Last week I fortunate to close on an east coast flooring business with $1mm+ in EBITDA. 

Like every search deal, there was hair on it, but we secured a 7a loan at 8.75% over 14 years (fixed for 5) and raised the needed equity quickly. 



Things I wish I had known before:

-Don’t waste your time looking for a bank or investors pre-LOI (my bank and all investors came after LOI)

-The process will take longer than you want, but when you have commitment letters and signed contracts you’re very likely to close

-Loan brokers can be a good resource, but referrals and intros from the network you build post-LOI can be even better

-You probably aren’t going to raise money at 1.5x step up and no pref



With all that said, if you’re under LOI and want a loan reference or tips on raising equity don’t hesitate to reach out, I may also write a follow-up post on more that I wish I’d known (like timelines for each step post-LOI) if folks are interested.

Lastly, I want to give a huge thank you to the searchfunder community. I relied heavily on some folks here and couldn't have done it without them.