I've spent a bit over a year working in the ETA space and have taken away a few interesting conclusions from both participating in the space and watching others Here is what I have found 1. Buying deals under $1m is very challenging for most buyers. Not to say that you can't do it but buying a $1m deal is usually the same amount of work as buying a $5m or $20m deal and it becomes harder in some ways because you are often relying on slimmer profit margins and fewer key people 2. ETA has become popular: The most popular class at Harvard today is the ETA program by Ruback & Yudkoff. This means there are a lot of people who are competing for your deals, you need to be very thoughtful in how you plan out finding your deal and building your deal 3. It is better to break of the engagement than get a divorce. Too many people fall in love with a deal that just doesn't work well, they put $50 or $100k into lawyers accountants etc and realize it isn't right but want to close anyways. Don't do this. It is hard to walk away especially after burning money but its better to walk from a bad deal than spend the next few years on something that will be very challenging to succeed 4. Founder market fit is a real thing. When you are buying a business you need to be buying something you are passionate about and have the skills needed to be successful. You will likely spend the next 2-5 years of your life working in this company, make sure its how you want to spend your time, and that you can lead the business on operations not just the finance side of things 5. Give yourself a good margin for error. When you buy a business assume the first year you will lose at least 20% of your revenue and your profits in the transition. If you can not make a deal "pencil" after debt services with this margin for error you are probably better to pass on a deal 6. Don't do bidding wars.... To quote Succession "Congratulations on saying the biggest number, you **** morons" or if you do make sure you have the numbers really tight and are absolutely sure that the deal works 7. Look for ways to do things that are not standard. You don't need to follow the crowd to be successful These are 7 things i've found in the space over the last year, watching some deals succeed and others fail... Happy to hear any pushback here