How He Bought and Scaled 5 Businesses From the Other Side of the World

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"I would rather learn from my own mistakes fast than wait for the perfect moment."

Meet Shaker.

Shaker Albrahim started his entrepreneurial journey in a school hallway. Candy, bought cheap, resold at a premium to his classmates. The margins covered pocket change, and the game hooked him for life.

But instead of going for an MBA, he studied physics at the University of Arizona. Always an A-student, his goal was to provide for his family. While he could’ve pursued academia, Shaker knew there was a bigger opportunity elsewhere.

In his last year of college he found e-commerce, built an Amazon store from zero, and sold it. Rather than take his pocket change and try something else, he doubled down and kept building. Over the next several years he would run 15 different e-commerce businesses.

Then he walked away from all of it.

"I just told them, hey, I don't want anything from that. I'm done from this path."

Back to zero.

He'd built enough from scratch, and found the ceiling.

This time he wanted to buy.

"I had the cash. I wanted a fast track."

He'd followed Codie for years, and ultimately joined the Contrarian Academy so he wouldn't get his first acquisition wrong. Just 2 months of searching later, he had a business under LOI. 4 more followed over the next year, and he's grown every one of them since.

Here's how he did it.

Shaker knew going in that Codie isn't an e-commerce evangelist. So he spent a while looking at other sectors. Then he saw something familiar listed at a favorable multiple, and stuck with what he knew.

E-commerce.

And while we specialize in helping people acquire service-based businesses, Shaker had 2 (good) reasons to stick with selling products online.

First, he was moving back to Saudi Arabia. His product sells mainly in the US, so he needed businesses he could run across time zones.

"This was one of my goals initially. To move anywhere I want and still operate."

Second, experience. After 7 years in e-commerce, he knew which levers meant growth and which ones slammed on the brakes.

The lesson: Build your buy box around the life you're going to live and the work you already know. The best business on paper loses to the one that fits what you need.

He closed in November, which in e-commerce cuts both ways.

The holidays bring buyers. They also bring every competitor bidding for the same Black Friday customer. Ad costs climbed. Cost of goods climbed. Shipping climbed. Profit fell by more than half, and January came in even worse.

"Every single cost just went up. We were down."

He moved fast, and had his team go in and fix what they'd already fixed a dozen times in their own stores. Inside of 3 months the business ran more profitably than it did the day he bought it.

This worked because Shaker knew what to expect and didn’t lose his cool the second things got hard.

The lesson: Diligence tells you what a business did. Your own experience tells you what to do when things get tough. Buy inside your competence and a bad quarter becomes a problem you solve instead of a hole you fall into.

In the Contrarian Academy, learn the same things we taught Shaker.

Get access to our live expert calls, our deal frameworks, and a room full of people hunting for the same thing you are.

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The average search for a business runs about 18 months.

Shaker noticed something about the people running those searches. Plenty of them go a year without submitting a single LOI. They’ll skim listings all the time, but they never get their hands dirty.

So Shaker fired off LOIs like a Roman candle on the 4th of July.

"It has no commitment, no risk on me. Then if I find anything inside the business, I [go from there]…"

An LOI buys him a look at the books and a real conversation with the owner. That's all it is, and that's enough. More shots on goal = more chances to score.

The lesson: The LOI is the cheapest information you will ever buy. Send it before you feel ready and get your reps in.

After his second and third acquisitions, his inbox changed.

"I was kind of known as the e-com guy. Everyone's talking to me. 'Hey, I heard about you from this person, I'm interested in e-commerce.'"

He joined Contrarian to learn. He stayed because the community gave him a place to ask questions and make connections. Once his specialty became obvious, those connections turned into something more.

"Why don't I just make a deal with the members?"

The members who came to him with questions became the partners who helped him buy businesses 4 and 5. Paying them back their investment with dividends sits near the top of his proudest accomplishments.

Having access to multiple buyers who trust you is a capital ‘A’ advantage in your MOAT. And for Shaker, that advantage gave hime the ability to scale faster than he’d planned, while helping his fellow Contrarians.

The lesson: In a room full of buyers, a reputation for one specific thing is deal flow. Pick your thing, get good, and be loud about it.

7 years ago Shaker worked 12- to 16-hour days. Sourcing products, posting listings, running the whole thing himself. Honestly, that's just part of owning a business, but doing it forever isn't the goal.

Like Codie writes in her new book, teaching other people how to do what you do is part of how you build a business good enough to run without you.

Shaker hired someone, trained them up to run the show, and that person still works for him today.

"I went from 12 hours a day down to 30 minutes to 1 hour a week. Just meeting with that person."

Today he has 2 managers under him. One runs 3 brands, the other runs 2.

Each brand carries its own customer service and ad teams, with content creators and designers sitting at the parent company. Somewhere between 10 and 15 people in total. He meets his 2 managers daily to go over direction and high-impact issues.

Nobody needs babysitting.

"You always need team members who will be more expert than yourself. If they are more expert, that's a good thing."

The lesson: The ceiling on a business you run alone is your own time and energy. Hire past your own skill level and the ceiling moves.

The plan is to exit all 5 brands within a couple of years, then go build one thing he never sells.

"I want to build something I would retain for 10 years, 20 years."

The product is specific, and we won't spoil the surprise. He's already pulling samples from factories, and the idea is solid. If we're lucky, he'll give us first looks.

Shaker has been back to zero 3 times in 7 years, and built it back bigger every time. Ask about his life today, though, and he'll tell you it looks a lot like it did back then. Same t-shirts, same food, same family.

"I really try to invest and help people out as much as possible."

Ask if he feels secure and he tells the truth.

"I still feel uncomfortable. I went to the stage where I had nothing. I did not know how to provide for my family. That fear still lives with me."

Then, after a pause:

"Maybe that's what sets me on fire."

His passion for business is obvious. His passion for people is louder.

- Team Contrarian

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