How Baton Helped Two First-Time Buyers Find a 30-Year Agency Built on Trust

About the buyers and their business

• Names: Sid Viswanath and Taylor Cembalisty

• Background: Private equity, financial services, fintech, and media

• Acquired: Juicyorange

• Industry: Digital agency / Web design and development

• Location: New York, NY

Sid and Taylor have worked together for about eight and a half years. Taylor was Sid's first hire at J.P. Morgan, and the two later worked side by side at a fintech company and a media company. Both had spent their careers on the commercial side, building new lines of business inside larger organizations.

Eventually they wanted to do that for themselves. Taylor spent a couple of years researching business acquisition as a path to ownership. For Sid, who started his career in private equity in London, the appeal was moving from advising on businesses to actually running one.

"You're not consulting, you're not advising on the side. You're actually in it, making the decisions day to day and living it." — Sid

Finding the right business on a curated marketplace

Sid and Taylor started their search in January 2026 with a clear thesis. With AI changing so much about how work gets done, they wanted a business where the value lived in human trust and long-standing relationships.

In the first three months alone, they looked at more than 300 deals across marketplaces, brokers, and their own outreach. Most didn't make it past their first filters: how long client relationships had lasted, how concentrated revenue was, and how healthy the financials were.

"Pretty much 70% of the businesses that we looked at didn't pass any of those three filters at the start. Things that we would frequently see are like one client makes up 70% of the revenue." — Sid

Baton stood out for three reasons. The first was the founder videos on each listing, which let them hear a seller describe the business in their own words before ever getting on a call.

"None of that comes through in a CIM alone. None of that comes through in just looking at financials. Just hearing that built up so much confidence even before meeting him." — Taylor

The second was the quality of the numbers. "No one's expecting small businesses to keep their books like Fortune 500 companies do," Sid said. "But we do expect them to be clean." Baton had verified the financials and tied them back to tax returns, "which we hadn't seen anywhere else." The third was speed: they could get the information they needed without weeks of back-and-forth.

Juicyorange checked every box. The agency had been operating for more than 30 years, was still founder-led, had a senior team, and had clients who stayed an average of more than seven and a half years. The longest relationship ran over 20.

"There's no replacement for human relationships that have really built the trust that we have with our clients. You see that in the numbers of them sticking around with us for over seven and a half years of average tenure." — Taylor

The first conversation with the founders, Mark and John, was scheduled for 30 minutes and ran over an hour. "It was just an easy, very natural conversation," Sid said. Mark and John explained that they wanted "custodians" for their clients, and that was exactly the role Sid and Taylor wanted to play.

The challenge: an SBA rule change mid-deal

Like most first-time buyers, Sid and Taylor planned to finance the acquisition with an SBA loan. They had lending partners lined up and a straightforward offer ready. Then, in the spring, an SBA eligibility rule change meant they could no longer use that financing, and they couldn't honor the terms of their letter of intent.

Their Baton advisor, Ani, played a central role in keeping the deal moving. He was candid that the structure wasn't one he saw often, and he worked with both sides to address concerns as they came up. When the rule change hit, he connected Sid and Taylor with alternative lending partners. Sid says Ani focused on getting the right deal done, not the biggest one.

"When you're in an advisory position, you're going to try and maximize the size of the transaction. That wasn't the case here. He was like, look, you guys want to do the deal. We think you're great partners." — Sid

At one point, Ani brought all four together in Baton's conference room for a few hours of in-person negotiation. "You just really can't trade off in-person time," Taylor said.

How they structured the deal, and how it turned out

Without SBA financing available right away, Sid and Taylor proposed a phased buyout. They acquired part of the business up front, with the rest of the ownership changing hands once they become eligible for SBA financing again, a milestone they expect within the next 12 to 18 months.

The deal closed in July of 2026, with a structure that works for everyone. Mark stays involved and keeps the client relationships he spent decades building. John is gradually stepping back, at a pace that works for him. And Sid and Taylor got to start their ownership with complete trust on both sides.

"The most important thing in terms of establishing a relationship happened when we had to face an adversity together. And we still managed to get through it. We're very lucky that that happened to us before we even started operating the business." — Sid

What's next for Sid and Taylor?

The four partners now run Juicyorange together, each with a clear lane. Mark leads the existing client relationships. John has been handing over finance and operations. Taylor is productizing what the agency does, turning knowledge that lived in the founders' heads into repeatable systems. Sid is focused on partnerships and new business.

They meet twice a week, and everyone has access to all of the information. Over the next four to five years, they want to do more for existing clients, win new ones through the agency's reputation, and add new products and services, either by acquiring businesses with the same thesis or by building them.

"If I fast-forward four or five years, I'd love to see a world in which we're doing more for those same clients, and we've started bringing in new clients because of the great reputation we had." — Sid

Sid and Taylor's advice for first-time buyers

Decide what risk you're willing to pay for. Every acquisition comes with risk, and the personal guarantee on an SBA loan scares a lot of buyers off. Taylor's advice is to get specific about it. "You essentially have to decide what risk am I willing to pay for. The risk that comes with Juicyorange as a business was a risk that we were willing to pay for, because we felt really confident in our skill set."

Get operating experience first. Sid has an MBA and a background in finance, and he still says time spent running something matters most. "There's a difference between having front-row seats to the game and being the guy who has to take the shot. The minute you go and acquire that business, there isn't a boss. There isn't a performance review. The performance review is the revenue."

Remember that you're buying someone's legacy. Respect what the founders built before you try to change it. "Ask yourself if you're actually qualified to come and tell the guy who's been building websites for 32 years that he's been building websites wrong. We haven't earned the right to do that," Sid said.

Define alignment in detail. "Alignment" is easy to say and harder to pin down. Sid and Taylor asked each founder what success looked like, how involved they wanted to stay, and what their day-to-day should look like after closing. "Terms like alignment and priorities can be thrown around, but without getting to the nitty-gritty around what that actually means, that's really important," Taylor said.

Be ready to do everything. "Depending on the kind of business you're in, it could mean you're cleaning the toilets of the office," Taylor said. "It's not just, hey, I plug myself in as a CEO and get to tell everyone else what to do."