Mitigating the downside: Interns vs. hired freelancer?

March 23, 2022

by a searcher from Stockholm School of Economics in Atlanta, GA, USA

Dear SearchFunder community:

This is my first real post in the community. Quick background on me: Just kicked off a self-funded search in January but working toward this goal for the past 4 years. Long-term operator in healthcare, most recently running two portfolio companies for PE sponsors. My search is only in health services in the Southeast. I am based in Atlanta.

Thank you to many already in this community for your help with my questions - this community is terrific and very generous with its help. I thought I would broaden a question on how to get more input on the topic of deal sourcing support. As a single searcher, I am looking for help and strongly leaning toward hiring an outsourced analyst. I know many have successfully recruited and trained interns from undergrad/MBA programs like ^redacted‌ and ^redactedand gotten a lot of value from them. I just know from personal experience in setting up such programs that it is quite an investment and harder for someone going solo. On the reverse side, finding a skilled freelancer/analyst from another country isn't easy and quality/consistency may be challenging. If you have a strong feeling, I would love to get your thoughts on:

1. Ways to mitigate the downside of either approach: Knowing the pains of either approach, do you have a strong preference for interns vs. a freelancer? Any suggestions on what you did to limit the amount of time wasted for recruitment/education/etc?

2. Job description: Is anyone willing to share a job description for the exact duties they used for deal sourcing help? My preference is less on data mining / target lists and more on trusted, ongoing sourcing support. (To be clear, I am still leading all seller negotiations and meetings.)

3. If you had luck outsourcing: Any tips you recommend for finding a fit? I know others have used Fiverr, Upwork, Guru, etc. Any better job boards or agency firms to look first? Any specific tactics that proved most helpful?

Thanks so much for any input!

Marc

Reply by a searcher
in 1335 6th Ave, New York, NY 10019, USA

We've had interns that were remarkable. Sophomore or Juniors that were just as good as 2-3 year post grads. They provide huge leverage obviously. Conversely, I've had awful interns. Which is understandable given they were unpaid and full time students. The challenge is that not only do bad interns not contribute they are net negative. They suck time and degrade focus. As such I think it's imperative to: honestly communicate to prospective interns what they'll be doing and how they'll spend their time. It's unglamorous work. Create opportunities for interns that prove themselves to get more access and responsibility. The good interns are motivated by that. Having them on management calls or doing more intellectual and exciting stuff keeps them engage. Lastly, be quick to release the poor performing interns. You'll mitigate wasted time and although it seems mean, most won't mind. They probably want to quit anyway.

Reply by a professional
from Boston University in İstanbul, Türkiye

@marc I am in the midst of setting up a company that provides outsourced analyst services to searchers. I was a Full-Time Analyst at Search Fund Accelerator where I worked directly with 3 different searchers and identified 4,000+ potential acquisition targets. I specialized in proprietary deal sourcing and utilized a variety of different methods to consistently generate 200+ industry/niche-specific leads every week. My goal is to provide the benefits of an incubated search to traditional and self-funded searchers. If you need an established search infrastructure with an experienced analyst, I would love to connect!

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