IT Due Diligence and Cybersecurity for ETA Buyers in St. Louis, Louisville and Nationwide
IT due diligence before close. Stability and risk reduction after close.
Built for the ETA community by a former searcher who closed his own deal in 2023 and has since bought an add-on. We have supported dozens of ETA operators and work with searchers nationwide.
Technology support at every stage of the acquisition
Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA) puts two technology questions in front of you at different times. Before close, you need to know what you are buying. After close, you need it to keep running.
Inzo Technologies® helps searchers establish an IT baseline during diligence and helps operators stabilize inherited systems after close. We work across IT, cybersecurity, and voice, and we support buyers and operators nationwide.
Buying a business in Louisville? Read our Louisville IT due diligence FAQ for answers about technology risks, seller documents, review costs, and planning the handoff.
Operating in both markets after an acquisition? See how Inzo supports businesses with offices in St. Louis and Louisville, including the information to bring when planning support across locations.
Still in diligence? Start with IT due diligence
Establish the IT baseline before you sign. Review the servers, the software, the vendors, the phone system, and the costs that surface in your first year of ownership.
Already closed? Get post-acquisition IT support
Take control of the systems you inherited. Cut cyber risk, clean up admin sprawl, and build an operating roadmap you can actually run the business on.
IT due diligence checklist: five areas to check before close
Use this short list to frame your first conversation with the seller. The full IT due diligence questionnaire works through each area category by category.
- Infrastructure condition. Count the servers and end-user devices, note their age, and flag hardware that will need replacement in the first year.
- Software and cloud dependencies. List the line-of-business applications, the versions they run and the vendors that support them.
- Cybersecurity exposure. Check the firewall, VPN use, antivirus, multi-factor authentication and who holds the administrator passwords.
- Backup and recovery. Confirm what is backed up, whether a copy sits offsite and when someone last tested a restore.
- Licensing, compliance and cost. Review Microsoft licensing, compliance requirements such as HIPAA, vendor contracts and the spend each finding will create after close.
Send us the answers and we return a free written report that ranks what needs attention before close against what can wait, plus a 30-day plan for after close.
Post-acquisition IT integration: the first 90 days
Integration starts with stability, not new projects. Our post-close IT support follows a 90-day sequence:
- Days 1 to 30: establish control. Inventory users, devices, accounts and vendors, rotate admin credentials, enforce multi-factor authentication and confirm backups run.
- Days 31 to 60: close high-exposure gaps. Deploy managed endpoint protection, harden email filtering, validate firewall rules and move seller-era vendors to operator ownership.
- Days 61 to 90: build the roadmap. Align hardware lifecycle, licensing, continuity planning and policy with your plan for the business.
Employees are adjusting to new leadership during this window. Test each change with the people who use the system, and confirm the new support process with staff before you retire the prior arrangement.
After 90 days, stabilization becomes a standing managed program, with one team handling support, security and monitoring.
Built for ETA because we have lived it
Nick Akers joined Novastone Capital Advisors as their first searcher in North America and closed their first U.S. deal. He met the broker at a networking lunch in September 2022, signed the LOI on Christmas Eve, and closed on STL Communications in May 2023. He rebranded it Inzo Technologies.
Before the search he founded a venture-backed company on technology he licensed from his university, then spent six years as managing director of a chemical manufacturer. He grew it to about 300 employees, and rebuilt its entire technology stack along the way. Same work, other side of the table.
In June 2026 we closed our own add-on: DeMott Technical Solutions, a Louisville IT firm founded in 2003. Read the acquisition announcement for the company history and the services brought together.
Turn diligence findings into an operating plan
Our free IT due diligence questionnaire gives buyers a way to document the target's infrastructure, applications, security, backups, vendors and costs. We review the answers and return a written report that ranks priorities, with a 30-day plan for after close.
Bring the seller's available inventories, vendor contracts and support records. Identify what is confirmed, what is missing and who can answer each open question. The post-acquisition support plan then explains how we sequence access control, stabilization and longer-term improvements.
Startup founder Nick Akers acquired STL Communications Inc. in 2023 and rebranded it Inzo Technologies.
What we find in acquired businesses
Nick has said it on more than one podcast: he has not yet seen a deal where the exiting owner invested in modern IT. These businesses ran for decades on decisions nobody revisited.
