How do people balance researching while still holding down a fulltime job
August 15, 2023
by a searcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Sloan School of Management in Denver, CO, USA
Would love to hear tips on where people focus before making the jump to fulltime search!
from Embry in Washington, DC, USA
from Southwestern University in Houston, TX, USA
If I were starting again today, I would do it this way:
1) Don't quit my job.
2) Build a website describing who I am, what my expertise is, and all the details of my search. This includes how I plan on funding the deal - especially for self-funded folks.
You know the question will be asked, so answer it ahead of time.
3) In the process of #2, create my own domain / email address for searching activities. The volume of email will be prodigious. It's better to keep it separate for sanity and so nothing falls through the cracks.
4) Provide plenty of contact information on the site, but make the note that most of our conversations are going to be after hours / on weekends because I'm still executing for my current employer.
It turns out this isn't as big a negative as a lot of people think. Most business owners have exactly 0 time to speak during the daylight hours, so this works into their schedule.
5) Set up a free CRM to track all of the people and deals. The number of people that you'll be speaking with is going to get insane. I don't care how big your brain is, eventually there will be more deals than brainspace and then it gets ugly.
HubSpot has a free version as does Odoo and they'll both do the trick. There are a thousand CRMs out there if these don't meet your needs.
6) Set work hours. You're going to be tired and worn out and push this off a lot unless you look at this as another job. This is especially true if you've got a family. Set aside family time and pick up work again after the kids are in bed.
The journey to the first acquisition is a long slog through a lot of companies. Doing the above will help make it as friction-free as possible.