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Thinking about buying a small business? These are the best boring businesses to buy in 2026.
In this episode of Jackquisitions, Jack Carr ranks eight of the best service businesses and small business acquisition opportunities, breaking down recurring revenue, valuation multiples, route density, and the operational advantages that make certain businesses better investments than others. From pest control and garage doors to dumpster rentals, appliance repair, and septic pumping, learn what makes a business worth buying and where buyers should be careful during due diligence.
If you're looking to buy a business, grow through acquisitions, or invest in a profitable home service company, this episode explains what experienced operators look for before making an offer.
The best acquisitions aren't always the biggest names. They're the businesses most buyers overlook.
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In this episode, Jack covers:
- His ranking of the 8 best boring businesses to buy
- Why recurring revenue matters more than flashy industries
- The role of route density in building profitable service businesses
- What valuation multiples he'd pay for each business
- The biggest risks buyers should watch for during due diligence
- Which businesses private equity has already driven up in price
- Why septic pumping is his #1 acquisition opportunity
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Here are eight boring businesses worth buying in 2026. Everybody's chasing HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing. I get it, they're great businesses. I own some of them. But that's also the problem. Every search front, every private equity group, every guy with an MBA or an SBA pre-approval is already looking at them. So if I were to have to start again and buy a boring business in 2026, I'd be looking at a layer below where I'm currently at. The businesses that most buyers skip because they sound too ugly, too gross, too dirty, uh, or too annoying. But that's usually where the opportunity is. Today I'm breaking down eight boring businesses in order of what I'd actually buy. Not starting, buying. That matters because a good startup business and a good acquisition are not always the same things. For this, the good acquisition, I care about a few things here. I care about recurring revenue, repeat customers, simple operations, fragmented competition, and a problem that the customer already knows they have. I don't want to have to educate the market on this. Um, I want the bugs to already be in their house. I want their septic tank to be full and their pool to be green. So that's what makes boring businesses interesting. So
we're gonna start on tier three. Um, and for these businesses, these are interesting, but they're a little riskier. They're not bad businesses. I just think that they are weaker acquisition targets. So number eight, mobile shredding. Mobile shredding is a true boring business. That's the appeal. Law firms, medical offices, accounting firms, title companies, financial advisors, municipalities, schools, they all deal with sensitive documentation. A truck shows up, the documents get shredded, the customer gets a certificate of destruction, and you bill them. Simple. The version I like is recurring B2B service routes, monthly or quarterly shredding for commercial customers. The version I don't like is one-off residentials where someone's cleaning out their garage and has to shred a file of paperwork. And yeah, of course, they never call again. But and where I'd pay for these businesses or this business is around a 2x, 2 to 3x SDE. I'd pay a little bit more on that three side, maybe 3.5, if the revenue's there and it's already heavily reoccurring and the routes are dense, because the big risk here is that paper is not exactly in a growing industry, but that doesn't mean that the business is dead. Sensitive documentation destruction still matters. Um, but I would not underwrite this like a high growth service business. I just would want a bunch of stable accounts with extremely tight routes, good equipment, and a conservative price. There's some interesting businesses out there, but it's technically, in my mind, a tier three. Number seven, pool service. Pool service is another tier three business for me. Uh, and this one is going to be highly, highly, highly geographic dependent. But in the right market, it can still be great. A good pool service business is basically a route-based recurring revenue company with the opportunity if you can do um replacements on pool equipment as some high-ticket items. Um, what you're looking for on the recurring side is same houses in the same neighborhoods, same monthly billing schedule, and that's what makes a good acquisition. The cleaner comes every week or every other week, or sometimes multiple times a week on bigger pools and bigger houses, um, and then the customer pays. If the tech does a good job, the homeowner almost never switches. But the real money is not in the skimming leaves or scraping the pool, it's in the repairs, it's in the pumps, the filters, the heaters, the automation, the equipment replacement, and that's where the basic pool route becomes a much better business. For a cool for a really good pool service route, I'd still be in that two to three SDE category. If it has tight routes, strong recurring billing, um, low churn, low churn is a huge one here. I would definitely do due diligence on churn and a manager already in place. I'd look harder and I'd come up that schedule to a uh or a an evaluation from a three to maybe even a four X if it's a really good route. The biggest risk here though, again, I keep talking about routes, routes, routes. It's gonna be route density. Uh, a pool business with dense routes in a wealthy neighborhood is a completely different company than one that's driving all over the city for underpriced accounts. Before buying, I'd want to see the revenue per route, the gross margin per route, the churn, the rate repair revenue, and the customer concentration. If it's a clean recurring route business in a warm weather market, I'd be
