Business Buyer School Research · Industry Atlas · Buy-box matcher

Industry buy-box matcher

A filter over the Small Business Acquisition Industry Atlas · Version atlas-2026.2 · Published October 6, 2026. Set the rules your Buy Box already contains; the matcher lists the Atlas industries that meet every one, shows how many drop out at each step, and repeats your rules back in plain words.

By David Wright, Founder, Business Buyer School · Published October 6, 2026 · Last updated October 6, 2026 · Version atlas-2026.2 · What this does not prove

This is a filter, not a score. It does not rank, weight or rate a match, and it adds no data: every value comes from the Atlas dataset. Industry data is context. It cannot establish that a particular business is good, fairly priced, financeable or transferable.

The matcher needs JavaScript. Without it, use the Atlas table, which lists all 152 industries with their ranks, the buyer lens lists, or download the CSV and apply the same rules in a spreadsheet: supply, recession and durability ranks of 1 to 38 are the top quarter and 1 to 76 the top half; owner age and AI columns are blank where the studies have no value.

ExcludeIndustry keywords or NAICS code prefixes to exclude, separated by commas

Data you require Owner age must be known AI exposure rank must existStudy confidence floorOwner age confidence floor

Minimum position on each measureSupply rankRecession resistance rankDurability rankOwners 65 or older at least (%)AI exposure ceiling

State (establishments, not firms)StateAt least this many establishments with 5 to 99 employees in that state

From U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2022. A state filter keeps industries with at least that many establishments in the chosen state (1 if left empty); a state count that is blank in the Census file removes the industry. It is a filter, not a score; see the state view.

Your rules

Industries left after each rule
Step	Industries left

Industries that meet every rule

The address bar keeps your rules, so you can bookmark or share this view. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere.

Then take it into the school

Write your Buy Box: turn these industries into a written Buy Box with size, location and hard exclusions.
Initial screen: run a first pass on a specific listing in one of these industries.
All school tools: the full set of buyer tools.

How the matcher works

The rules run in the order shown in the step table, each on what the previous rule left. Ranks are the Atlas ranks of 152 (1 = most supply, held up best, most durable) and the AI Exposure Study rank of 81 (1 = most exposed). Owner age is a share of people in the ACS group, not firms. Full rules for every value: Atlas methodology.

Suggested citation

Cite as: Business Buyer School, Small Business Acquisition Industry Atlas (buy-box matcher), https://businessbuyerschool.com/research/small-business-industry-atlas/buy-box-matcher/. Version atlas-2026.2. Published October 6, 2026.

Reusing this research

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The underlying government source data remains subject to its own terms. This policy covers only Business Buyer School's own analysis.

Permission requests, corrections and methodology questions: dave@businessbuyerschool.com.