What we have walked into with buyers:
- every business password, including the bank login, in a shared Google document inside an employee's personal Gmail account
- passwords handwritten on the break room board, photographed by a disgruntled employee who used them to attack the business
- company email still running on AOL, with decades of mail to migrate
- Microsoft licensing shared across multiple people
- no firewall, no VPN, and an assumption that antivirus was enough
- an attacker inside a live email thread between the CFO and a vendor, who changed the ACH details and collected roughly $150,000
None of this is unusual. It is what a 20-year-old business looks like when nobody owned the technology decision. Our IT due diligence questionnaire helps buyers find this before close, and our post-close stabilization work cleans it up after.
Where you have heard us
Nick joins ETA podcasts regularly to talk through the technology risk that shows up in small business acquisitions.
Featured on Acquiring Minds
Cybersecurity Horror Stories in Due Diligence and Post-Closing
Nick joins Ryan Condie on "Let's Buy a Business" to chat common messes he's seen buyers walking into, and argues why cyber and IT diligence should be part of every deal.
From Co-Leading a Family Company to 'Buying and Building' an IT MSP
Nick shares his ETA journey with Brian Wolfe on "Funded Audio", from CEO of a startup to helping lead a family-owned company to acquisition entrepreneurship.
Frequently Asked Questions
Inzo Technologies, headquartered in Chesterfield in St. Louis County, supports searchers, search funds and independent sponsors on both sides of the close. Before close, our IT due diligence for searchers shows what condition the target's technology is in and what it will cost to fix. After close, post-close IT support stabilizes the inherited environment and moves into an ongoing managed program. Our CEO, Nick Akers, bought the company in 2023 as a searcher, so we work from the buyer's side of the table.
St. Louis has a working ETA community. Searchers in the region use these organizations, with Inzo covering the technology side of the deal:
- WashU Olin ETA Club: a student-led organization at Washington University's Olin Business School, supported by the Koch Center for Family Enterprise, with workshops, networking, mentorship and deal sourcing.
- T-REX: a hub of start-up activity in downtown St. Louis, home to an ecosystem of more than 200 startups.
- Cortex: the St. Louis innovation district, with entrepreneur training programs.
- Arch Grants: startup funding for entrepreneurs who build in St. Louis.
- Novastone Capital Advisors: the operator-led buyout program behind Nick Akers' 2023 acquisition of STL Communications, now Inzo.
- Searchfunder: the online community of searchers, investors, lenders and brokers.
For the technology work itself, Inzo provides IT due diligence before close and post-close IT support after.
Entrepreneurship through acquisition, usually shortened to ETA, is the path where an individual buys an existing small or mid-sized business and runs it rather than founding something new. Buyers include traditional search funds, self-funded searchers, and independent sponsors. Most target profitable businesses with 10 to 100 employees.
Most businesses in this size range have no internal IT staff and technology decisions the prior owner made years ago. A managed service provider gives the new operator support, security, and documentation without hiring. Before close, the same provider can tell you what condition the environment is in and what it will cost to fix.
Yes. We support searchers and operators nationwide. Remote support, monitoring, and security operations run the same regardless of location. Onsite work is scoped per engagement.
Nothing. The IT Due Diligence Discovery Questionnaire is free, and we will walk through your answers with you at no cost. We make money when operators choose us for ongoing support after close, so it is in our interest for you to understand the environment before you buy.
Nick Akers is the President and CEO of Inzo Technologies. He acquired STL Communications in 2023 as Novastone Capital Advisors' first US searcher and rebranded it Inzo Technologies. In 2026 he completed the company's first add-on acquisition, DeMott Technical Solutions in Louisville. Before the search he founded a venture-backed company and served as managing director of a chemical manufacturer. He speaks regularly on ETA podcasts about technology risk in small business acquisitions.
Managed IT support, cybersecurity services, security operations, network infrastructure, data protection and recovery, and business voice. Post-close work usually starts with stabilization and moves into an ongoing managed program.
Need a clearer view of what you are buying or inheriting?
Whether you are in diligence or already post-close, we can help you identify technology risk, prioritize next steps, and move forward with a clearer plan.