interested. Moving on to tier two, strong businesses that buy, but they need a lot of due diligence because these can be great, but I'd have to be really careful on price and structuring the deal. Number six, appliance repair. I almost bought one of these as one of my first acquisition targets. I still love these businesses to the day this day. They are much less competition than HVAC Plumbing Electrical, and they can still generate tons of cash flow for the owner. Appliance repair is interesting because it can actually get stronger as the economy gets worse, if that makes sense. Um, well, it does make sense. Uh, because when money gets tight, people repair instead of replace. It's been a huge thing in HVAC recently, as people are moving more towards repairs rather than replacements. And this is the industry that actually does better when that happens. A broken washer, fridge, dishwasher, oven, it creates immediate demand. So there's still an urgency issue because you're not and you don't have to convince someone that they have a problem. The clients already did that for them. When the refrigerator doesn't work and all their food's gonna go bad, they know they need a new refrigerator. So why or they need to repair the refrigerator? So why is this tier three? Because it is highly labor dependent on the technician, and it can be very, very operationally annoying. Modern appliances are complex. Uh, parts availability across however many SKUs you can have, right? There's 10 different types of refrigerators, there's 20 different types of washer and dryers, there's 30 different types of microwaves. So warranty work can be extremely low margin, customers can be impatient, uh, the parts availability can be super frustrating across. You have to have accounts with all of those vendors, and a lot of the depend the business depends on having good skilled technicians who can diagnose fast and they don't create callbacks, they fix it the first time. What I pay for this business is I pay 3x, 3 to 4x for a small appliance repair company doing a million to 2 million dollars a year in top line. I'd pay a little bit more than that if there was a really, really strong team, good dispatch, good reviews, and they are a leader in the market. The biggest risk here is going to be technician quality. If the owner is the best tech, this is a business that you have to be very careful with because it would be buying a job more than a business. So making sure that the they have good technicians, dispatchers, estimators, and customer service reps is highly important in this role. I'd rather buy an appliance repair as an add-on to another service, but if I had to start again, I would consider it as my main first business. Number five, route-based landscaping companies. I put route-based landscaping companies as in tier two, not because it's the best company on this entire list, but because it's one of the easiest, boring businesses to understand, acquire, and improve. Um grass keeps growing. It doesn't care about the stock market, interest rates, who the president is. Every week, the same yards need to be mowed, cut every year. Your sprinkler system needs to be blown out before winter in certain markets. Plants die, they need to be replaced, mulch needs to be put down. That's the business. I like boring businesses that are including mowing and edging and trimming and mulch and shrubwork and fertilization, spring cleanup, fall cleanup, snow removal in the right markets. A good lawn care company, though, is based on route density. Same thing as we talked about before. Uh, you need route density in this business. If you have 80 customers scattered across three counties, that can be a huge headache, tons of window time. But if you have everybody in a neighborhood has a lawn, everybody in a neighborhood needs this service. So if you have 80 customers packed into three wealthy neighborhoods, that's a real business. That's a real good business. And that's why I put it in tier two. The demand is recurring and the market is extremely fragmented. Think about locally how many landscaping companies you have in your area. And respectfully, most of the operators in this industry are not sophisticated. There's a low area, low barrier to entry, which is a catch 22, it's a double-edged sword. It means that hey, anybody with a mower who can cut plants and do shrubs and do mulch is your competition. Um, but that also means it's highly fragmented. So it doesn't mean that they can run a real company at scale, but it does put pricing pressure on you so that you need to focus on not being the cheapest company, you need to focus on being having a good value proposition. What I'd pay for this is around two to three X. I'd be very tight on that 3X mark. If it has good route density, recurring customers, clean looking like branding, cruise in place commercial accounts, strong renewal uh history. I'd be closer to that three, but I'm not paying a premium for scattered accounts, underpriced junk work, or an owner who's still pushing them over every day. Because the biggest risk in this business is labor, labor, labor, labor, route density, and seasonality. The business can look simple and still be extremely miserable if the routes are bad, the crew is unreliable, and the pricing is too low. So before buying, I want to see a customer count, average revenue per stop, gross margins by route, churn crew structure, and and how much of the work the owner personally performs. If the seller can't show profitability per route, I'm assuming the routes are worse than advertised. But if I can buy a sleepy operator with dense recurring accounts, weak branding and no follow-up, I'm in.
