Welcome to Upper Market

Each week, I hand-pick & highlight one business that passes the “eye-ball” & “tell me more…” tests.

No dying cafés, no side hustles, no low-quality listings.

Auckland based, rare hybrid business. Branded FMCG platform with multiple, revenue streams.

From an ownership perspective, the appeal starts with its diversified earnings. The business operates across wholesale, manufacturing, e-commerce, export, retail, and its café.

No single channel carries the full weight of performance - you can’t ask for much better than this. Diverse revenue = huge risk mitigation.

In-house manufacturing is a major positive. They make their own products and can run tests for any new lines they want feedback on from their cafe. Extremely effective for testing out any new product lines in small batches

Its Ponsonby café functions as a flagship showroom, customer acquisition channel, product testing environment, and brand amplifier. Extremely hard to replicate and very defensible.

The business is already export-capable, with Australia established and the US in progress.

Owner Earnings are above our minimum. +$300,000 - meaning this business can hold debt as well as pay a modest salary + accrue a bank balance (if your strategy is to grow through reinvestment or further acquisition)

Primary risks likely sit around brand concentration, labour intensity in the café operation, and execution risk in export expansion. Remember, we’re getting close to the other side of a recession right now and hospitality has been left bleeding in the gutter. This will happen again.

Overall, this is the kind of business that scores well on earnings diversity, control, and ability to build a portfolio of companies around

If you want more details on the above business, reply to this email and I can put you in touch with who is selling it.