When Andrew Kurzrok’s wife, Michelle, became pregnant with their first son in 2023, he decided it was time for his life spending over 200 days a year on the road as a mid-level executive of Amphenol Sensors to end.
Last September, he closed on the purchase of 45-year-old family-owned Hopewell Sheet Metal Manufacturing, which operates out of a 30,000 square foot facility in Hagerstown, Maryland.
“It is a classic baby boomer-run business that was time for transition,” with no third generation member of the family ready to run it, observes Kurzrok, who holds Yale MBA and bachelor degrees. But it suited his goals just fine.
Kurzrok, 37, is part of a wave that small business experts long predicted would turn into a “silver tsunami” as millions of retiring small business owners sold out to younger entrepreneurs. Turns out, the number of baby boomer-run businesses that are actually salable may have been vastly overestimated.
Small business consultant Alan Pentz explains most boomer companies “aren’t really salable” because they are one-man-bands without any real assets or a continuing book of business that will outlive the founder.
But those that are purchase-worthy are finding a growing crowd of younger entrepreneurs eager to buy at the right price.
Millennials are buying blue collar small businesses to AI-proof their future
aldridge capital 