Number four, dumpster rentals. I had a recent episode on this. I love the dumpster rental business. If the utilization is right, this is another simple model. You buy dumpsters, you drop them off, the customer fills it up, you haul it to the dump. Um, whether that's you know, construction jobs, roofing jobs, clean outs, landlord turnover, the demand is real. What I like is about this is the simplicity uh and the potential for real repeat contract relationships and the extremely low barrier to entry as well as low competition, like sophisticated competition. I'm gonna repeat that dumpster rental episode for you here. I own an HVAC company. That HVAC company has a dumpster in the back, so when I uh fills up three to four times a week at $900 per dumpster pull, or I think it's like a little cheaper, it's like $600 per dumpster pull. So I'm paying $1,200 per week, which is way expensive, um, but also poor service across the board. So I'd pay, you know, if if I'm buying a seasoned business, that's the key. Like this is a one of the great examples of one that buying versus startup is vastly different. If I'm buying, I want to see tight routes again. Routes, routes, routes, I'd probably buy for 2.5 to 3.5. Um, but I'd be very careful on premium because the routes need to be tight and it all needs to be recurring. Because the biggest risk in this industry in dumpster rentals is going to be capitalized, capex and utilization. I was gonna say capitalization, mix them together. Uh, but capex and utilization. The business looks simple from the outside and it kind of is, but the the numbers only work if the boxes are rented and priced correctly and they have tight routes. Overall, because like obviously, you know, dumpsters are expensive, the equipment to haul the dumpsters is expensive, so it needs to be tight routes close to a site that's close to the business that you're doing, right? So there's kind of a few items there that you have to really dig into, but I put this at number four I like dumpster rentals.
Next, tier one businesses. So these are businesses that I would seriously chase today if I found the right deal. Number three, garage doors. Garage doors are a great business. There's plenty of people in the space who have built multi-hundred thousand dollar brands across the country, national brands, and that's because this is a good industry to start to get into. It is still underutilized in its sophistication. Um, and private equity knows about it, so I'm putting it at number three, not number one. Searchers know about it, home service buyers know about it, but it doesn't mean it's bad yet because it's still a highly fragmented market. The demand is excellent and it's urgent. When a garage door breaks, a car stuck in the side, the house may be unsecure, it needs to be fixed, right? Pretty plain and simple. That gives business strong emergency pricing demand and high intent leads, while they're still cheaper leads to pay for. Uh, for a small owner-operated garage door company, I'd probably pay three to four X SDE. If the technicians were there, the strong Google rankings, good reviews. The price might push a little higher. Uh, but overall, somewhere in that range, the biggest risk in this industry is going to be it's less reoccurring, right? It's less reoccurring than pests or pools. Um, yes, good customers come back over time, but it's still more event-driven. Spring breaks, uh, openers fail, garage doors have to be replaced. Um, that's all good work. It's all high-ticket, high margin work, but it doesn't have the same monthly recurring revenue as something like HVAC does. Um, I'd buy garage doors if the a garage door business, as long as the marketing engine was strong and the seller was not the only person who knew how to do the technical work. They would need to have everything in place, and then I would be very interested in a garage door business. Number two, uh, almost to my favorite, pest control. You hear me talk about pest control in a lot of episodes. I love the pest control industry. It almost has everything I want in an acquisition, has reoccurring revenue, route density, essential demand, fragmented competition, uh, and a licensing requirement that will keep dummies from buying or getting into this industry and pushing pricing down. Because the best pest control businesses are not built on like one-time spray, they're built on like monthly, quarterly, annual plans. You sell the customer once and they're your customer for 10 years. Um, and that's exactly why I want to buy this businesses because bugs don't care about recessions, termites don't care about interest rates, uh, rodents don't care about some other financial aspect. They'll still chew through your wiring, cut into your ductwork. Um, and that's why this business works. I'd pay if I could find one in this level. So this is kind of the hard part here with and why it's number two, not number one, is because it's not fragmented market enough. Private equity has already been in this space, it's already pushing multiples higher. But if you went on the smaller side, you could probably find something for around three to four X SDE. And if it has clean recurring contracts, route density, licensed technicians, low churn, and someone besides the owner running the day-to-day, I could understand paying that for maybe even push to 4.5x. Um, but the biggest uh risk here is gonna be licensing and retention. It's I want to know who holds the license, whether or not they're staying through the transition, how much revenue is actually reoccurring, and whether customers stick stick around after the first treatment. I did a whole episode on pest control. If you want more information on like deep diving the pest control industry and why I'd buy it, check a look at that one. Because we really go deep. But overall, good pest control businesses build reoccurring books of customer bases, and it just they print cash over the long term. It's almost a labor-only business.
