Building an effective lead-gen engine

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Searchfunder.com is an online community of searchers, investors, lenders, brokers and other professionals. Over 80% of those involved in searchfunds maintain a Searchfunder account to help them network, hire, and mentor others.

What are the benefits of membership?

In addition to accessing the most active online network of business buyers, Searchfunder licenses research that is simply not cost effective for individuals. Access over 15,000 industry reports and 50,000 transaction financials. You also get monthly credits for contact information for your company sourcing campaign with the option to purchase more at drastically discounted rates. Searchfunder has pre-purchased access from these data providers in order to empower individual buyers and to help searchers level the playing field versus private equity.

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While we are primarily a buy-side network, we do have hundreds of brokers that regularly post deals to the community.

Can I find an internship on Searchfunder?

Absolutely! We have the industry's largest intern job board. If you are considering a search, the first step is to help another business buyer so you can hit the ground running.

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Do I need an MBA to join?

While a large number of our members come from dedicated programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, and other top programs, searching is no longer reserved for the elite. With the current abundance of dry powder in private equity, and an increasing number of business owners reaching retirement age, good deals rarely go unfunded.

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by a searcher from University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School
in Los Angeles, CA, USA

7mos ago

Building an effective lead-gen engine

Context I’m running a self-funded, industry agnostic search in the LA area for businesses with $750K - $2MM in cashflow. Thus far, I’ve relied on the major search platforms and large brokerages. However, given the relatively tight search parameters, I’m lead-constrained. However, paradoxically, there's still enough noise that I'm also slow to reply to good deals. Questions: 1. I feel like I’m checkingredactedplatforms, each with fees, that mostly overlap. Have you boiled down your lead sources or do you check everywhere daily? Anything missing? Table-stakes: BizBySell, BizQuest, Deal Stream Aggregators: Skarp, Interexo, X5 Upmarket: Axial, PrivSource 2. Have you used an offshore resource / intern to maximize your responsiveness when new deals hit? 3. Do you know of any LA-specific resources for deal sourcing?

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reply by a searcher 7mos ago
from University of California, Berkeley in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Hey Sam, For brokered deals, I recommend choosing one aggregator, setting tight filters, and checking once per day (first thing in the morning). Here’s a list of the top SMB deal aggregators:
redacted For self-listed deals (ie no broker, talk directly with sellers), check out: redacted PS I’m an LA based searcher as well 👋Happy to chat and exchange notes any time

reply by a searcher 7mos ago
from Babson College in Boston, MA, USA

Hi Samuel, have your tried sourcing deals before they hit the market? 80% of businesses listed for sale never even end up selling - you can probably guess all the reasons why. Since you're industry agnostic and in a specific geography, you can be proactive and built out a list of companies to target. If you want to chat about building up your proprietary deal flow let me know.