Top books on buying and operating businesses

April 19, 2022

by a professional from New York University in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Recently came across a few posts about highly recommended books by searchers, EtA enthusiasts and SMB operators for buying/operating businesses, and decided to compile them here for my own reference: https://kumo.substack.com/p/the-best-reading-list-for-books-on-4bd?s=w

Search and Acquisition Basics

• Stanford Search Fund Primer

• Stanford University CES Search Fund Data 2020

• HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business

• The Evolution of Entrepreneurship through Acquisition from Chicago Booth

• Buy Then Build

• Buyout

• Search Funds & Entrepreneurial Acquisitions

• Buying A Business That Makes You Rich

• How to Prepare Yourself and Find the Right Business to Buy

• IESE International Search Funds: Selected Observations

Deals, Negotiating & Due Diligence

• Never Split the Difference

• Negotiation Genius

• How to Buy a Business without Being Had

• Here's The Deal

• A Practical Guide to Buying a Business

Operations & Management

• Built to Sell

• Measure What Matters

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things

• The Effective Executive

• The Outsiders

• Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink

• The E-Myth Revisited

• Entrepreneurial Finance, Third Edition

From the Seller’s Perspective

• The Messy Marketplace: Selling Your Business in a World of Imperfect Buyers

• Finish Big: How Great Entrepreneurs Exit Their Companies on Top

Search Fund Challenges

• Search Funds: Death and the Afterlife

• On the Nature of a Search Fund Not Working Out as Planned

Hope this might help anyone starting our on their searchfund journey! I added notable reviews and download links to each book where possible here: https://kumo.substack.com/p/the-best-reading-list-for-books-on-4bd?s=w Please let me know if there are books you think should be added to this list.

Reply by a searcher
from The University of Michigan in Minneapolis, MN, USA

Thank you for sharing! I feel that Buy Then Build and HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business should both be read as they provide similar information, but differing viewpoints on the search process. They are great starting points for learning about search. In regards to E-Myth Revisited, I felt this was a helpful book to realize why many small businesses never grow beyond the owner and a few employees. Understanding the pain points to grow beyond that stage helps searchers zero in on what size of business they want to buy initially, and what sort of capital it might take to bring it to the next stages.

Reply by a searcher
from University of West Florida in West Palm Beach, FL, USA

As a general survey of private equity, and how search funds fit into the universe of investments, I liked Mastering Private Equity, written by INSEAD faculty.

For Ops Mgmt, a novel I like is The Highest Calling, written by contractor CEO Lawrence Janesky. It's about an older, successful businessman who helps a younger contractor with a failing business. The younger guy realizes and remedies his leadership failures, learns how to control costs and grow the business (with a full marketing strategy), and figures out his ultimate goals and motivations.

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