fragmented and stuck in the 90s.

My co-founder, Luis, discovered this firsthand by knocking on doors to buy six of his own businesses. I saw it at industry conferences, where at 29, I’m usually the youngest person in the room. The system is built on gatekept information and a wall of fees designed to keep people out.

For a small business owner, it starts with a gut punch: you have to pay thousands of dollars just to get an idea of what your life's work is worth. Then, you face thousands more in listing fees just to get it seen on an outdated platform.

This broken model forces brokers to be gatekeepers. The high costs mean they can only list a fraction of their clients' businesses, hiding the rest on thousands of separate, clunky websites.

We’re trying to fix this by building the single, open, and free platform this market needs. We got rid of the scary upfront fees by offering free, instant valuations, and unlocked the hidden market by making all listings free.

It’s one place for owners, buyers, and brokers to finally connect efficiently.

It seems to be working. We’ve welcomed over 1,300 brokers who have listed 3,800+ businesses across all 50 states.

It's still early days, but our goal is to build this into the definitive marketplace for local businesses, creating the first real source of truth for valuations and making the entire process, from discovery to closing, more straightforward.

We’re building in the open and would love your feedback. Ask us anything.

phyzix5761 234 days ago |

I wish I could see more info about the businesses like cash and cash equivalents, total debt, and free cash flow over the last 5-10 years broken down by year. Would help me do a quick back of the napkin valuation based on my own goals to decide if I'm interested in taking the next step.

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

Hi phy!

We actually have that level of financial detail for many of our listings from our broker partners. The challenge has been figuring out the best way to present it. putting raw financials out publicly isn't the right move for the sellers.

So our next big build is a secure data room. The goal is to use that verified data to create richer, dynamic visualizations and financial summaries that a seller or broker can share securely with a qualified buyer. it's a big priority for us.

Great feedback, it's exactly where our heads are at.

dzonga 234 days ago | | |

how far are you with creating data summaries ? ideating stage, testing ?

& how are you getting the data / verifying from the businesses that are selling.

browningstreet 234 days ago |

"for the market of local businesses" sounds like awkward AI speak

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

oof, we spent over 2 hours debating what the title should be.. Zillow for local businesses, A zillow for main street, a Main street marketplace, a Local business zillow... we ended up going to "market of local businesses" because we though "zillow for local businesses" could be misinterpreted as a tool that we offer to local businesses exclusively, rather than a market..

browningstreet 234 days ago | | |

so an ebay of local businesses? :-)

personally, having done these kinds of exercises too many times, i think you're over-committing to the two pillzars of "zillow" & "market". zillow is a kind of market, at least in the elastic zone of marketing associations.

mNovak 234 days ago |

Site looks nice, best of luck!

I'd be curious just to learn more about who's the typical buyer of brick and mortar local businesses -- not something I've ever thought about

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

Thanks mnovak, that’s a really good question and something we’re putting a lot of work on answering accurately.

The buyer landscape is more diverse than most poeple think. It's really a mix of a few key groups:

- There's the classic one, the person who's climbed the corporate ladder, has some capital, and wants to buy back control of their own time.

- Then you have the employee who's ready to be the owner. Think of the head cook who wants to buy a restaurant after working at one for 10 years.

- There's also a new wave, partly driven by social media, of people looking for a "low maintenance" business like a laundromat to create cash flow. They quickly find out that even a 'passive' business is a real job, but it's a growing trend.

And on the more sophisticated end, you have roll-up funds and private equity groups who see the massive opportunity in that $10 trillion wealth transfer and are looking to professionalize this space.

To us, it’s honestly a mind-bending cross-section of the economy. Thanks for asking!

edoceo 234 days ago |

How do you qualify the buyers? IME there are loads of wannabe buyers, who aren't ready (experience, capital) and just waste broker/seller time.

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

That is in fact a million-dollar question. it's a huge pain point we've heard from nearly every of the 100+ brokers we've talked to.

Right now, it's a mix. we do basic "I'm a human" verification with e-mails and phoone numbers, and our team manually reviews inquiries to filter out the obvious noise before it hits a broker's inbox.

Longer term, we're exploring a concept we're calling a 'Venturu Passport.' It would be an optional one-time-thing-setup for a serious buyer to verify their funds, experience and readiness upfront, so a seller knows they're talking to someone credible.

It's just an idea for now, but we are very much obsessed with solving this. Would love to hear your thoughts on an approach like that.

alexshuhu 234 days ago |

Great work! The Zillow analogy really resonates — the small business buying space has needed this kind of transparency for a long time. I like that you’re removing upfront fees and moving toward verified data rooms; that balance between accessibility and trust could be a real edge. Excited to see how the platform grows and how transaction-level data shapes the next stage.

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

very suspicious comment, but even if you're a robot, thanks!

sema4hacker 233 days ago |

Don't restrict yourself to businesses. Instead list commercial real estate, which are occupied or vacant, and any occupants are sometimes the building owner and sometimes a renter, and the building and/or (some of the) occupant business(es) are for sale. There are buyers for every combination.

lifenautjoe 233 days ago | |

Hey, sema!

