Acquisition Lab experience?

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April 30, 2025

by a searcher from Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper School of Business in St. Louis, MO, USA

Hi, I'm looking at joining an accelerator program like the acquisition lab. Any one that has gone through it/in it and would be open to sharing your thoughts on it and whether it's worth the $10k? Also curious to know how much focus and resources are dedicated to finding more deal flow — that’s been the biggest challenge for me.
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Reply by a searcher
from Northwestern University in Antioch, CA, USA
As you may have seen as part of your search Accelerators come in many different forms, but all with a fairly similar goal, to enable you to acquire a business. Some do this because you pay them a fee, some because you partner with them and so they are guaranteed a large equity position on your deal in exchange for subsidizing the cost of your search, some so that you are embedded in their ecosystem and elect to leverage their platform and resources for all the aspects related to transacting your deal which you then pay for based on which resources you need, QOE, legal, etc . My experience has been you really want to understand upfront what is core gap you as a searcher specifically are solving for then assess does the lab or accelerator do that really well. Ive heard other searches make the following comment and Ive now found it to be true, At the end of the day you are the searcher and your ability to be successful in a large driven by your effort, independently you can accomplish all the same things you will in a lab or accelerator, they just structure it really really well for you and help to keep you focused make it easier to access the information, but if you are really good at being organized, networking and researching and adhering to a schedule/timeline for yourself, you can achieve the same educational and relationship results. That said, if you find you are starting out and don't know where to start and feel like you'd like to have a bit more direction to help better direct your time and energy, they can be very helpful ( as long as you choose the right one for the gap you are solving for)
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Reply by a searcher
from Ohio State University in St. Petersburg, FL, USA
Hi Adeline, I'm a member of Acquisition Lab and joined last May going through the intensive in June. I 100% recommend it. The intensive helps you understand all facets of searching. The access to advisors is stellar as is the library of information. I particularly learned a lot from the networking and appreciate that I have a life-time membership. I strongly recommend it and it was worth every penny in helping me becoming better at ETA. Good luck, Jim
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