Something I don't think gets said enough: the part of searching nobody posts about is also the part that makes you good at this. Everyone shares the LOI and the closing. Almost nobody shares month four, when you've read your 60th CIM, the deal you loved fell apart in diligence, and a broker stopped returning your emails. But that stretch is where the real skills get built. By then you can read a P&L and spot the add-back that doesn't hold up in about ten minutes. You can tell within one phone call whether an owner actually wants to sell or just wants to know what the business is worth. You know your own buy box well enough to say no quickly and without guilt, which turns out to be most of the job. The searchers I find most impressive aren't the ones who found a deal fastest. They're the ones who stayed curious about owners as people, kept the calls going when the pipeline looked thin, and treated every dead deal as tuition. And the payoff is unusual. Where else can you spend a year or two learning how businesses really work, then end up running one that employs real people and matters to a real community?