Buying a Luxury Home Staging Business for the Inventory: Danyelle Nys's $880K SBA Deal

The Setup Danyelle Nys spent five years running P&L, bookkeeping, operations, and sales inside her family's asphalt paving business before she decided the next chapter should be her own. She attended a business-buying seminar led by Jake Furfaro and Kyle Boyden, picked acquisition over startup, and started looking for deals she could actually finance with SBA. Decorus Home Staging sat in Seattle serving the luxury end of the market. The previous owner had relocated to Florida and was running the company remote and hands-off. Staging contracts for $5M-plus homes ran $10K to $50K each. Builders, not individual sellers, made up the primary clientele. Revenue sat at $1.6M with roughly $400K of SDE, and a warehouse full of curated inventory that functioned as the real moat. The Deal Purchase price was $780K. Total SBA loan was $880K, which bundled $160K of working capital on top of the purchase. SBA required 10% down, about $78K. Danyelle's mother contributed $200K from an inheritance, well above the minimum, which funded the buffer she would actually need in the first year. The thesis was straightforward. An absentee seller running $400K of SDE on a $1.6M top line means the operating system works without an owner in the building. Buy the cash flow, buy the inventory, and an on-site operator should be able to push the numbers. First 100 Days The seller flew in for a transition week and then went back to Florida. Danyelle met the team, learned the operations, and brought her mother in as bookkeeper (a move that also solved the trust problem on the finance seat quickly). The warehouse lease did not survive the transition. She had to negotiate a new 14,000 square foot facility and move an inventory-heavy business into it without breaking the booking calendar. Not a minor first-quarter project. Operating Moves - Pushed $200K to $300K of fresh capital into inventory to keep up with the contract pipeline. - Grew headcount from 8 to 12, converted part-time roles to full-time, and raised compensation to stabilize the team. - Launched Google Ads and rebuilt the website. The previous owner had never spent meaningfully on digital. - Kept the in-house art production capability, which is what lets Decorus charge luxury rates against competitors buying mass-market decor. - Filled the booking calendar aggressively on the builder channel. Operating Lessons - Absentee-run target = operating system already exists. If the seller has left the building and the numbers hold, you are buying a system, not a job. Price accordingly and protect the system before you change it. - Inventory-heavy deals need working capital built into the loan. The $160K on top of purchase price is why the first-year reinvestment was possible without a cash crunch. - Family money is fine when it is structured. A $200K down payment from an inheritance gave Danyelle more cushion than the SBA minimum, which is what actually matters in month three when the warehouse lease falls apart. - Digital marketing is the obvious growth lever in any...