I’ve started my education process and am looking forward to beginning my full-time search early next year. I’m curious about your thoughts. I’ve wanted to own a business for a long time. Going all the way back to my Marine Corps days and long deployments in theredactedtimeframe, I remember thinking about someday owning a construction company with multiple crews and trucks running around. I didn’t know anything about ETA or even the concept of leapfrogging by buying an existing business. I just knew I wanted to build something of my own and something I could grow. But I always thought I needed to build the foundation first. Have a sizable buffer in the bank and some sustainable income to live off of. So that’s basically what I did for the next 20 years. Built my career in manufacturing and operations. Got an MBA. Invested in real estate. Kept saving and investing. Eventually, I built enough outside income and financial security that working became a choice rather than a necessity. My thinking was always pretty simple: get financially secure first, accumulate enough capital, THEN take the risk and buy or build a business. Then I discovered “Yinz Guys” (I’m from Pittsburgh), SearchFunder and the ETA world. 😂 I’m seeing and hearing about people coming straight out of grad school with very little capital buying $5M, $10M and even larger businesses using SBA, investors, seller notes, etc. I just LOVE this country. I’m sitting here thinking… where the heck was this information 20 years ago? I got my MBA during the 2008 financial crisis and don’t remember ETA being mentioned once. Not once. Not even the concept of buying a business. Everything seemed geared toward going into a large company and climbing the ladder. So that leads me to my question… Did I do this backwards? I spent 20 years accumulating assets because I thought that would put me in a better position to eventually buy a company. But now when I look at something like an SBA personal guarantee, I arguably have a lot more to lose than the 28-year-old searcher who doesn’t own much yet. But as I continue to learn, maybe I didn’t do it backwards after all. Because of the path I took, I’m coming into ETA with 20+ years of operating/manufacturing experience, outside income, and enough personal capital to write a meaningful equity check. So should I even be looking at this like a typical self-funded SBA search anymore? For those who have financed larger acquisitions, how would you take advantage of that position? Would you put more of your own equity into a deal and use conventional bank debt to avoid a broad personal guarantee? Bring in investors and preserve more of your own capital? Does being able to personally fund a meaningful percentage of the equity make you more attractive to investors because there’s substantial skin in the game? If you were in that position, how would you structure the capital stack — and what types of lenders or investors would you be talking to? I’m currently searching for a manufacturing company to own and operate long term. I’m not looking to flip something in 5 years. I want to find the right business, take care of the people, and build on what the owner spent years creating. The more people I meet in this community, the more I wish I had discovered you earlier. But maybe there’s some value in finding it when I did. Curious what this group thinks. 🤔