Brand new searcher looking for direction, courses and/or books

January 13, 2021

by a searcher from Mississippi State University in Chicago, IL, USA

Hello all-
I am currently in Chicago working in Medical Device Sales, but looking to transition to the Dallas area over the next 6-12 months to begin searching for a business to acquire there (originally from Texas and sick of the cold). My fiance and I have both been in Med Device sales for 5-6 years, and we are looking to transition to owning an established business that we can acquire as GPs and scale. We have a decent amount of cash saved, but would need LPs, loans, or seller financing for any deal we would pursue. We are intrigued by FedEx routes as well as Self Storage from what we have heard from colleagues who have had success in each, but we are open to any and all types of businesses.

I am looking for online or in person courses and/or books that anyone could recommend to gain further knowledge of prospecting, deal-making, and financial literacy. My undergrad is a BBA in Marketing, and I really have no interest in investing the time/money in an MBA at this time. Recently read "Buy then Build" (loved it) and I am about to start "HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business". Any other online courses or books anyone would recommend for someone very early in the process and looking to invest in courses that are worth the money?

Would also be interested to connect with anyone in the Chicago or Dallas area. Any advice to a new searcher is welcome.

Thanks!

Jay

Reply by a searcher
from University of Oxford in Montreal, QC, Canada

Hi Jay,

Welcome! I found the following resources helpful on search funds:
1. Search Fund Primer 2020 by Stanford: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/centers-initiatives/ces/research/search-funds/primer. This is a good starting point. There are also useful documents in the Exhibits and Starter Kit folders once you download the Primer (e.g. the industry evaluation matrix, observations on search funds, overview of search fund documents).

2. Funds | IESE: There are quite a few articles in the publication and other resources sections here that I found useful: https://www.iese.edu/entrepreneurship/search-funds/. There are lots of international resources that might not apply to you but the general articles might helps.

3. Contemplating Search by Jim Stein Sharpe: This was a great starting point for me when I was considering when to start my search: https://jimsteinsharpe.com/category/contemplating/. There are also lots of other interesting articles and resources listed on the site.

Hope this helps!

Alexandra

Reply by a searcher
from University of Pennsylvania in Chicago, IL, USA

Jay - fellow Chicagoan here and would be happy to chat any point. I think what helped me is isolating the "function" that I needed to learn about and then taking it from there. I think buying well (i.e. picking the business) is an investment function - what makes a good investment? Libraries are filled with books seeking to answer that question. But I say look at the careers of investors that have had incredible success and look at their "criteria". Draw from others and develop your own criteria. Running the company and growing it is an executive leadership function - and with small business there is a lot of doing the work yourself - so in that vein seek out books on the functions that you want to learn about - recruiting/finance/operations/whatever it is. Fortunately for you - sales & marketing is by far the most important function in small business (my opinion) so having strong sales experience will help a lot. Good luck!

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