After talking with a private equity advisor the advice to follow when doing a roll up is be ready to commit at least 5 years to the venture, building high growth and high value business where you can increase margins & operating efficiencies. If you are working in or buying a software as a service business you can get multiples of revenues that are 10x or greater especially if you can show consistent 20% growth margins. Services or public relations businesses you are looking at more of an 6-12x especially if you are selling to a global agency. Good to showcase 15-25% operating margins in a standard business and 15-30% margins in a public relations agency model.
Notes for the future.