Last but not least, number one business I would buy tomorrow if the opportunity came up septic pumping. Septic pumping is disgusting, and that's the reason I love it. Most people don't want to own it, most employees don't want to do it, and most of the competitors are unsophisticated and old school. And the customers generally only call when they really, really need you, aka their toilets in their house don't work, and it's Thanksgiving Day with the entire family sitting in the living room. That's a good setup. If the home is on septic, the tank needs to be pumped. It's not optional. The customer can delay it, but they can't avoid it forever. And when septic systems back up, nobody's shopping around. They're not shopping around to try to save $37 over the next six weeks. Like they need someone to pick up the phone and they need to show up. Which, I mean, I own a staffing company that literally makes people pick up the phone. I'm in on this one. I'd be paying somewhere between 2.5 and 4X STE for a small septic business. I'd pay more if they had multiple trucks and a strong local reputation that was the number one brand in the area with disposal relationships and repeat customers and real systems in place. Um, that being said, I'm checking any business to make sure that every customer should be tagged by the last pump date and projected next service date. If the seller's not doing that, there may be easy upside. So the biggest risk in this business is equipment, equipment, equipment. Um, pump trucks are extremely dispens expensive, repairs are expensive, they break down regular regularly, and then some environmental factors, right? Disposal rule mat disposal rules matter, environmental compliance matters. Um, this is not a business that I would buy casually, but if the trucks are solid, the but the if the trucks are solid, the market's fragmented, and the company has repeat customers. This is my number one business that I would be buying. To recap, if I had to pursue one, I'd pick septic. It has the cleanest mix of recurring revenue, urgent recurring revenue, and then it has a high-ticket item on the back end for septic system repair. Um, it has great margins, good retention, uh, needs to have good route density, but if not, you can build great route density, and um it's fragmented enough that a good operator can still buy a sleepy local company and make real improvements to drive it. They have to answer the phones, improve their Google and marketing, uh, then you clean up the brand, tighten up the routes, raise prices intelligently, um, add recurring plans if there's not already recurring plans, track the churn, cross-sell into septic system repair and replacement, and then you can even cross-sell eventually into plumbing. And for me, that's the play. You don't need to reinvent anything here, it's very simple. You just need to opterize, optimize operations and get really, really tight on local uh marketing, local lead marketing. Um, and that's why septic is my top pick. Most buyers, and maybe you guys uh are you know, they overlook these boring businesses uh because they want something that sounds impressive. It's not fun to go home for Christmas dinner and your mom's like, Little Joey runs a septic company. Um, but to me that's backwards. I don't care if the business sounds impressive. Uh if I care if the customer needs it, if it's urgent, if it's repeatable, if it's gonna make me money, because that's where the money is sitting. It's sitting in pest control and pool services and septic pumping and what garage doors and dumpster rentals and appliance repair and mobile sh shredding, shedding, shredding. None of these are glamorous, guys, but that's the point, right? That is the point of a boring business. It's less exciting, and so you're less likely to have every other buyer bidding against you. The question is simple which one would you buy? Leave it in the comments below. What is your number one business? Like, share, sub so we can create keep creating content like this. Thank you all. Next time.
