There are only four main types of businesses. So your business is one of these four.

And understanding what shape my business was has allowed me to develop a portfolio of

companies that generate over $250 million a year at Acquisition.com. And so if you have a business,

you need to know what shape your business really is to maximize the opportunity you're in.

And if you don't have a business, you should know what you're getting into so you can

pick the right one for you.

So let's get started with the first shape.

So what type of business is this business?

I love it if you actually think about it right now.

Like if there's different types of businesses, what do you think this one really is?

All right, now that you've thought about it, this is the shape of an e-commerce business. So in the very beginning, you'll typically have to get some inventory, especially if you want to have a bigger business. No gigantic businesses are drop-shipping. So if you want to have a bigger business like a brand, you're going to have to do some sort of inventory. You'll have to front a little bit of cash, right? But as soon as you start selling, because it doesn't require a lot of operational infrastructure,

you can grow really quickly.

But then you'll hit these breaking points that stop your growth flat.

And so either of these will be cash constraints in the business,

as in like you don't have money to buy more inventory.

It could be traffic constraints. Like all of a sudden your ads just stop and then the the ads don't perform past a certain point. It could be that you've maxed out your distribution. Let's say if you're a retail distribution, it's like, okay, we got 7,000 more 711s. It's like, okay. And then we continue to stay at that level until we get CVS's,

and then we stay at that next level. And so each of these kind of unlocks typically occur

when you have a supply chain unlock, or you have distribution that unlocks. The distribution

can be literally physical retail distribution or can be ad-based and or affiliate-based distribution. All of these different

ways are promoting it so it gets it in more hands. So this is why the shape of this business

looks this way. And you also can get stopped by all of a sudden you run out of stuff.

Right? Your supply chain dries up because your manufacturer can only do 1,000 units a day

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