Self-Funded Search Cheat Sheet

Member resources:

Frequent asked questions:

What is Searchfunder.com?

Searchfunder.com is an online community of searchers, investors, lenders, brokers and other professionals. Over 80% of those involved in searchfunds maintain a Searchfunder account to help them network, hire, and mentor others.

What are the benefits of membership?

In addition to accessing the most active online network of business buyers, Searchfunder licenses research that is simply not cost effective for individuals. Access over 15,000 industry reports and 50,000 transaction financials. You also get monthly credits for contact information for your company sourcing campaign with the option to purchase more at drastically discounted rates. Searchfunder has pre-purchased access from these data providers in order to empower individual buyers and to help searchers level the playing field versus private equity.

Do you have deals?

While we are primarily a buy-side network, we do have hundreds of brokers that regularly post deals to the community.

Can I find an internship on Searchfunder?

Absolutely! We have the industry's largest intern job board. If you are considering a search, the first step is to help another business buyer so you can hit the ground running.

What does it cost?

Searchfunder is a subscription service. We offer flexible monthly, annual and lifetime memberships.

Monthly

$79 / month

Annual

$19 / month

Lifetime

$432 / once

Those who maintain an account with us for over 4 continuous years are permanently added to the community without the need for a membership.

Do I need an MBA to join?

While a large number of our members come from dedicated programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, and other top programs, searching is no longer reserved for the elite. With the current abundance of dry powder in private equity, and an increasing number of business owners reaching retirement age, good deals rarely go unfunded.

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by a searcher from Michigan State University
in Kalamazoo, MI, USA

2yrs ago

Self-Funded Search Cheat Sheet

Hi All, I just closed on a. business after an 11-month full-time self funded search. Below is a cheat sheet of sorts of the things i found especially helpful/insightful. Hopefully this will save you a lot of time/money/energy. Best of luck on you search!

The case for self-funded search redacted

Website Inspiration / best practices redacted

a list of the top self-funded search investors - redacted

SearchFunder.com - (obviously you are already here) social media for searchers. they also have a business directory. the lists are very affordable, especially when you don't need email addresses.

Rocket Reach - once you narrow down your list, Rocket Reach is a fairly affordable way to get email addresses.

Gmass - this is a free app that you can install onto your gmail, and then tracks opens, clicks, and responses.

Non-disclosure agreement - I found this free NDA template. I like to use the "one way" NDA. redacted

A list of every single business broker in America. this is insane, but maybe helpful. redacted

Acquiring Minds episode where they talk about the "big 3 rule" and walk through adequate deal flow math. redacted

2023 Self-Funded Search Study redacted

106 Likes

4,081 Views

reply by a professional 1yr ago
from Duke University in New York, NY, USA

Thank you for sharing! We built a tool that also helps with end-to-end prospecting, such as by scraping Google Maps for businesses, finding owner contacts, using AI to generate personalizations: getcohesiveai.com

reply by a searcher 1yr ago
from Michigan State University in Kalamazoo, MI, USA

Hi Matthew, do you mean the list of every business broker in america? I'm not sure of the methodology. If i had to guess it would be membership in one of the brokers associations.