Starting a search mid-career: Life experience vs. formal education?

February 07, 2017

by a searcher in Loudon, NH, USA

Last year if you asked me what I search fund was, I might have said it had something to do with Google. I had the good fortune of meeting Adam Barker of New Forest Capital in Boston last fall and he introduced me to the search fund model. I have been an entrepreneur my entire life and have become very accustom to the ups and downs that come with working for yourself. Like many entrepreneurs, I am drawn to new opportunities and challenges and found myself drawn to buying an existing business. Until I learned about the search fund model, I didn't realize there were alternative methods to financing the purchase of a business short of buying it yourself. I find the search process very interested and few people I have spoken to in the search community have been very supportive and kind.

My question is this. At 41 years old with a wife and four kids and no formal education, I am obviously at a different point in life than most of the search bios I read. Can a person with the drive, determination and life experience still expect to be successful in a search? Are there investors and lenders who will support an acquisition by someone without an MBA but instead has two decades of small business experience, leadership and humility? I realize I will have blind spots but I believe that I don't need to know everything, just where to find the answers.

I want to believe that every searcher has a unique background and has experiences that they can leverage to lead them to success. I want to believe that great leaders like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, while they didn't start out in a CEO role, still had a support network of mentors and advisors to keep them from peril.

As a new member to this group, I welcome your advice and wisdom and the opportunity to network with those willing to do so.

Reply by a professional
from Boston University in Las Vegas, NV, USA

Welcome to the Search Funder community, and thank you for reaching out, Link! As a mid-career professional in your demographic bracket myself, I can tell you that the search ecosystem is very vibrant, generous and welcoming. I'll repeat something here that I told you when we spoke. A seasoned fellow manager years ago in my operations world looked at the letters after my name that represented my various industry certifications (CEM - Certified Energy Manager, CPE - Certified Plant Engineer, CHFM - Certified Healthcare Facilities Manager) and declared: "Mine is SHK - School of Hard Knocks!" The humor of it aside, the fact is, as a fellow searcher/advisor reminded me early in my process, that someone has already paid you to make mistakes (maybe even you yourself), that you've learned from. I think the quality and magnitude of life experiences that you've accumulated up to this point are extremely valuable to have as a backdrop as you aspire to become a CEO, and the credibility that experience confers upon you can often be a challenge for an inexperienced searcher. In this my solo, self-funded search process, I have learned to be humble, admit to what I don't know, accept criticism - constructive or otherwise, to have fun, remain grounded, and to be mindful of my health and wellness, given how lonely and boring it can often be. In my MBA days at Boston University 16 years ago and since, I'd never come across the term Search Fund either. That is, until I walked into a session at the HBS Entrepreneurship Conference in November 2015, and Prof. Jim Sharpe changed my life. The plethora of resources and literature have been unbelievably helpful, and what I may have lacked in current technical financial knowledge and skills (like building a DCF/LBO Model, etc), I've been fortunate to fill with talented, unpaid (read: free) virtual interns, Stanford GSB and online library resources, free reference information from sites like Investopedia, Wall Street Oasis, Quora, Axial, Palico, LinkedIn Pulse, etc., Jim's blog, attending 4 Search Fund Conferences, and the advice of river guides and others. I think you're off to a good start, and wish you the very best of luck. Some of the best advice I've received from Adam, Jim and others include: Learn as much as you can, be bold, get as many at-bats as you can, get to "No" fast, take no prisoners, network as much as you can, and have fun in the process. As I tell my team all the time, "Let's change the world!"

Reply by a searcher
from INSEAD in 10 Rue de la Chasse, 77000 Melun, France

Dear Link, well done for reaching out here. Having discussed with investors and searchers from the early days (20 years) until searchers who just got launched in 2016, I can certainly say that what your investors would be looking for is you aptitude, rather than your degrees. An MBA should be seen as a strong certification of knowledge and potential, some fellow searchers bring accomplishments in Consulting or Banking rather than an MBA. At the end of the day, your credentials are your past accomplishments and the investors and references who are ready to "put their money where their mouth is". That being said, I would still like you to understand that the premise of the search fund is to put people at the helm of companies to take them to the next step: ability to articulate a strategy, ability to translate a view of the market into action, ability to structure and formalize plans and processes and ability to tightly forecast and manage cash. The typical search fund investors are getting into SME (with their inherent liquidity risk) with the view of getting above-SME returns. On the technical skills, while you cannot "Search" for a company if you don't have the skills to analyze its business performance from the outside, you don't need to be a financier in a search fund model (hopefully you investors, you accountant and your mentor would bring that sort of skills to the table). Given your extensive experience in SMEs, bridging your skills gap should not be an obstacle, but surrounding yourself with the right people so early in the process is the challenge for any prospective searcher. I hope my two-cents' worth are helpful. Do not hesitate to come back for more. You may also want to read my blogpost, as I have had to answer the question, too, two years ago (although from a different background) All the best, Amine Chabbi www.Constantia-capital.com

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