You're right, the two are often tied together. For now, we're laser-focused on the operating business, the brand, the customers, the cash flow, presence, etc.

We made a conscious decision that if we tried to solve both the business sale and the commercial real estate piece at the same time, we'd do an "okay" job at both.

Our goal for now is to be the absolute best in the world at our part of the puzzle first.

But never say never! We'll keep this in mind, thanks again for the feedback.

scrame 233 days ago |

I'm getting nothing for seattle or king county except asking me for my email address and a captcha. i turned off ad blocking, it flashed something for like 2million and then went back to the "nothing available".

lifenautjoe 233 days ago | |

UPDATE: We have identified the bug we introduced exactly 4 hours ago... lesson learned, never deploy on HN's day... Fix is being deployed! Apologies again!

lifenautjoe 233 days ago | |

Hi scrame! Thanks for letting us know. We definitely have some listings in seattle. Looking into it and be right back with an answer. Apologies!

lifenautjoe 233 days ago | |

It's back!

bitxbitxbitcoin 234 days ago |

First impression: Bizbuysell with extra LLM.

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

we get why it might look that way on the surface

the real difference though is the monumental effort happening behind the scenes. We're building direct partnerships with brokerages, one by one, to sync their entire inventory onto Venturu.

For many of them, it's the first time they can put all their listings online without getting hit by massive per-listing fees. It might not sound like a huge deal, but we believe this will eventually reveal the true size of this hidden market.

It's a world still built on handshakes and business cards, and we're just trying to help pave the way.

we do use some generative models for mundane things like headlines to make that free discoverability possible, but our core tech, like the valuation tool, is "old school".

My cofounder, Luis, built that model over years in a spreadsheet from his experience buying businesses. My job was to turn it into code and supercharge it with historical data and location-specific variables.

Fun fact, the model was actually born first, Venturu came later

opengrass 234 days ago |

Realtors list these as lease takeovers, franchises like Anytime Fitness have their own buy and sell portals.

lifenautjoe 233 days ago | |

Hi opengrass! thank you for the comment.

That is true but these are two really distinct parts of the ecosystem.

A realtor is fantastic for the 'where' the lease and the physical space. We're all about the 'what' the actual operating business with its brand and cash flow. It's the difference between taking over a location and buying an income stream.

And yes, big franchises are their own walled gardens but our world / approach is the millions of independent businesses, the local coffee shop, the family-owned auto repair that make up the vast majority of the market.

That's the massive slice that's been left behind by modern tech.

2Gkashmiri 234 days ago |

You have filters for online only business? SomeSomething that non us people could invest in for example

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

Our focus is both fortunately and unfortunately 100% on local, main street businesses because that's the world my cofounder and I know and the problem we experienced ourselves. We think platforms like Acquire.com already do a great job for the online/SaaS world.

That said, a long-term dream of ours is to explore ways to let people co-invest in businesses in their own communities. It's a ways off, but it's part of the bigger vision.

huherto 234 days ago |

Congrats Joel! This is such a great and useful idea! Godsped!

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

thanks huherto!

jon1628492 234 days ago |

How many businesses have sold?

How do you make money?

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

Hey, jon, thanks for the questions

on sales, it's still a bit early for us to know the final number of closed deals. The average business takes 6-12 months to sell, and we've only been seeing a real flow of leads for the last 4 months (we've been live for 6). what we can say is we've generated 182 qualified leads for sellers and their brokers.

You've actually hit on one of the core problems we're trying to solve. Right now, deals go offline into private systems and the data gets lost. Our long-term goal is to build the rails for the entire transaction.

As for how we make money, our model is basically zillow's. It's completely free for an owner to list their business and for buyers to search. We make money by connecting sellers with our network of professional brokers. Brokers can then choose to pay for more visibility in their local zip codes.

It lets us keep the marketplace itself open and free for everyone.

edm0nd 234 days ago |

so is this just like Flippa or Acquire.com but for local brick and mortar businesses?

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

In the sense that we're trying to make buying and selling businesses as efficient as possible, yes!

however local businesses transactions have their own specific challenges, state dependent regulation, messier financials, emotional rollercoasters, a lot of secrecy, distrust, longer timeframes. It's really inaccessible for most people right now, and that's what we're trying to change.

TZubiri 234 days ago |

Reminds me of DealStream

lifenautjoe 234 days ago | |

There's definitely some overlap

I think the main difference is our core philosophy on what should be free.

Their model is built around monetizing the buyer's access, with things like "locked deals" and daily inquiry limits on the free plan.

Our whole bet is that this market only gets unlocked if discovery is completely open and frictionless for everyone, buyers, sellers, and brokers.

So on Venturu, there are no locked deals, no paywalls to see listings, and no limits on inquiries.

We give all that away for free and will build our business by helping our broker partners succeed, similar to the Zillow model

doppelgunner 233 days ago |

Great idea, you deserve an upvote. I also like the part where you show/display the revenue and profit. This way, buyers know at least the risk and reward for buying the business. It would be great if there's a way you can handle the processing for transferring business.

lifenautjoe 233 days ago | |

Thanks doppelgunner! We'd love to do that, but still a lot of moving parts to put in place before then. We'll get there :-)