Does anyone have experience with a geographic and industry focused search?

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August 20, 2024

by a searcher from Harvard University - Harvard Business School in Orinda, CA, USA

I know that all the materials say not to narrow down geography and industry as potential targets are too few. I'm searching in California, which is the 5th largest economy in the world. Would love to see if anyone has any experience in doing both a California and industry specific search.

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Reply by a searcher
from University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, USA
Here's a practical exercise you can do in a few hours. You can download data for every company who took a PPP loan in the state of CA, then filter by industry estimate the revenue and EBITDA using their PPP data.

This blog lays the process out:
https://bentigg.beehiiv.com/p/ppp-loan-data-found-95-flooring-businesses-acquire-10-minutes

You'll need to have an opinion on deal size. If you are traditional, you probably can't touch a deal under $1.5MM EBITDA. If you are self-funded, you could do a deal as small as $500K EBTIDA.

For the sake of the exercise, it helps to have 1-2 industry targets.

I did this exercise myself recently, looking for home services companies over $500K in VA and 5 surrounding states. I found approx 1500 viable targets.

DM me if you have any questions.
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Reply by a searcher
from Biola University in North Tustin, CA, USA
Thanks ^redacted‌. Hi ^redacted‌, I’m a SoCal searcher narrowing search to OC, LA, SB, Riverside, and SD counties, anywhere I can drive to within 1-2 hours as I expect to be hands-on for first 6-12 months and my deal size is on the smaller size (PG limitations) so likely no management in place to operate remotely (but keeping fingers crossed). Found that I to widen my industry filter a bit as was getting difficult to find decent targets.
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