Looking for spreadsheets to help me model out search funds over time

Also, pro tip...After you have a good working vFinal model, save future iterations with a different version number. Post-acquisition, you can use those old versions to back-test your growth assumptions and to show investors how you've performed compared to what you projected.

The tricky part about this is that deals are just different enough that you're going to have to customize the model...But if you don't know how to build it, then you're not going to have the confidence that your adjustments are appropriate. That's the age-old modeling dilemma that every banker kindof figures out for themselves...Do you build a really complicated model ONCE that tries to do everything but might not be perfect for each situation, or do you build custom models for every single deal that are short and sweet but do exactly what you want? I've settled on simple models for each deal. Also, building onto someone elses model is asking for trouble becauseyou might not understand how their numbers flow through and truthfully, it's going to take you longer to figure it out than it would to just build your own. That's at all skill levels.

When I build models, I start with a tab for all of my assumptions. Everything references that dynamically. Then I model the income statement, BS, and CFS...Then you can build out your DCF...From there the cap structure, then the S&U. It follows logically...first you spread the financials, then you build the valuation, then you drop that valuation into your deal. Every lender is going to want to see your capitalization and S&U. Those are like the first two tables I look at to know exactly what you're trying to do, so building everything separately means you can copy-paste the tables right into PPT for your lender presentation (LP).