Dashboard/Metrics
December 24, 2019
by a searcher from University of British Columbia - Sauder School of Business in Victoria, BC, Canada
Searchers,
Does anyone have a Dashboard/Set of Metrics they use or Milestones they found helpful when structuring the Search Fund set up process? (Raising Capital, Networking in the Community, etc)
I'm planning on setting up a system for my Search fund formation but didn't want to re-invent the wheel, if possible.
-Ryan
from University of Virginia in 400 South St, Philadelphia, PA 19147, USA
For what it's worth, we've found that two metrics matter most for us: 1) # of owners contacted, which lets us know whether we're revving the engine hard enough to consistently generate promising opportunities and 2) # of promising conversations (that is, first meetings with owners where there is mutual excitement about moving forward in the process).
This second metric is useful because it lets us know whether we're a) spending time in industries that can generate attractive opportunities and b) pitching ourselves well enough to end the call with an excited owner. We previously tried making # of NDAs signed our "north star", but found that there's a material latency effect that corrupts the signal we can get out of that metric. Alternatively, the # of gross conversations per week is correlated with outbound and response rates, and focusing on that metric can both give a false sense of confidence and unintentionally lead one to take calls that are not appropriately qualified.
Just my $0.02, but hope that is helpful!
from Rice University in Houston, TX, USA