10 Common ?s Searchers Ask in Their Journey

I've had 200+ calls with searchers in the last year.

In each searcher's journey, there seems to be a common set of questions each ETA entrepreneur/searcher asks themselves in their journey.

Here's my top 10 Common ?s ETA searchers ask in their journey (note - the order of questions can vary depending on answers):

1 - What's the best search framework for me: Traditional, Accelerator, Single Family, Independent Sponsor, Self-Funded?

2 - Should I do a solo search? Partnered search? If partnered, who should I partner with?

3 - What's my focus - geography? Industry? Where do I have an edge? Where do I have passion?

4 - What size to focus on? 300-500k SDE? 500k - 1.5M, 1.5m - 3M? Where do I think I can win? What size company do I want to run?

5 - What's my sourcing strategy - brokered? Proprietary? Both? What sourcing sites to use? What data to buy?

6 - What's my tech stack and strategy for deal sourcing & maintenance? Data sources? CRM? Email outreach?

7 - Who should I use for 3rd party advisory - legal, bank, accounting, QofE, due diligence, tech due diligence, insurance?

8 - Who do I want on my cap table? What skill sets do I want? Traditional investors? Self-funded investors? Folks with experience investing in the sector? Professional friends/family?

9 - What management philosophy do I want to run? EOS? Rockefeller?

10 - And then the deal closes & the real work begins. How do I drive value for my customers? How do I build a great company culture? How do I build momentum in the business? How do I keep sanity in the ups/downs of entrepreneurship?

What key questions am I missing? What's your answer to the framework?

As always, as a serial entrepreneur and active investor in search, let me know how I can help - redacted I also recently created a light-weight monthly newsletter with my "musings" - sign-up at bit.ly/etamusings